The SAVES set of categories was developed by Do No Harm users because other sets were not as functional for their purposes. People use the following categories for three reasons:

• They encourage brainstorming. If you consider these categories and what people are doing, you will not leave out something important
• They help to organize information and to identify relationships
• They force disaggregation—if something fits in more than one, you can unpack it

Symbols and Occasions

More examples coming soon. This page is not in the printed Guide.

In parts of Bosnia in the early ’00s it was not unusual to find villages where most of the houses were flying a Croatian or Serbian national flag.
 
This defiant message emphasized difference rather than shared value, and hostile competition rather than cooperation. The people I was traveling with felt that these flags represented aggression and told me they were uncomfortable entering these villages.
 
I’m happy to say that this practice was already declining when I was exposed to it and I did not see it the last few times I visited the region in 2010.

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Related Topics
Systems and Institutions
Attitudes and Actions
Values and Interests
Experiences
Do No Harm SAVES: Categories for Disaggregating a Context
How to do a Dividers/Connectors Analysis
Common Misunderstandings about Dividers and Connectors
Dividers and Connectors Analysis