"In", "for", or "with"? (was Re: [ILAT] LSA 2006)

[Scott DeLancey]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Susan Penfield wrote:

> Jeff's session) is supportive of the community's efforts. This requires a
> second set of 'Best Practices' -- still being defined -- for working with
> communties (actually, I think we should think in terms of working FOR
> communities --a step beyond working 'IN' or even 'WITH' ) ...

I may be splitting hairs here, but then, that's what I do for a living ...

A lot of folks in linguistics now put these in the other order--once upon
a time we worked *in* the communities, then we learned we had to think
about working *for* the community, now we work *with* them.

To me the difference is:  if you are working *for* the community, that
sounds like you design and carry out the project, and the community
benefits.  Sounds cool, but it can't work that way--no revitalization
program can get anywhere unless the community is involved all the way
along, not just in goal-setting but in implementation too--if you're
not working *with* the community then the community isn't going to end
up getting much out of your work.

Scott DeLancey
Department of Linguistics
1290 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1290, USA

delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html