58
58
participatory learningandaction
58
58
58
58
58
58
June 2008
Towards empowered
participation: stories
and reflections
Look!
some new
people to
engage
with!
Come on board,
good citizens!
We're here to give
you a voice in a
deliberative
democratic
process!
Deliberative
what?
Couldn't you stop
our crops being
washed away again?
© Kate Charlesworth
participatory learningandaction
Participatory Learning and Action,
(formerly PLA Notes and RRA Notes), is
published three times a year in April,
August, and December. Established in
1987, Participatory Learning and Action
enables practitioners of participatory
methodologies from around the world to
share their field experiences, conceptual
reflections, and methodological
innovations. The series is informal and
seeks to publish frank accounts, address
issues of practical and immediate value,
encourage innovation, and act as a ‘voice
from the field’.
We are grateful to the Swedish
International Development Cooperation
Agency (Sida) and the UK Department for
International Development (DFID) for their
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Participatory Learning and Action. The
views expressed in this publication do not
necessarily reflect the views of the funding
organisations or the employers of the
authors.
Editors: Holly Ashley, Nicole Kenton and
Angela Milligan.
Strategic Editorial Board: Ivan Bond, Nazneen
Kanji, Jethro Pettit, Michel Pimbert, Peter
Taylor and Sonja Vermeulen.
International Editorial Advisory Board:
Oga Steve Abah, Jo Abbot, Jordi Surkin
Beneria, L. David Brown, Andy Catley,
Robert Chambers, Louise Chawla, Andrea
Cornwall, Bhola Dahal, Qasim Deiri, John
Devavaram, Charlotte Flower, FORCE Nepal,
Ian Goldman, Bara Guèye, Irene Guijt,
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Caren Levy, Sarah Levy, Zhang Linyang, PJ
Lolichen, Ilya M. Moeliono, Humera Malik,
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Cover illustration: www.katecharlesworth.com
(adapted from www.nanojury.org.uk)
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Participatory development
Participatory Learning and Action (PLA)
is an umbrella term for a wide range of
similar approaches and methodologies,
including Participatory Rural Appraisal
(PRA), Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA),
Participatory Learning Methods (PALM),
Participatory Action Research (PAR),
Farming Systems Research (FSR),
Méthode Active de Recherche et de
Planification Participative (MARP), and
many others. The common theme to all
these approaches is the full participation
of people in the processes of learning
about their needs and opportunities,
and in the action required to address
them.
The methods used range from
visualisation, to interviewing and group
work. The common theme is the
promotion of interactive learning, shared
knowledge, and flexible, yet structured
analysis. These methods have proven
valuable for understanding local
perceptions of the functional value of
resources, processes of agricultural
intervention, and social and institutional
relations.
In recent years, there has been a
number of shifts in the scope and focus of
participation:
• emphasis on sub-national, national and
international decision-making, not just
local decision-making;
• move from projects to policy processes
and institutionalisation;
• greater recognition of issues of
difference and power; and,
• emphasis on assessing the quality and
understanding the impact of
participation, rather than simply
promoting participation.
Recent issues of Participatory Learning
and Action have reflected, and will
continue to reflect, these developments
and shifts. We particularly recognise the
importance of analysing and overcoming
power differentials which work to
exclude the already poor and
marginalised.
participatory learningandaction
Number 58
June 2008
THEME 1: CITIZENS’ JURIES AND SIMILAR PARTICIPATORY PROCESSES: STRENGTHS
AND WEAKNESSES
2. The people’s vision: UK and Indian reflections on Prajateerpu
Kavitha Kuruganti, Michel Pimbert, and Tom Wakeford......................................11
3. Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an attempt to democratise policy-making on biotechnology
Peter Bryant..........................................................................................................18
4. The UK Nanojury as ‘upstream’ public engagement
Jasber Singh ........................................................................................................27
5. Citizens’ juries in Burnley, UK: from deliberation to intervention
Elham Kashefi and Chris Keene............................................................................33
6. Community x-change: connecting citizens and scientists to policy makers
Nigel Eady, Jasber Singh, Alice Taylor-Gee, and Tom Wakeford ..........................39
7. Hearing the real voices: exploring the experiences of the European Citizens’ Panel
Niall Fitzduff, Peter Bryant, Gwen Lanigan, and Catherine Purvis ........................44
8. Shorts: four brief analyses of citizens’ juries and similar participatory processes....48
8a. Ignoring and suppressing grassroots participation in a northern English town
Tom Wakeford, Bano Murtuja, and Peter Bryant ................................................49
8b. The art of facipulation? The UK government’s nuclear power dialogue
Transcript of UK TV’s Channel 4 News, 19th September, 2007 ..........................51
8c. Genetically modified meetings: the Food Standards Agency’s citizens’ jury
Extract from a report from the Policy Ethics and Life Sciences (PEALS) Research
Centre, Newcastle University, UK ........................................................................53
8d. If we have time, motivation and resources to participate, does that mean we
gain authority and power?
Right 2B Heard Collective and Swingbridge Video ..............................................54
CONTENTS
THEME SECTION
1. Towards empowered participation: stories and reflections
Tom Wakeford and Jasber Singh (guest editors)....................................................6
THEME 2: PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING: LESSONS FROM LATIN AMERICA AND THE UK
9. The watering down of participatory budgeting and people power in
Porto Alegre, Brazil
Daniel Chavez......................................................................................................57
10. Participatory budgeting in the UK: a challenge to the system?
Heather Blakey ....................................................................................................61
THEME 3: GENDER ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF REPRESENTATION
11. The Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS: from principle to
practice?
International Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS ..................................67
12. Understanding local difference: gender (plus) matters for NGOs
Nazneen Kanji and Su Fei Tan ..............................................................................74
13. The ivory tower and beyond: Bradford University at the heart of its communities
Jenny Pearce, Martin Pearson, and Sam Cameron ..............................................82
1
CONTENTS
THEME 4: COMMUNITY ACTIVISM FROM THE GRASSROOTS
14. The changing face of community participation: the Liverpool black experience
David Clay ............................................................................................................88
15. Community participation: ‘activists’ or ‘citizens’?
Jackie Haq ............................................................................................................91
16. Girijana Deepika: challenges for a people’s organisation in Andhra Pradesh, India
Madhusudhan......................................................................................................97
THEME ARTICLE ABSTRACTS AND ONLINE RESOURCES............................................104
GENERAL SECTION
17. On the road to change: writing the history of technologies in Bolivia
Jeffery W. Bentley and Graham Thiele ..............................................................113
18. Roses and people: exploring sustainable livelihoods in the Rose valley, Bulgaria
Preslava Nenova ................................................................................................121
19. Phila Impilo! Live Life! Ways to healing for children in long-term hospital care
Louise Chawla and Jill Kruger ............................................................................128
REGULARS
Editorial........................................................................................................................3
Tips for Trainers........................................................................................................134
In Touch ....................................................................................................................138
RCPLA Network ........................................................................................................145
2
editorial
About this special issue
Many of the articles in this issue are
from the North, mainly the UK,
however since issue 40, several
countries from the South are now
engaging in these deliberative
democratic processes, as we can see
from four of the articles in this current
issue. At the end of the theme
section, we provide an abstract of
each article, followed by relevant
internet resources.
