by T4P friend, Mike Chitty
We used a recent Innovation Lab in Leeds to explore the topic of ‘community engagement’, with a view to generating fresh insights and collaborations.
Community engagement… A phrase invented by bureaucrats and policy makers to shift the blame for their own insignificance, or worse, to many of those who they would wish to ‘fix’ in some way? To get back to work, to make healthier, or to force compliance with societal norms? A starting point to refine services to ensure that the policy goals of our democracy are met with ruthless efficiency?
Or a methodology through which the balance of political, economic and cultural power can be shifted towards ‘communities’.
It seems to me that the term has been grabbed by different groups to mean different things and to justify very different streams of work.
The truth is that we haven’t a working and shared definition of ‘community’. Often, it’s a label we slap on a demographic, or a catchment area that we wish to change in some way. Occasionally we may remember that ‘community’ is also a state of being in relationship with others.
And we are not that much clearer on what we mean by engagement.
But when we seek to develop community engagement, surely we should be clear on whether we aim to engage them – ‘the community’ – with our agendas, or whether we seek to engage ourselves in ‘their’ agendas. At its best, engagement is a two-way process. But often we set it up as one-way street.
And here’s a radical thought. If you want to engage, be engaging. Be interested, be interesting, be relevant, and be convivial. Get a reputation as helpful, influential, compassionate and caring. Or at least entertaining.
December 15, 2010 at 4:09 pm |
hmmm, apologies if I sound defensive, but I think this is a bit simplistic. I have written an admittedly unread book which spells out very clearly what has been meant by ‘community’ and how I think we could develop an improved understanding of the term. The book is called ‘The Struggle for “Community” . . .’ and it’s in the Leeds library service. You’ll also find out lots about social movements in Chapeltown who have worked hard to achieve their dream of just, egalitarian and warm community.
For a while I was ‘professor for community engagement’ at Leeds Met and it was very clear what we meant by ‘engagement’. No mystery there: it means promoting the idea that we all have a role to play in making our ‘communities’ (better understood as ‘neighbourhoods’) become more like our dream of community. And developing practical ways of developing that role. Yes, to do that we need to become more ‘engaging’, but, more importantly, we need to develop a shared understanding of what we long for – what we actually want from our ‘communities’ – and a shared understanding of how best to achieve our goals. Maybe that’s what your ‘innovation lab’ might help to do, though the term sounds a bit New Labour/Red Tory to my ears.
December 16, 2010 at 8:12 am |
Max, there are, of course, absolutely NO shortage of definitions developed by academics and practitioners, captured in learned texts and sitting on library shelves. The problem is that few, if any, of them, are used consistently or widely, either in practice or policy development, most of which remain more or less uninformed by any theory of community.
The idea of ‘engagement’ as ‘promotion’ of any idea is one that I find hard to accept. More ‘evangelism’ then ‘engagement’ in my book.
The idea that it means promoting, to people who are sometimes struggling to live from day to day, to feed themselves and their loved ones, that they have some kind of ‘role’ (and therefore presumably responsibility) to develop, and then work to realise, a dream of community, I find, at best, impractical. In practice most want to work on something much more personal and tangible. How to achieve a ‘good (often times ‘bearable’) life’ for themselves and their loved ones.
The idea of a ‘community’ working together on the realisation of a shared dream sounds more like a commune, cooperative or a cult than a community – which to me implies difference and conflict as much as shared dream. It is the ability of a group of people to effectively negotiate contested futures that is perhaps a signifier of community in my book!
In the ‘product description’ (what a very Thatcherite term!) to your book you talk about your ‘personal, political support for the extraordinary struggles of ordinary people to realise their dream of a better life for all, to attain an earthly paradise’. When I sit with ‘ordinary people’ and ask them about their dreams and what they are trying to realise I am afraid that in the vast majority of cases it is something much more mundane, self centred and practical. It can be paraphrased as ‘How to provide for myself and my loved ones’. They rarely talk of realising their visions for ‘community’.
At this point I have a choice. I can challenge them over their self centred perspective and urge them to work on issues of ‘community’. Or I can respect their analysis. One of these choices usually results in ‘engagement’ that can lead to real transformation. The other results in being politely shown the door. It was Schumacher, in Small is Beautiful’ who suggested that the first principle of aid should be respect.
So my engagement starts with ‘where they are’ and ‘what they want to work on’. I engage myself in their agendas and avoid trying to promote their engagement with mine. In the course of helping them on their personal journeys of growth and transformation, the formation of relationships, associations and collaborations is inevitable. Tensions and conflicts also emerge and part of my work is allow these to be negotiated in ways that are productive, or least not terribly destructive.
‘Community’ emerges as a by-product of a committed journey seeking personal transformation. Once a number of people in a ‘neighbourhood’ are engaged in such journeys, learning how to support and sustain each other then the feeling of community becomes palpable. I suppose this work could be described as developing a coaching culture in support of personal enterprise, leading to the accrual of social capital and the emergence of community.
It was a pleasure to spend an hour exploring these ideas with you last night. It suggests that we have much in common in both theory and practice.