Structured need field

Needs Communication: viable need patterns and their identification (Part #2)

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It is usual to assume that needs exist in isolation from one another with well-defined boundaries between them. This neglects the process of need identification that separates out the need in a manner determined by the individual's perceptual processes. The boundaries are imposed. It also neglects another important factor in the process of applying a verbal wrapping or label to the bounded need. Namely, that particularly in this domain, words are highly ambiguous (and increasingly so, the more sectors and cultures involved) and do not contain or exhaust the meaning of the need identified. At best they can serve as pointers. In the light of these remarks it is appropriate to start from the assumption of a need field within which what can be distinguished as needs are in fact woven together in a 'seamless web.' Johan Galtung makes the point that

'A list of needs looks like a list of components. The question is: what is the whole that has been subdivided to deliver that list, and what, if anything, has been lost in the process.' (2)

Clearly, the key question is whether this need field has any structure.(3) Without discussing specific needs, suppose that there is consensus in favor of a two-need set. Implied in this decision is the notion that the two needs are (see Annex 1)

1. Independent but mutually relevant-namely, that they are compatible. The one is not meaningful without the other. The two constitute a complete set.
2. Of the same logical type, making contributions of the same kind to the set as a whole.
3. Of distinctive character.

Two problems arise in attempts to understand the structure of need fields.

1. There is decreasing probability of consensus on a need set as the number of needs included increases. In the first instance it is unlikely that a 500-need set or even a 100-need set would be formulated. Second, its viability as an ordering factor in knowledge and social change would be low. It would not attract significant support for any length of time. There is a very marked tendency to formulate need sets containing only a limited number of needs (e.g., four to ten).
2. Even where the number of needs is low, there is considerable variation in the needs included in such need sets, depending on the context within which consensus is achieved. Part of the problem derives from confusion over the boundaries to the meanings associated with word labels for portions of the need field. Part derives from different degrees of sensitivity to different portions of the need field.

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