The theme section is broken into
four sub-sections:
• the strengths and weaknesses of
citizens’ juries and similar
participatory processes;
• participatory budgeting;
• gender and representation; and
• grassroots community activism.
The overall aim of this special
issue of PLA is to allow practitioners
to reflect on some of these aspects of
participation. By fostering a deeper
understanding of participation we
hope to promote improved policies
and practices. We believe the articles
call for an increased global solidarity
among those committed to
transforming the power of oppressed
peoples via participation.
Regular features
Tips for Trainers
About the guest editors
Tom Wakeford and Jasber Singh are
guest editors of this special issue. They
are both participation practitioners.
Tom works for the Beacon for Public
Engagement initiative at Newcastle
and Durham Universities in the UK,
and is a Visiting Fellow at the
International Institute for Environment
and Development. Jasber is based at
the London Wildlife Trust where he
works with young people and
communities experiencing oppression.
Acknowledgements
This issue has been produced with the
additional financial assistance of the
Beacons for Public Engagement
initiative at Durham and Newcastle
universities, the Joseph Rowntree
Charitable Trust, the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC), the
Northern Rock Foundation, and the
Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences (PEALS)
Research Centre. As ever, we are also
grateful to the UK Department of
International Development (DfID) and
the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency
(Sida) for their continued financial
support of the Participatory Learning
and Action series.
General section
This issue also includes three general
articles. Firstly, we have an article from
Bolivia on participatory methods to
test new technologies with farmers.
The second general article is on
participatory mapping among those
whose livelihoods depend on rose
cultivation in Bulgaria. The third article
looks at ways of engaging in
processes of healing with children
who are in long-term hospital care.
The featured tip in this issue is
about democracy walls – a
structured open space where
participants can post their ideas
and opinions in a workshop
setting.
EDITORIAL
Welcome to the 58th issue of
Participatory Learning and Action.
This issue has a reflective focus and
follows on from the 40th issue,
published in 2001, entitled
Deliberative democracy and citizen
empowerment, guest-edited by
Michel Pimbert and Tom Wakeford.
Issue 40 focused on participatory
methods and approaches that seek to
enhance deliberative democracy and
citizen empowerment. This current
issue picks up on the theme of
deliberative democracy, looks at
successes and failures in citizen
involvement programmes and
examines some of the changes in the
world of participation since 2001.
In Touch
These pages include book reviews,
events, workshops and on-line
resources.
RCPLA update
Read the latest news from the
Resource Centres for Participatory
Learning and Action network –
and become a member!
Update on multimedia training
kit on Participatory Spatial
Information Management and
Communication
In April 2008, PLA co-Editor Holly
Ashley participated in a two-day
workshop hosted by the Technical
Centre for Rural Cooperation
(CTA) in the Netherlands. The PLA
Editorial team is a member of a
consultative group which is
helping with the development of a
modular multimedia and
multilingual training kit on
participatory mapping practice.
The title and the purpose of the
project is ‘Support to the spread
of “good practice” in generating,
managing, analysing and
communicating spatial
information’. The project is jointly
funded by CTA, IFAD and the Ford
Foundation, and the training kit
will be available from CTA in
2009/2010. For more information,
please contact Giacomo Rambaldi,
Email: Rambaldi@cta.int
3
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
Follow-up on PLA 57 –
Immersions: learning about
poverty face-to-face
We hope you enjoyed issue 57, which
seems to have generated a lot of
interest. We are hoping to hold a
special event on the topic at the UK
Department of International
Development office’s in London in
September.
Update on IKM
PLA co-editor Angela Milligan
attended a conference in Cambridge,
UK organised by IKM Emergent. IKM
Emergent is a five-year research and
communication programme funded
by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. It brings together a group of
development researchers and
practitioners concerned with the ways
knowledge is created, handled and
used in development practice. It is
particularly concerned with multiple
knowledges – different kinds of
knowledge from different sources –
and how to ensure that all relevant
knowledges are considered, including
those which are often overlooked
such as local knowledge and
knowledge generated in the ‘South’.
We are currently discussing the
possibility of some joint work between
IKM Emergent and PLA which would
look at what happens to knowledge
generated in the course of participatory
work at local level. Does it feed into
regional, national or international level
strategies and policies? What happens
if it conflicts with these strategies? Is it
shared between organisations at local
level? What are the barriers to using
the knowledge in this way and how
have organisations and individuals
overcome them?
4
Following a call for papers in our
last issue, we received two research
proposals which are now being
discussed with IKM Emergent. If the
work goes ahead, one of the
expected outcomes would be an issue
of PLA which would capture some of
the challenges and ways forward for
participatory work.
We hope to have more news in
our next issue. In the meantime, if
you have particular experiences in this
area that you would like to share,
please contact Angela at
angela.milligan@iied.org.
Next issue: PLA 58 – Participatory
web for development, December
2008
There are dozens of emerging
interactive web applications and
services (often referred to as the
participatory web, or Web 2.0). These
can enhance the ways we create,
share, and publish information. But
these technical opportunities also
bring challenges that we need to
understand and grasp. Some of the
key questions that this special issue
will seek to address include:
• How can Web 2.0 applications be
integrated with participatory
development approaches?
• How can they facilitate and
contribute to people’s participation
and decision-making?
• What are the challenges and
barriers to people’s participation?
• How do we address factors such as
access, equity, control, and
oversight?
• Can Web 2.0 applications challenge
fundamental social inequalities?
This forthcoming special issue
aims to publish a collection of articles,
which provide working examples
from practice. The articles will be
based on a selection of papers
presented at the Web2ForDev 2007:
Participatory Web for Development
conference, Rome, September 2007.
It will be co-published by IIED and
CTA.
Forthcoming issue
For PLA 60, we are hoping to produce
a special issue on community-based
adaptation methods to climate
change. The issue would look at the
methods used by communities to
cope with climate change impacts
(such as floods, rising sea levels,
droughts and other extreme weather
events). In addition, the special issue
would look at methods communities
worldwide are using to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions. If you have
had any relevant experience, please
do send us contributions to consider
for this issue.
We hope that PLA 58 will provide
you with some interesting food for
thought and we look forward to your
feedback. Please continue to send us
articles for our general section, or
material for In Touch or Tips for
Trainers. Please visit our website
(www.planotes.org) for our guidelines
for submissions. Here too subscribers
can link with IngentaConnect to
download the latest issues.
Holly Ashley, Nicole Kenton, and
Angela Milligan, Co-editors
PLA 57 errata
p3. – 1st column – Fahamu is a pan-African
NGO not a Kenyan NGO.
p.137 – VIPs should be Very Important
Person visits (not Village Immersion
Programmes).
