Is there a value in labelling and framing? How are labelling, power and accountability connected? This book chapter shows that framing and labelling processes are linked to the distribution of social, political and economic powers, and are critical for securing hegemonic meanings and values. Labelling is inevitable and is important for policy but the uncritical approach to such hegemonic practices has harmful consequences that undermine many of the moral goals of development.
Framing refers to how we understand something to be a problem, which may reflect how issues are represented (or not represented) in policy debates and discourse. Labelling refers to how people are named or categorised to reflect those frames. It reveals subjective perceptions of how people fit into different spaces in the social order and of the terms on which society should engage with them in varying contexts and at different points in time.
There are diverse motivations for labelling, and labelling processes produce varied, including unanticipated outcomes. Even when there is altruistic intent, labelling can misrepresent or stigmatise categories of people. Non-labelling and non-framing are especially significant, for it means that certain issues and people can be omitted from policy and programme agendas.
Labelling and framing processes involve complex relations of accountability and diverse obligatory relationships. These have significant implications for: (1) which frames and labels are recognised and employed in differing contexts; (2) the types of struggles that ensue over framing and labeling; and (3) the spaces allowed for claiming and contesting a label. Some of the potential negative outcomes of labelling include the following:
- Framing and labelling, particularly when conducted at a distance, can overlook sub-categories of people and a range of substantial issues.
- Frames and labels can obscure the diversity of interpretations that may be critical for addressing the very problems that the label highlights.
- Hegemonic framing and labelling can focus on particular problems and solutions to the exclusion of other salient ones.
- Bureaucratic frames and labels can easily conflate the observed problems with the people involved, generating social dislocation, fostering new forms of inequality and sustaining pre-existing unequal power relations.
- Frames and labels can discriminate and stigmatise and can underpin persistent human rights abuses.
Fundamental changes in accountability relationships are critical for recognising the power of labelling in development, preventing its worst consequences and encouraging processes that seem likely to produce social and political gains. There are four main shortcomings in existing systems of accountability that exacerbate the negative consequences of labelling:
- The lack of contact between labeller and labelled facilitates a lack of accountability to the labelled not only for how they are categorised but also for the outcomes of this categorisation.
- In many places, accountability mechanisms for curbing the worst forms of labelling are weak.
- Accountability systems do not allow sufficient space and opportunity for contestation and effective counter labelling. Accountability as it is conventionally framed denotes answering for the use of authority after the event.
- Without strong relations of accountability, policymakers can easily de-prioritise the needs of many who bear the most limiting labels. These are the groups that are easily forgotten, unlabelled under the guise of limited resources.
