In the last year the headlines highlighted large-scale,
sometimes violent, rejections of the status quo. Tessy Britton FRSA
argues it was also a year in which citizen-led creative and
collaborative local projects came into their own.
As regular citizens, we have a number of well-established routes to
participating in society. We participate through being consumers,
supporting the economy, circulating money while trying to provide
valuable livelihoods for ourselves and others. We participate through
generosity, giving what we can spare and volunteering to help others,
both at home and abroad.
Many of us choose to get involved in social governance. We may take
on formal roles and responsibilities, become school governors, stand as a
local councillor, act on committees and community forums. And, of
course, we can vote. Less formally, we may also get involved in public
consultations and – when we feel our concerns have not been are
sufficiently listened to – we can challenge decisions more directly
through campaigning and protesting. So, with so many opportunities to
participate, why are we seeing people engaging in their communities in
new, more collaborative ways, and what can we learn from this?
An example of these new creative behaviours might broadly be
described in this simple scenario: a person has an idea of how their
street or community might look or feel different. They might think that a
few benches in their street would create new opportunities for
neighbours to get to know one another better through informal contact.
Historically, they could take their idea to the local authority or their
ward councillor, where it would be supported or not.
But if that person knocked on their neighbours’ doors, described
their idea and managed to collect some donations and, together, they
bought a bench or two – or even designed and made their own, then this
would be a significantly different approach. They would not be acting
out of charity, or representing anyone, or campaigning. They had a
creative, socially informed idea and, working collaboratively with
neighbours, they made it happen.
This same pattern is emerging around the world, from community fruit
collections and skills sessions, to resource sharing and many projects
relating to food, growing, cooking, making and learning. What we are
seeing is not nostalgic and is culturally structurally very different
from what we have witnessed before.
Knowledge about systems, the social connection needs of people, the
ideas and methods of making these social projects work, is slowly
becoming more widespread, making these innovative projects more
sophisticated in their design. Some professionals are deploying their
expertise in their own communities voluntarily. There is a much deeper
and wider appreciation of the idea of waste; whether of people’s
talents, ideas and energies, or physical resources. Collectively, these
strands of thinking represent opportunities to act in clever and
successful ways that have the potential to transform how we live
day-to-day.
People are rediscovering the pleasures and benefits of common
activity: neither as passive consumers, nor as needy recipients of
charity, but as active makers and designers of the social, economic and
physical infrastructure of where they live. There is a new sense of
agency emerging, of optimism and of control, and it is revealing itself
through positive activity on a human scale.
For some years, I have been working on a project called Social
Spaces, concentrating on understanding these phenomena as they have
emerged. We now have 45 collaborative books in production –
The Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe –collecting
stories about these new types of local projects from around the world,
projects often characterized by their powerful ability to gently bridge
widespread social divides. Last month in Rotterdam, I spent the morning
in the Living Room, a beautiful space that is funded by members of the
community, each paying three euros a month, and managed by volunteers.
In Israel, the practice of communities renting a shared house for
community activities is becoming commonplace in some areas.
Over the past 15 months,
Social Spaces
has worked in around 80 communities, asking over 2,000 people what they
would like to see more of in the places where they live. We have worked
in all types of communities, including less privileged places, and the
answers are the same everywhere. Not a single person has asked for more
restaurants, clothing or jewellery shops. Instead, people in the UK said
they want to live in communities where the divisions between age,
culture, wealth (and lack of it) are bridged. They told us that they
want to live in beautiful places and, very importantly, that they want
new types of common space, places that can help to build more sociable
communities. They want to create a sense of community, to pool their
ideas, talents and to build on their innate resourcefulness and
resilience through simple activities.
They believe that these activities, added together, can start to make
significant steps towards transforming their communities. Research
confirms this. What has emerged from this work is an amazing collective
vision: a homemade vision that is not being imposed by social theorists,
the media or Hollywood.
So what impact could this new type of creative and collaborative
participation have on the body politic? It is often happening without
the need for state funding or permission and has the potential to
seriously disrupt many of our existing systems. If local people can
connect with one another easily, improve their neighbourhoods through
collective activity and deploy sophisticated and strategic thinking –
improving health and wellbeing, reducing employment and crime, for
example – without so much as a nod towards politicians, what happens to
political power and vested interest?
In some respects, these patterns of activity chime with the stated
ambitions of today’s politicians: citizens getting more involved,
relieving the state of financial burdens, generating positive, networked
effects that no linear, direct government intervention could ever hope
to achieve. Yet, despite this, it may turn out that a significant shift
in politicians’ behaviours is needed, if they want to stay relevant.
Take one example involving a small but impressive group of people in
Cornwall. They have successfully negotiated with an energy company to
create a large community fund. This would make it possible to become
collectively self-sufficient in generating green energy. The fund will
be managed by the community, for the community. Not a single line of
responsibility or credit for the project originally passed through the
existing local democratic system.
If you are a local councillor, you might fall in love with all this
place-shaping and making; you have vegetables popping up all over the
place, more people riding bicycles, perhaps even more people smiling.
New projects are blossoming, there are new children’s nurseries
co-managed by parents, young people are involved in creating and
managing intergenerational spaces and people are sharing their stuff. As
a result of all this sociability and industrious activity, crime is
going down, unemployment is going down, the local economy is improving,
without you, the councillor, making a budget decision or lifting a
finger. So how exactly do you get re-elected, if there is no direct
route of attribution between you and this transformation?
The penny finally drops for this councillor. While there will always
remain a need for all types of participation she or he is going to roll
up their sleeves and get stuck in more energetically than before,
because they realise that it is the only way to remain relevant. Before
you know it, they are digging up vegetables and painting walls, removing
administrative barriers to community progress, and connecting people,
ideas, expertise and resources both in the community and in the council,
helping to create more collaborative cultures, as though their life
depended on it.
So, next time someone asks you to plant carrots, build a bench,
transform an empty space, or bake a pie, share a skill, anything in fact
that creates relationships and builds trust, don’t think of it as
trivial. It could turn out to be the most politically radical thing you
could do.
Tessy Britton is Director of Social Spaces
and previous Chair of the RSA Fellowship Council. Social Spaces is a
project working to develop new knowledge about innovative community-led
projects and has been collaborating with Zero Zero to develop The Civic Crowd, a civic project mapping platform.
I hope the RSA will not object to me reproducing this, here is the link to their website http://www.thersa.org