Theme section
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Nothing we have done as guest editors of this special issue would have
been possible without the efforts of the practitioners who have
contributed such excellent articles. Just as vital have been the, often
unacknowledged, participants in the processes that have been described.
It is an unwritten assumption of all those who have contributed to this
issue that we owe an immense debt to the insights and wisdom these
hundreds of individuals have put into every process we describe. We had
hoped to facilitate a process whereby such participants could author their
own articles to accompany each of the practitioner perspectives.
Unfortunately, lack of resources has meant that just one short
contribution by Right 2B Heard, (Article 8d), takes this approach.
We would like to thank all our colleagues at the Policy Ethics and Life
Sciences (PEALS) Research Centre, where we were both based during the
inception of this project, particularly Anne Galbraith, Tom Shakespeare
and Tom Martin. At the Newcastle-Durham Beacon for Public
Engagement, we'd like to thank Joanne Walker and Catherine Purvis. At
IIED we’d like to thank Khanh Tran-Thanh, Angela Milligan, Holly Ashley
and most of all, Nicole Kenton.
Tom Wakeford and Jasber Singh
Guest Editors
5
THEME SECTION
1
Towards empowered
participation: stories and
reflections
Front cover illustration,
PLA Notes 40.
by TOM WAKEFORD and JASBER SINGH
This special issue is essentially a series of stories about participation. All are premised on the belief that participation
should create opportunities for people’s broader engagement
in the processes of knowledge generation and policy-making.
A second linked theme is that, rather than empower people
in this way, much of what is claimed to be public engagement, involvement or ‘giving people a voice’ merely reinforces existing knowledge-validating and decision-making
structures.
In the seven years since one of us jointly edited Deliberative democracy and citizen empowerment (PLA Notes 40,
2001), three trends have transformed the participation landscape in which we operate.1
• The rhetoric of participation has become a mainstay of
policy documents and political speeches from the United
Nations to local councils. In the UK at least, invitations to
‘have your say’ – via text message, email or telephone – are
everyday occurrences on radio, TV and in popular newspapers and magazines.
• An ad hoc alliance of market research corporations, foundations and other organisations with influence on govern1
See www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/pla_notes/pla_backissues/40.html Guest edited
by Michel Pimbert and Tom Wakeford.
6
Cartoon: Regina Doyle
Introduction
ment have presented themselves as cutting-edge practitioners and promoters of best practice in participation. They
have worked with policy makers to develop and validate
schemes that promise a voice to citizens, yet which largely
ignore the rich traditions of social justice movements on
their own doorstep.2
2 A recent example is Involve & National Consumer Council, 2008 Deliberative
public engagement: nine principles. Involve, London. See
www.involve.org.uk/deliberative_principles
Towards empowered participation: stories and reflections
• There has been a subtle change in how policy makers view
citizens. On the one hand, citizen involvement programmes
promise a shift from envisaging people as semi-passive
‘users and choosers’ to seeing them as ‘makers and
shapers’. Yet, the same authorities may withdraw funding
from groups with particular identities – such as visible
minorities experiencing oppression.3
The resulting participatory programmes usually fail to
achieve their stated goal of engagement with citizens and
could even lead to a participatory citizenship programme that
undermines grassroots attempts to challenge the status quo.
Empowered participation, suppression or
domestication?
Overall we see the failures of participation as stemming from
a combination of structural issues within powerful organisations, together with the misuse of participation techniques
in order to advance particular agendas.
The hierarchical structure and pre-defined missions of
many government departments, associated delivery agencies
and private corporations are antithetical to successful participation. To avoid disrupting 'business as usual', such organisations may therefore adopt one of two broad strategies
when dealing with participation processes:
• To facilitate a genuine process and then to devise a means
of ignoring or suppressing those of its outcomes that do
not suit its agenda (see Shorts 8a).
• To engage in a range of manipulations of the process that
ensures that the outcome suits those purposes (see Shorts
8b). We call these practices ‘domestication’, in so far as they
restrict the ability of participants to speak and think for
themselves.
3 An example from the UK was the threat by Ealing local council to withdraw funding
from the Southall Black Sisters, perhaps the UK’s best known group working on
domestic violence and other issues affecting women from black and minority ethnic
groups in Britain. The council said it did not want to privilege the ethnic minorities in
the local area over the majority white population. In doing so it ignored the well
documented particular dangers young black women face in their homes and in the
local community. These issues were vividly portrayed in the 2007 film Provoked, based
on a book of the same name by Kiranjit Ahluwalia and Rahila Gupta.
We contrast domesticated participation with what some
analysts are calling empowered participation (Fung, 2006).
Last year we asked a range of participation practitioners and
analysts to contribute to this issue of PLA based on the
following logic: if participation continues to be ignored,
suppressed or domesticated, we will not only fail to live up to
the promise of participation, but will risk sacrificing some of
the democratic gains made by our predecessors.
All our contributors have written about their practice in
the belief that only by looking at the barriers to empowered
participation, with an honest and self-evaluative approach,
will practitioners be able to formulate strategies that stand a
chance of making an impact on the scale necessary to
address our various global crises.
THEME SECTION
“…if participation continues to be
ignored, suppressed or domesticated,
we will not only fail to live up to the
promise of participation, but will risk
sacrificing some of the democratic gains
made by our predecessors.”
1
About the articles in this issue
Each contributor to this special issue highlights factors that
have threatened the potential for genuine participation in
particular contexts. Obstacles may be political – as was the
case with Prajateerpu (Kuruganti and colleagues, article 2).
In other cases, organisers may not even be aware that already
oppressed groups, such as women or disabled people, have
been further marginalised by the way the participatory
process was organised or analysed (Kanji and Tan, article 12).
The way that scientific or medical expertise is deployed in
participatory processes is also explored in several papers,
focusing on the issues of HIV/AIDS (ICW, article 11), climate
change (Eady and colleagues, article 6), nanotechnology
(Singh, article 4), and GM crops (Shorts 8c; Bryant, article 3).
Contributors point to the disappointment in what appear
to be token exercises in public engagement. Citizens’ juries
or panels can easily become ‘a new toy for academics, policy
makers and other professional elites,’ as Fitzduff and
colleagues stress, when institutions or governments have no
real interest in acting upon their recommendations (article 7).
One citizens’ jury in the UK (Kashefi and Keene, article 5)
proved influential partly because it was well-supported before
it began, but also because its conclusions meshed with established government health targets. By contrast, attempts to
replicate Brazil’s model of participatory budgeting in the UK
(Blakey, article 10) have foundered, as prevailing government
financial targets pre-empted grassroots decision-making.
There are also suggestions (Chavez, article 9) that the Latin
American model on which the UK processes have been based
is more problematic than has been acknowledged so far. The
Mali farmers’ jury, l’ECID (Bryant, article 3), stands out as a
rare success story, and owes much to both a methodology
devised together with members of a successful political
7
THEME SECTION
1Tom Wakeford and Jasber Singh
movement, and, to the status and political activism of the
farmer jurors.
