Positive Deviance is an approach to social change that enables communities to discover the wisdom they already have and then to act on it (Sternin & Choo, 2000; Pascale & Sternin, 2005; Singhal & Dura, 2009). “Positive” means to do things right, and “deviance” because it engages behaviors that the society do not make use.
There are a lot of non logical norms that the society makes use even today, like the cases that the professor gave in his lecture. At the center of those cases were some very poor countries in Africa, Argentina, Mexixom, Egypt etc. In my short writing I will not go so far away, but I will talk about my home country; Albania. As everybody know in the north of Albania is still in practice “Kanuni I Lek Dukagjinit”. For those that do not know it; it consists some written norms of the North men that that are strictly followed, so when somebody is in quarrels and fights with somebody else (for a specific reason) and that fight concludes in a murder. The relatives of the murdered person must take blood (kill) to the person that survived the fight. It means that the person that that must be killed could be the person who participated in the flight or any of his family members (children and adults). After they kill somebody from that family, somebody else from the family of last killed person must take blood again. So it continues like this (from generation to generation), it can stop only if the last family forgives the murder and do not seek to take blood again. It is sad and it is illogical and it causes a lot of pain and suffering to both families, as to my opinion there are no winners in such situations. But they are laws to be followed and if you do not get the forgiveness of the family which is in blood you cannot change it.
In this mad situation a solution has to be found and the approach of positive deviance should take place. People should be aware of the results of their behavior and should begin to be deviant to the laws of the canon. There are some organizations which are working with this matter, but we hear news almost every day about the victims of these phenomena. The positive change should being by the people themselves that are suffering this phenomena. They should first IDENTIFY this as a PROBLEM not as a solution and then they have to think SMART, because the reasons they have to do it are more than enough.
In conclusion I can say that we should not be tied to traditional norms of our society (regarding every aspects of it; as we face this norms every day of our life), we should change continuously and it is the time when we have to evaluate our position, learn from it but at the end we must be deviant in every situation. This is the only way we can make it better. Think!
Thank you,
hi Jerina,
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised that you mention “Kanuni I Lek Dukagjinit” but I am glad that you are giving an example on it for the power of positive deviant because is really important to change those hidden rules not legal but writable somewhere.Firstly we have to do this change because affects the member of our family and than we must respect the low therefore being an example for generation to generation.
I totally agree that we should think about the results of this terrible tradition and should show people that it doesn't solve the problem but worsens it. But I can't agree that we should change all the traditions we have. If we do so, we wouldn't be ourselves any more and lose our identity.
ReplyDeleteibrahim can korkut
I did not say that we should change all our traditions. The point is that we should have a look and evaluate them. We do not have to follow them only for the sake of being traditions (as traditions have to be followed). I expressed that we have to evaluate our position, and change in the situations that is good to be deviant. That is what i meant.
ReplyDeleteThank you