Why is VCST no longer using the term “stakeholder”?

If you have been keeping up with VCST’s communications via our website and our social media, you may have noticed a slight change in how we talk about the work that we do.

In recent months, we have been collaborating closely with Dr. Nancy Clark of UVic. In this process, we shared many of VCST’s goals and plans for working with community organizations to improve the lives of survivors of torture and their families. We have historically used the word “stakeholder(s)” to refer to the many dynamic organizations in our Interconnectedness Initiative, such as VICCIR, VIRCS, ICA, VSAC, VAST, and others. In collaborating with us, Dr. Clark pointed out that for many years the medical research and academic community has been extensively debating this term for a number of reasons.

The word refers to a person who holds stakes in a bet, invests in an enterprise, or is affected by the outcome of a decision. However, VCST is looking closely at how the term relates to European settler colonialism around the world. When colonial governments would “open” or “release” land for settlement, for example in Canada, the US and Australia, settlers would use wooden stakes to mark the extent of their land claims.

These settlers were stakeholders. Hence, the term not only refers to the act of land dispossession but also reflects a colonial mindset about ownership, entitlement, and division which marginalizes Indigenous Peoples.

The term is inappropriate for VCST because:

We work from Indigenous land and VCST understands that torture and systemic violence are tools of colonization;
We support immigrant and refugee survivors of torture and systemic violence, many of whom come from their own marginalized communities in their home countries; and
We bring people together to co-create communities where survivors can live with dignity – not represent further division.

As a trauma-informed organization, VCST strives to use empathetic and supportive language in our presentations, reports, social media – indeed, in all our communications. Being trauma-informed also encompasses decolonizing our work, which includes the process of learning from others, integrating feedback, and growing our collective capacity for decolonization. It was thanks to our collaboration with Dr. Clark that we learned about the issues with the term; after consultation with our board members, we shifted to different terminology.

VCST’s board and project management team brainstormed alternative terms for use. For now, we will be trying out “member organization(s)” to refer to the organizations that participate in the Interconnectedness Initiative to raise awareness of survivors of torture and their families in our communities. Our member organizations are diverse – ranging from settlement agencies, to counselling agencies, to public services – and where possible we strive to use language to differentiate between these different varieties of organizations.

As always, we welcome feedback about our process and communication. Please feel free to reach out directly to Project Manager Melinda with questions or comments about our work to decolonize our language.