Two papers (Clay, article 14 and Haq, article 15) contrast
the achievements of sustained, grassroots community
activism in Britain in the 1970s and 80s with today’s promotion of citizens’ juries or government agency-led ‘community
consultation’. In Andhra Pradesh (Madhusudhan, article 16),
an indigenous people’s organisation called Girijan Deepika
has revived informal meetings, Gotti, to revitalise community
control over food and farming, in a far-reaching campaign
to reclaim indigenous knowledge, culture and livelihoods
under threat from development programmes. In this context,
participatory decision-making and community activism have
come together to empower a whole community.
Two articles and four short papers focus on attempts to
engage large institutions in participation. The first (Pearce,
Pearson and Cameron, article 13) looks at efforts of UK
universities, and one in particular, to engage in participatory
processes with local residents. In the In Touch section, a recent
book by Celia Davis and colleagues is reviewed. Its authors
explore a deliberative process that was commissioned by a
UK health agency that was intended to democratise decisionmaking in the huge state-run UK health system. In a section
called Shorts (article 8), four brief contributions give glimpses
of the interface between people and attempts by large
organisations to domesticate their participation in four different contexts:
• an ethnically diverse community governed by an unreceptive town council in northern England (Shorts 8a);
• a group of randomly chosen UK residents, some of whom
felt duped by a UK government consultation on nuclear
power (Shorts 8b);
• a citizens’ jury on GM crops where the question asked of
the jury by a government agency prejudiced its impact on
the policy process (Shorts 8c); and finally,
• the transcript of a youtube.com film made by people with
experience of being the ‘citizens’ in participatory processes
when a major UK charity asked them to give their views at
a conference (Shorts 8d).
Many people, particularly policy makers or organisations
commissioning participatory projects, may read PLA in the hope
of finding a blueprint that will guarantee the effectiveness of
such processes in every context. But we believe this expectation
would be misguided. We do, however, believe it is possible to
find principles of good practice.4 Three themes run through this
4 There has recently been a suggestion that the International Standards
Organisation (ISO) could incorporate good practice in participation in a voluntary
guidance standard for social responsibility, ISO 26000.
8
“Future participatory processes face
significant challenges if they are to help
to shift power and knowledge to those
who need it, rather than to those who
already have it.”
issue that are particularly relevant for practitioners:
• the need for counter-balances;
• long time horizons; and
• reflective practice.
The need for counter-balances
The examples of participatory practice in this special issue
that have fostered empowerment, rather than suppression
or domestication, have been those which have included what
Archon Fung (2006) calls ‘countervailing forces’. These forces
can be enabled by the setting up of multi-stakeholder panels,
financing grassroots organisations to become co-organisers
or setting up a broadly-based steering committee. Whatever
mechanism is used, such structures can act to counterbalance the weight of the principal sponsoring body or
bodies, and thus overcome perhaps the single biggest barrier
to empowered participation.
Long time horizons
The second ingredient that makes a participatory process
genuinely empowering is the length of time the participative
space can be maintained. Past efforts at grassroots community activism described by Clay and Haq (articles 14 and 15),
along with the attempts to forge new global participatory
structures by the International Community of Women Living
with HIV/AIDS (article 11) hold powerful lessons for future
practice. The Popular Sovereignty Network described by
Chavez (article 9) may be a promising model for global development, if it can be sustained.
Reflective practice
Finally, we are encouraged by the increase in our collective
capacity, as participatory practitioners, for reflection and learning. Once we constituted a small group whose approach was
misunderstood and rejected by mainstream researchers.5 In
response to this hostility, we sometimes spurned critical
debate – making us seem almost cult-like to some colleagues
5 This
was displayed in the frank exchange between practitioners and theorists
that followed a critique of participation by antropologist Paul Richards (1995).
Towards empowered participation: stories and reflections
Towards empowered participation?
We acknowledge that there is a general bias towards practice in the UK and Europe in this issue of PLA. There is also
the danger of assuming that the answers to participatory
dilemmas will come from universities rather than elsewhere.
That said, both Bradford University’s International Centre for
Participation Studies and Newcastle University’s Policy Ethics
and Life Sciences (PEALS) Research Centre have made
attempts to develop practice that addresses all three themes
of this special issue, though neither would claim more than
very partial success.
In 2008, six UK university-based Beacons for Public
Engagement began to address a key additional challenge for
CONTACT DETAILS
Tom Wakeford
Beacon for Public Engagement
Newcastle University
6 Kensington Terrace
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
UK
Email: beacon@ncl.ac.uk
Website: http://beacon.ncl.ac.uk
the future – the use of participatory processes to make the
very formation of research questions a process of co-production. This will often involve putting people who have become
experts via experience on an equal footing with those who
have done so via formal training.6
Both Prajateerpu (Kuruganti, Pimbert and Wakeford,
article 2) and the Nanojury (Singh, article 4) showed that
there are potentially great benefits in the blurring of boundaries between people and professors. Those involved in the
two processes also came up against a range of powerful
barriers that prevent scientists, and other officially recognised
experts, from acknowledging and affirming the validity of
knowledge that comes through experience rather than
formal training.
The professional acceptance of participation within
academia is a testament to the many successful participatory
projects designed to achieve social and environmental justice
at the grassroots. But there is a paradox here. Struggling
grassroots community organisations who contribute to the
mainstreaming of participatory approaches risk disempowering themselves. In providing legitimacy to academic
researchers, they are potentially helping organisations to win
grants from funding sources that they might wish to call on.
Future participatory processes face significant challenges if
they are to help to shift power and knowledge to those who
need it, rather than to those who already have it.
Alongside the three recommendations we make – for
diverse control, the establishment of long-term processes and
acknowledgement of the need to learn from our mistakes –
there is a single overriding priority: that the capacity to challenge power structures comes to be acknowledged as fundamental to a just society.
Jasber Singh
London Wildlife Trust
Skyline House
200 Union Street
London, SE1 0LX
UK
Email: jasbersingh@gmail.com
THEME SECTION
in our lack of reflection on both principles and practice. As
resources flooded in, thanks to government enthusiasm for
participatory initiatives, we were so busy ‘doing’, that critical
thinking was not prioritised. Participation became attractive
to entrepreneurs who adopted the language of empowerment and cherry-picked methodologies that suited them, but
ignored the underlying principles, resulting in many examples
of pseudo-participation and the disempowerment of the very
people to whom such initiatives are meant to deliver a voice.
Now an increasing number of practitioners are dedicating
themselves to making regular cycles of learning and reflection
core to their practice. The article by Pearce, Pearson and
Cameron (article 13) is testament to the inroads into
academic culture being made by participatory innovators
who can combine practical effectiveness with acceptance
from their fellow academics. This is aided by the increasing
sympathy for participatory approaches across the global
higher education system.
