There have been many lists generated over the years to help people think holistically and avoid marginalising certain groups. However, an alternative approach to the problem lies in the development of typologies, that is, identifying the different types of groups that might exist, and referring to them by name. The approach thus far has been based on finding terms that fully express the concept and each of its characteristics, including interest, influence and impact. Other principles underpinning any new approach to stakeholders might include the need to systematically represent interests, manage power dynamics between participants and empower everyone to have an equal voice in decisions that affect them. But the principle of giving people the right to choose their own preferred terms is just the start. Essentially, we should encourage people to self-identify the labels they prefer in the same way we do now with pronouns, rather than assuming our labels will be right. Instead, we should be focussing on the people and species affected by decisions, interventions, projects and issues, and spending our time creating processes that can empower them to have equal voice and benefit from our work, using whatever terms are appropriate totheir context, rather than trying to come up with a universal term. Without the right principles underpinning the operationalisation of a new term, the new wordhas the potential to become just as problematic in the way that it gets used (just look at why we stopped talking about “sustainability”). Universal labels are a handy shorthand, but are rarely accurate, and inaccuracies when it comes to a person’s national or ethnic identity have real potential to upset people.īut the issue goes deeper than just the need to adapt the term to the purpose and context in which it is used. In the UK, you might offend someone from Northern Ireland or Scotland by referring to them as Brits, because Britain only refers to the island of Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), not the United Kingdom which came into being with the addition of Northern Ireland, and for many Scots, the Brit label is the label of a colonial power they are striving to achieve independence from. In Canada, researchers are encouraged to refer to the individual group(s) they are working with rather than using Indigenous groups or First Nations as a catch-all. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that any attempt to generalise to a single term will cause offence. In addition to this, many people have multiple roles (or “hats”) that they occupy simultaneously, making it impossible to find a term that will work for everyone. to refer to partners versus other interested groups that we’re not collaborating with directly) and different geo-political and ethnic contexts in which we want to use it. No term will work universally given the very different purposes for which we want to use it (e.g. However, finding an alternative is fraught with challenges, leading some to suggest that we should encourage people to find their own context-specific replacements, rather than trying to suggest a universal solution to the problem that could be adopted by everyone.
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