Cláusulas abusivas en el contrato de crédito documentario en Colombia.

Professionalism refers to the possession of "particular formal knowledge as a requirement for occupational remuneration" (Friedson in Labonte) (Labonte, 1 996a, p. 1 55) which is supported by membership within some sort of formal professional organisation. Such membership often requires commitment to a specified value base and adherence within one's practice to a code of ethics. Professions traditionally involved in 'assisting' people include those of social work, medicine, law and psychology. Given the traditional 'hallmarks' of professionalism, and the disempowering ways in which those receiving professional assistance have often been positioned40, the capacity of 'professional-client/patient' relationships to increase the agency of the latter is questionable.

Writings exploring the relationship between professionalism and agency are still somewhat under-developed. Some writers (I lIich, 1 977; McKnight, 1 977; Zola, 1 977), concentrate on the disabling effects of power exercised by professionals. These writers discuss the monopoly held by professionals over knowledge as "professionals assert secret knowledge about human nature that only they have the right to dispense" (IIIich, 1 977, p. 1 9). Professional power is conceptualised as a form of "social control" (Zola, 1 9 77), in which common "remedial practices" tend to isolate individuals from their contexts.

Participatory researcher John Gaventa (Gaventa, 1 993) writes more broadly about the "knowledge elite" and the enormous growth within the professional and technical j ob categories over recent years. According to Gaventa, one's place among the knowledge elite, is not s imply determined by occupation, but by society itself; including other experts and 'ordinarv' people themselves. Gaventa (Gaventa, 1 993) observes that "lawyers, scientists and other experts are perceived as having more knowledge and are looked to by the people for directives, for answers as to what to do" (p.32).

A critical post-modem perspective of professionalism potentially breaks with the dualities inherent in modernist conceptualisations of power-relations in professional-lay person interactions. Healy (Healy, 1 999) argues that her application of "critical post-structuralist" theory to activist social work brings out some of the complexities inherent within social practice that tend to be suppressed within critical foundations of activist theory. While considerable power is associated with a worker' s professional identity, this is one location among others within existing social structures. The category of 'professional' is complex (professionals

Chapter 5 Theorising analysis and practice: critical post­

occupy a range of locations within social structures) and power relations are shifting and unstable, in part contingent upon people's respective social and cultural locations which comprise the professional-lay person relationship. Lay people can and do exercise power in these relationships.

Community development is not recognised as a 'profession' . However in both Aotearoa and Canada, community developers have begun to articulate codes of ethics and knowledge and performance criteria that underpin effective community development work (Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand, 2000; Saskatoon District Health Community Development Team, 1 999); also important hallmarks of 'professions' . Community development theorists (Ife, 1 995; Labonte, 1 996a) however, raise questions around the practice of community development as a profession. Labonte (Labonte, 1 996a) points out that community development challenges the "legitimacy and power claims of formal knowledge" (p. 1 5 1 ) associated with professions through ideologies that emphasise democratic decision making and the place of community knowledge. Similarly, Ife (Ife, 1 995) argues that professionalism is contradictory to community development as ideas of "skill sharing, community empowerment and the 'community knows best' are not compatible with a professional model" (p.262) that sees knowledge and skills as the exclusive properties of the professional. Whether or not one regards community development as a profession, its current non-professional status in the eyes of large and often publicly funded institutions, as a credible method of increasing the agency of communities means that its practice is subject to wide interpretation. This i ssue is exacerbated by the assumptions sometimes made by those in semi-allied professions such as social work, religion, medicine or teaching, that they are able to practice community development without any specific training.

The degree to which community developers are able to use their power transformatively to enable increases in agency of communities at 'the margins', is determined both by the subj ect positions they adopt as well as by the ways in which they are positioned by others. The subject position of 'community developer as professional' (whether self positioned or positioned by others) is key to how a community developer might enact their role as link or hinge between institutions, organisations and communities, transformatively or not of power relations. In many senses, the community developer's ability to use his or her professional and institutional power in ways which are transformative of existing power relations is contingent upon how he/she conceptualises and activates herlhis professional status. An agentic conceptualisation of the 'community developer as professional' entails seeing herlhim as having partial, but valuable

Chapter 5 Theorising analysis and practice: critical post-

knowledge and is actualised through the development of a "reflective contract" (Schon, 1 983) with communities. Within this model the professional slowly gives up an initial" claim to authority and begins to negotiate a shared understanding with the client. In referring to Schon's model, Labonte (Labonte, 1 996a) writes that: "The professional must not only play the role of expert, but must also from time to time reveal uncertainties, effectively undermining some of the initial claims to expert authority" (p. 1 68). While the community developer brings professional expertise to the project, so also do community members bring other partial forms of knowledge. Community developer and community members engage in "dialogues for shared meaning" (Labonte, 1994) and authority around particular forms of knowledge is earned, not guaranteed. Social status is de-coupled from professional authority.

However, this does not mean that the community developer disengages altogether from the identification with possessing a unique body of knowledge and set of skills, or professional expertise. To do so could potentially mean ceding recognition of a specific set of "knowledge claims" (Labonte, 1 994), and thus "professional power and legitimacy" that ensure the community developer does indeed have some power to use transformatively to enable communities to exercise increased levels of agency. This is important both with respect to the community developers organisational and community relationships. Schon (Schon, 1 983) argues that professional status ensures that workers have the "voice" and authority to be able to establish such reflective contracts with those they work with.

Between organisation and community: the community developer as