1
REFERENCES
Fung, A., (2006) Empowered Participation;
Reinventing Urban Democracy, Princeton
University Press
Richards, P. (1995) ‘Participatory Rural
Appraisal: A quick and dirty critique.’ PLA
Notes 24, 1995. Online: www.iied.org/NR/
agbioliv/pla_notes/pla_backissues/24.html#AB2
6 This is a four-year pilot programme largely funded by the UK government. See
the web resources section for further information.
9
Theme 1: Citizens’
juries and similar
participatory
processes: strengths
and weaknesses
10
2
by KAVITHA KURUGANTI, MICHEL PIMBERT and TOM WAKEFORD
THEME SECTION 1
The people’s vision – UK and
Indian reflections on Prajateerpu
Member of
Prajateerpu jury
presenting their vision.
At a meeting held at the UK Houses of Parliament on 18
March 2002, a smallholder from the Indian state of Andhra
Pradesh stood up to launch a report. She gave a personal
account of a participation process called Prajateerpu (Telegu
– meaning ‘people’s verdict’, see Box 1) that remains controversial even as we write, six years later.
Anjamma stated that she and her fellow jurors had
concluded that genetically modified (GM) crops would have
little foreseeable impact on reducing malnutrition in Andhra
Pradesh. The jurors had expressed concerns about the impact
that a reliance on artificial fertilisers and pesticides would
have on smallholders in the region. They called instead for
local self-sufficiency and endogenous development in
farming and food, joining a growing global movement for
food sovereignty.1
The report inspired a political cartoonist for the UK’s
Guardian newspaper to depict the-then UK Secretary of State
for International Development, Clare Short, as a combine
harvester rampaging through the fields, tossing smallholder
farmers into the air. Beneath this, a columnist summarised
1 ‘Endogenous’, meaning ‘rising from within’. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous
Photo: Sarojini Naidu School
Introduction
the Prajateerpu process, through which Indian smallholder
farmers had critiqued the prevailing global elite’s vision of
food, agriculture and rural development – Vision 2020 (see
Box 2).
After the Prajateerpu report launch, interviews with
Indian smallholder farmer representatives peppered UK news
programmes, newspapers and websites. Soon, the director
of the UK institute where one of the report’s authors was
11
2Kavitha Kuruganti, Michel Pimbert and Tom Wakeford
Guardian cartoon depicting
the UK Secretary of State for
International Development as
a machine of destruction.
Photo: Sarojini Naidu School
THEME SECTION 1
Dr Vinod Pavarala and
colleagues from the University
of Hyderabad, India, planning
to contact potential members
of the jury.
Box 1: What was Prajateerpu?
based was contacted by the minister for international development. Days later, one of the report’s two principal authors
was suspended, the other disciplined. Although published
jointly with Indian organisations, the report was withdrawn
by one of the two UK institutes involved. After an outcry by
groups in India, where extensive Internet and mainstream
media coverage of the report’s censorship helped to mobilise
a popular campaign, the UK institute lifted its ban. Union
threats of collective action in defence of academic freedom,
together with interventions by Board members and former
directors of the two institutes saw the disciplinary action
against the two authors revoked. One of the institute’s directors formally apologised.
2 The role of the oversight panel was to monitor and evaluate the fairness and
credibility of the entire process, ensuring in particular that the process was not
captured by any vested interests.
12
Cartoon: The Guardian
In 2001, a group of smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh (AP), India,
took part in a participatory exploration of three broad scenarios for the
future of food and farming in their region. This participatory process, a
modified citizens’ jury known as Prajateerpu, included an assessment
of the potential of genetically modified (GM) crops. The jury was
overseen by a panel that included a retired chief judge from the Indian
Supreme Court, a senior official from a donor agency and a number of
local NGOs.2 The jury of 19 consisted of mostly Dalit or indigenous
farmers. Over four days, they cross-questioned 13 witnesses, including
representatives of biotechnology companies, state government officials
and development experts. Rather than simply accepting or rejecting
GM crops in the abstract, the jurors were able to build their own
scenario for sustainable and equitable agriculture, and insert elements
of the future scenarios to which witnesses had referred.
The people’s vision – UK and Indian reflections on Prajateerpu
2
Kavitha Kuruganti, one of
three facilitators,
facilitating a discussion
between a group of women.
Over the following years, two distinct viewpoints on this
‘participatory controversy’ have emerged:
One group, based in both Andhra Pradesh, India, and in
various universities and institutes in the UK, began a participatory review of the process. It was funded by diverse
sources including the Dutch development agency (DGIS) and
the UK’s Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. It involved many
UK and Indian partners, four Prajateerpu jurors, witnesses
and analysts. Because of the level of controversy, the organisers decided to submit the results of this reflection process
to an academic journal – resulting in two articles published
in 2003 and 2004.
Another, smaller group of analysts associated with the
institute which attempted to ban the Prajateerpu report, but
who were not involved in the hearings, expressed their
disapproval of the Prajateerpu process in an online forum
sponsored by DfID in 2003.3 Subsequently, the same authors
have criticised the process in an online review article (Table
1).
Participation with policy impact
Such enduring controversy about the process cannot be
divorced from the controversial nature of the jury’s conclusions about food and farming, and of the jury itself.
Most Prajateerpu participants were women. All except
one jury member also came from castes and indigenous
ethnic groups of the lowest social status in Indian society.
Brought together from throughout Andhra Pradesh by
3 Scoones, I. & Thompson, J. (Guest Editors) PLA Notes 46 Participatory processes
for policy change, February 2003, www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/pla_notes/pla_
backissues/46.html. These edited proceedings from the online forum were not, to
the authors’ knowledge, subject to anonymous peer review.
Photo: Sarojini Naidu School
Released on India’s Republic Day in 1999, Vision 2020 sets out the future
of the state of Andhra Pradesh as envisioned by its government – a
future in which poverty is eradicated. Vision 2020 seeks to transform all
areas of social and economic life in the state. It aims to build human
resources, focus on high-potential sectors as the engines of growth, and
transform governance throughout the state. The UK governmental
Department for International Development (DfID) was the major external
support agency to the government of AP at the time of Prajateerpu.
Working with the World Bank, the British government supported a
structural adjustment programme for poverty elimination in AP and
funded elements of the government’s Vision 2020. Both DfID and the
World Bank helped the AP government to refocus its spending priorities
and divest functions and services in chosen areas. Specific support
efforts were made to strengthen the government of AP’s capacity to
manage the privatisation programme outlined in Vision 2020.
THEME SECTION 1
Box 2: Vision 2020
researchers at Hyderabad University, they heard three clearly
articulated visions of the future. The first depicted life under
Vision 2020 – the World Bank and UK-aid funded plan. The
second looked at the export of organic crops. The third
explored a path of self-reliance, promoted by Indian philosophers such as Mahatma Gandhi.
Sitting in a large tent-like structure on the edge of a small
village, they heard from people with officially-recognised
expert knowledge on the different visions. Aided by three
facilitators – all native Telegu speakers – jurors questioned
these ‘witnesses’ and slowly formulated their own vision for
food and farming in their native state of Andhra Pradesh.4
GM crops and industrial farming are high on the political agenda in India and the UK. The jury’s decision to reject
GM as an answer to the problems of smallholder farmers
received global newspaper coverage. Members of Parliament in both the UK and Andhra Pradesh considered the
issues serious enough to table questions to their governments, both formally and informally.
The analysis presented in the 2002 report on the Prajateerpu process re-enforced the jurors’ critique of government and corporate development policies, describing the
UK government’s approach to citizen participation in the
state as ill-conceived and inadequate. Prajateerpu’s conclusions displeased senior DfID officials. They made an official
4 For full details on how jurors were selected, presentation of different visions,
safeguards for quality and validity and design of the deliberative process see
Pimbert, M. & Wakeford, T. (2003) ‘Prajateerpu, power and knowledge: The
politics of participatory action research in development. Part I: Context, process
and safeguards.’ Action Research, 1(2), 184–207 and Andhra Pradesh Coalition
in Defence of Diversity, 2003 (a coalition of over 140 grassroots groups, lead by
the Deccan Development Society) Description of the Prajateerpu process
(www.ddsindia.org.in/www/default.asp) and video
www.ddsindia.org.in/www/videos/Prajateerpu.wmv.
13
2Kavitha Kuruganti, Michel Pimbert and Tom Wakeford
Partha Dasgupta of Syngenta,
presenting to the jury on GM crops,
with simultaneous interpretation
into the Telegu language.
THEME SECTION 1
Prajateerpu had impact because – not in spite – of the very
public debate they initiated.
Photo: Sarojini Naidu School
A long-term strategy
complaint to the UK research institutes involved, backed up
by informal contact from the Secretary of State.
Five challenges and dilemmas
Engaging with power
Critics have suggested that the Prajateerpu organisers did
not make sufficient efforts to involve some of the key stakeholders, such as DfID, the World Bank, the Government of
AP and biotechnology corporations in the process. Yet these,
and many other relevant organisations, were contacted up
to a year before Prajateerpu took place. DfID agreed to be
on the oversight panel, but withdrew before the hearings
began. The World Bank declined to take part. But the AP
government and Syngenta – the biotech firm which created
‘Vitamin A rice’ – cooperated fully, providing witnesses and
independent observers.
Some critics have suggested that Prajateerpu’s organisers should have criticised DfID’s citizen participation
programme through private channels, for a less confrontational outcome. However, as several articles in this special
issue confirm, documents critical of government practice
have a habit of disappearing into bureaucratic ‘black holes’,
while the bad practice they expose continues. Given our
commitment to opening up political space with marginalised
smallholders, who were under immediate threat of loss of
livelihoods from the DfID-backed Vision 2020 policies, the
authors and Indian coalition members felt a duty to publish
the reforms suggested by the jurors. The evidence gathered
subsequently suggests that the stark recommendations of
14
Those working with marginalised smallholders in India have
suggested that Prajateerpu should have been followed up
further similar events in the region, drawing out themes
highlighted by the original jurors. IIED convened two workshops to this end in 2002 and 2003. However, the limited
human and financial resources available prevented a significant roll-out of the programme. DfID and corporate
biotechnologists have had opportunity and the resources to
undertake such inclusive participatory processes, and the
jurors of Prajateerpu have sought greater inclusion from such
authorities.
All those involved in organising the original Prajateerpu
hearings have expressed regret at the lack of much-needed
scaling up of Prajateerpu in the state. However, IIED has
made links between similar processes in Zimbabwe (via Practical Action, Cooper et al., 2003) and Mali (see Bryant, this
issue) in which one or other authors here have been
involved. This has allowed transformative learning between
groups of smallholder farmers (including jurors) from different continents who experience similar threats to their rural
livelihoods.
Consensus
Deliberation inevitably involves dialogue and often dissent.
Dilemmas relating to the extent to which participatory
processes drive those involved towards consensus or divergence are familiar to practitioners in this field. Yet, a small
group of critics have persistently accused Prajateerpu’s
organisers of ‘imposing simplistic consensus’ by ‘editing out
dissenting views and aiming only for a singular conclusion’,
thus avoiding ‘contention and disagreement’. Yet there does
not seem any evidence to support this view (see Table 1). Far
from accusing the organisers of such participatory ventriloquism, Prajateerpu’s broadly-based oversight panel
expressed satisfaction at the fairness and competence of the
process.
The event happened in the glare of considerable national
publicity, and was therefore potentially influential. This was
obvious to all who took part and may have influenced how
jurors framed their recommendations. Assisted by the local
facilitators (one is a co-author of this article), the jurors may
have chosen to focus on the topics they considered most
important and on which there was complete agreement,
such as the rejection of GM crops, support for diverse, low
The people’s vision – UK and Indian reflections on Prajateerpu
Reporting on Prajateerpu
The people involved in organising Prajateerpu included
representatives of various Indian social movements and
international non-government organisations. They decided
that the report should be written by the two organisers
based in well-resourced research institutions who had the
time and resources to analyse and write. Having two Europeans – one French, one British – as authors of a report
about a participatory process in India can be seen as problematic, however much local people were involved. Yet the
practical alternative was to have no written report and for
the process to be misrepresented, or its impact otherwise
diminished.
The authors exchanged numerous drafts of the report
with their Indian collaborators so that the latter could validate its contents and style. However, critics implied that the
Prajateerpu report imported the political agendas of European-based authors. But this judgement misrepresents the
sophistication of debates on these issues in India, and is
contradicted by a close analysis of the publicly accessible
complete video archive of the process. By contrast, critics
who passed judgement on the process did so in the absence
of first-hand observation and without accessing the video
archive. With much, perhaps most, of the critics’ funding
coming from DfID, the agency the Prajateerpu report challenged, their credibility as disinterested analysts is open to
doubt.
The significance of the ‘people’s verdict’
Prajateerpu was unprecedented in the history of policymaking in India. And it continues to be a unique process.
Box 3: Food sovereignty
Defined by Via Campesina as:
‘… the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to
protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in
order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the
extent to which they want to be self reliant; to restrict the dumping of
products in their markets; and to provide local fisheries-based
communities the priority in managing the use of and the rights to
aquatic resources. Food Sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather
it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve
the rights of peoples to food and to safe, healthy and ecologically
sustainable production.’
THEME SECTION 1
external-input farming, and opposition to land consolidation and contract farming.
Critics who accused the organisers of manipulating the
jury would have more justification if the jurors had merely
chosen one of the three visions for food and agriculture on
offer. Instead, assisted by three independent facilitators, they
built a vision of their own, under the watchful eyes of the
oversight panel.
To anticipate criticisms about the basis of their vision, the
organisers could have interviewed jurors after the hearings
in order to, in the words of the critics ‘delineate the different strands of argumentation’. But Prajateerpu was an exercise in participatory action research. To turn it into an
exercise where academic analysis overtook the juror’s own
words in public prominence would undermine the very principles of participatory learning and action.
2
But debates on immediate and key decisions being made in
food, agriculture and rural futures were sidelined by an
assault on core aspects of the methodology of Prajateerpu.
It is no coincidence that the strongest attacks came from
organisations with the strongest commitment to a vision for
food and agriculture that was undermined by the conclusions reached by nineteen rural smallholders and labourers.
By publicly raising questions about the quality of the
participatory process in Prajateerpu, government agencies
temporarily sidelined the united message emerging from the
jurors’ vision, which was based unequivocally on food sovereignty (see Box 3). In the long term, however, the process
has contributed to a re-assessment of technological fixes to
agricultural production, of which GM crops form a crucial
element. The most politically significant of these is the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology
for Development (IAASTD). The report concluded that ‘data
on some GM crops indicate highly variable yield gains in
some places and declines in others’. It did not rule out any
potential future benefit from GM crops, but as Practical
Action commented when the report was released in April
2008, ‘the IAASTD rightly concludes that small-scale farmers
and ecological methods provide the way forward to avert
the current food crisis’.
Prajateerpu has led to at least three key areas of learning around participatory processes:
• Potentially influential participatory, action and learning
processes can be organised by non-state actors, including
those with legitimacy among some of the most marginalised people in society. Inherent in such initiatives is that
powerful elites who feel their interests are threatened will
usually seek to discredit such processes. Organisers must
be highly organised, committed and use a range of advocacy methods to enable the discussion of controversial
issues with diverse communities.
15
THEME SECTION 1
2Kavitha Kuruganti, Michel Pimbert and Tom Wakeford
Table 1: Two views of the same participatory process
Area of analysis
Comments made in a 2007 report by a group of
researchers not present at Prajateerpu (Stirling et al.,
2007).
Response of the authors of this article, drawing on a
review which included Indian grassroots organisations
(IIED, 2004).
Organiser bias
An ‘instrumental’ process, driven by a concern that poorer
farmers would be ‘undermined’ by new government
policies.
A process viewed by an independent panel as fair and
balanced, which allowed those normally excluded a space to
analyse different perspectives and policy futures.
Biotechnology
witness
Monsanto sent a witness who, it is implied, complained
about the process.
Syngenta, not Monsanto, sent a witness. No complaint is on
record.
Witness complaint
Several witnesses complained of the process being ‘rigged’.
Only one witness, a multi-millionaire corporate farmer,
complained that there were too many poor farmers on the jury.
UK and Andhra
Pradesh state
government’s
response to
Prajateerpu.
Not analysed, beyond an implication that both
governments ‘condemned’ it.
Government critics in UK and Andhra Pradesh had vested
interest in supporting Vision 2020.
Civil society and
opinion-formers
response to
Prajateerpu.
Not mentioned.
Widely supported by civil society organisations and some in
government. Used to inform the International Assessment of
Agricultural Science and Technology for Development.
Reference to
analysis that has
been anonymously
peer-reviewed
None, but authors imply that their own analysis is the most
objective. This analysis has not been subject to anonymous
peer-review.
Three articles published, all subject to anonymous peer-review.
Authors acknowledge that all perspectives can only be partial
(Pimbert and Wakeford, 2002; 2004).
• Many experts and heads of organisations profess to have
ideals that support such inclusive processes. But many also
find ways to justify censoring uncomfortable information,
or sidelining perspectives of marginalised people, or both,
if the conclusions reached are contrary to their interests,
their organisational strategy or their own vision of development and political values. Such practices need to be
openly confronted and widely publicised. We also need to
explore more effective ways of bringing to account individuals and organisations responsible for such abuses of
power.
• Broad transnational coalitions of civil society organisations,
action-researchers and marginalised groups can contribute
to positive social change. It is important to validate grassroots-based analyses of policies that could not otherwise
have been made, even if the initial conclusions reached
become temporarily suppressed or marginalised. However,
to be effective, a clear advocacy and political engagement
strategy needs to be firmly in place well before the process
begins.
16
Final reflections
The phrase ‘history is written by the victors’ is credited to
the British wartime leader, Winston Churchill. We are not
clear who the victors are, seven years on from the Prajateerpu hearings. Although the GoAP was voted out of office
in the elections of 2003 – partly because of the very policies
on agricultural development condemned by Prajateerpu’s
jurors – the newly elected state government seems to have
maintained the same central thrust of policy as its predecessor. We have few illusions that Prajateerpu is anything
other than a minor skirmish in a longer term struggle
between oppressed peoples and those who subjugate them.
Yet it seems clear that Prajateerpu did succeed in its limited
aim of allowing a rigorous process of co-inquiry with those
living and working at the grassroots. It provided valuable
input for international scientific and policy-making processes
such as IAASTD. Participatory processes can allow people to
begin to escape their portrayal by powerful elites as ignorant and dispensable pawns, and enable them to re-cast
themselves as experts by experience with the right to influence political decisions.
The people’s vision – UK and Indian reflections on Prajateerpu
Michel Pimbert
Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and
Livelihoods Programme, Natural Resources
Group
International Institute for Environment and
Development (IIED)
3 Endsleigh Street
London, WC1H 0DD
UK
Email: michel.pimbert@iied.org
Tom Wakeford
Email: beacon@ncl.ac.uk
Website: http://beacon.ncl.ac.uk
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Photos by kind permission of the Sarojini Naidu
School of Performing Arts, Fine Arts and
Communications, University of Hyderabad.
REFERENCES
Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defence of
Diversity (2003) Description of the Prajateerpu
process
www.ddsindia.org.in/www/default.asp
Video: www.ddsindia.org.in/www/videos/
Prajateerpu.wmv
Coupe, S. et al. (2003) A Farmers’ Jury: The
Zimbabwean Poor's Verdict on the Future of
Agriculture. ITDG Working Paper, Practical
Action: UK
IIED (2004) Review of Prajateerpu process:
Proceedings of workshops in Hyderabad and
Medak District, (Unpublished) IIED: London
Pimbert, M. & Wakeford, T. (2003)
‘Prajateerpu, power and knowledge: The
politics of participatory action research in
development. Part I: Context, process and
safeguards.’ Action Research, Volume 1(2)
Pimbert M. & Wakeford T. (2002) ‘Prajateerpu:
Food and Farming Futures for Andhra Pradesh:
A Citizens Jury/Scenario Workshop.’ Economic
and Political Weekly.
www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/4324.pdf
Scoones, I. & Thompson, J. (2003) PLA Notes
46: Participatory processes for policy change.
Online: www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/pla_notes/
pla_backissues/46.html
Stirling A., Leach M., Mehta L., Scoones I.,
Smith A., Stagl S., Thompson J. (2007)
Empowering Designs: steps towards more
progressive social appraisal of sustainability.
IDS, Sussex. Online: www.stepscentre.org/PDFs/final_steps_design.pdf
Wakeford, T. and Pimbert, M. (2004)
‘Prajateerpu, power and knowledge: The
politics of participatory action research in
development. Part 2: Analysis, reflections and
implications.’ Action Research, Volume 2(1):
25–46
THEME SECTION 1
CONTACT DETAILS
Kavitha Kuruganti
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture
12-13-445, Street No. 1
Tarnaka
Secunderabad 500017
India.
Email: kavitha.kuruganti@gmail.com
2
17
THEME SECTION 1
3
Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an
attempt to democratise policymaking on biotechnology
by PETER BRYANT
Introduction
Towards the end of January 2006, 45 Malian farmers gathered in Sikasso to deliberate the role of genetically modified
(GM) crops in the future of the country’s agriculture. This
farmers' jury was known as l’ECID (Espace Citoyen d’Interpellation Démocratique – Citizen’s Space for Democratic
Deliberation). It set out to give farmers, who have been previously marginalised from policy-making processes, the opportunity to share knowledge and make a series of
recommendations and influence future policy-making. This
was an experiment in deliberative democracy, and a brave
attempt to challenge the hegemony of pro-GM discourses.
L’ECID represented an attempt to amplify alternative viewpoints, the voices of those rarely asked for opinions, and the
perspectives of the people most profoundly affected by agricultural biotechnology. This article is the result of a visit to
Mali carried out some five months after l’ECID took place,
and focuses on examining the jury’s impact on local decision
makers.1
1 A longer version of this article is published in Biotechnology Policy in Africa,
Clark, N.G., Mugabe, J. and Smith, J. with Bryant P., Harsh M. and Hirvonen, M.,
(2007). ACTS Press: Nairobi, ISBN 9966-41-148-8.
18
“The farmers agreed unanimously to
reject GM crops and instead ‘proposed a
package of recommendations to
strengthen traditional agricultural
practice and support local farmers’.”
The Farmers’ Jury, Mali, January 2006
Between 25th–29th January 2006, 45 farmers from the
Sikasso region in southern Mali took part in l’ECID, a Malian
deliberative process strongly influenced by the citizens’ jury
model. Over the past 20 years there has been widespread
use of this model in the UK and US. It has been used by some
as an attempt to give those previously marginalised from
policy-making a voice. Others have used it as a way of finding
out opinions on an issue of public significance from (what
they have claimed is) a representative sample of citizens. Most
of them have a number of features in common:
• bringing together a diverse group of 20 to 30 citizens for
an in-depth deliberation;
• involving a number of information providers who offer a
further range of perspectives to the group;
Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an attempt to democratise policy-making on biotechnology
3
The women’s group at work during
the deliberation sessions. The jury
selection process emphasised the
need for equal representation of
different farmers, in particular
women and small scale producers.
Photo: Michel Pimbert
THEME SECTION 1
• producing a set of recommendations; and finally
• the presence of an oversight panel of key stakeholders who
check the rigour of the process.
In Mali l’ECID aimed to enable farmers:
• to have a better understanding of GM crops and the risks
and advantages they carry;
• to confront viewpoints and cross-examine expert witnesses,
both in favour and against GM crops and the industrialisation of agriculture; and
• to formulate recommendations for policies on GM and the
future of farming in Mali.
L’ECID was organised by the Regional Assembly of
Sikasso, with methodological support from the International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London
and the Réseau Interdisciplinaire Biosécurité (RIBios) of the
Institut Universitaire d’Etudes du Développement in Geneva.
Project funding was provided by the Swiss Development
Table 1: Executive Committee members of the ECID
Steering Group
Lyegoli Mamadou TEMBELE, Assemblée Régionale
Mamadou TOGOLA, Institut d’Economie Rurale (IER)
Souleymane OUATTARA, Centre Djoliba
Issiaka DEMBELE, Jubilee 2000 CAD/Sikasso
Oumarou SANOGO, Associations des Organisations Professionnelles
Paysannes (AOPP)
Youssouf SIDIBE, Compagnie Malienne de Développement des Textiles
Daouda MARIKO, Union Rurale des Radios et Télévisions (URTEL)/
Radio Kene
Boukary BARRY, Kene Conseils
Barbara Bordogna PETRICCIONE, Reseau Interdisciplinaire Biosecurite
(RIBios), Switzerland
Michel PIMBERT, International Institute for Environment and
Development (IIED), UK
19
3Peter Bryant
Photo: Michel Pimbert
THEME SECTION 1
The question and answer
session, during which the
jurors cross-examined the
expert witnesses.
Cooperation (SDC) and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (DGIS).
A steering group was set up in June 2005 to develop and
plan the citizens’ jury. This steering group was made of
approximately 15 members from various NGOs, unions and
government bodies, in addition to the international NGOs
providing methodological support (see Table 1).
In keeping with usual citizens’ jury methodology, a sevenstrong oversight panel was established. It consisted of a wellrespected ex-Minister and representatives from four
international NGOs. Firstly, in 2005, the steering committee
visited each of the seven districts (cercles) in the region of
Sikasso to explain the process to local actors and to discuss and
agree with them their role. Secondly, it commissioned an information guide on GM for the participants, to provide information before the process of deliberation commenced. The guide
was sent to both pro- and anti-GM experts for comments.
20
The Sikasso region has a population of more than 1.6
million inhabitants. The steering committee agreed a selection process to identify 45 farmers/producers from the seven
regional districts. The selection criteria aimed to ensure that
at least 30% of participants were women, and that all four
categories of farmer/producer used by the cotton company
CMDT were represented, as well as those affiliated to
peasant organisations and unions (large, small and medium
producers as well as a women’s group).2 Jury members also
needed to have a capacity to listen, communicate and ‘report
back the information to the actors in the districts’. Meetings
in each district produced a list of 45 participants, which was
approved by the steering committee who checked all of the
selection criteria had been satisfied.
2
Compagnie Malienne de Développement des Textiles.
Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an attempt to democratise policy-making on biotechnology
The oversight panel agreed a list of 25 ‘experts’ who were
invited to present to l’ECID. Ten refused or were unable to
take part. Participants gathered for four days to hear presentations from the ‘experts’, including farmers from France,
South Africa and India, government researchers from Burkina
Faso and Mali, scientists and various NGOs. After each
session, participants were able to pose questions and discuss
together what they had heard. After the final deliberative
session, participants were able to ask any of the experts to
return and answer further questions. Eight experts were
invited back. The participants worked in groups (based upon
the CMDT farmer classification) to produce a set of final
recommendations.
The farmers agreed unanimously to reject GM crops and
instead ‘proposed a package of recommendations to
strengthen traditional agricultural practice and support local
farmers’. Such recommendations included:
• a proposed agenda for research;
• approaches to farmer learning;
• a vision of organic farming;
• measures to tackle biodiversity; and
• a suggested list of decision makers who should receive the
recommendations.
The recommendations were passed on to the Sikasso
Regional Assembly on January 29th 2006.3
L’ECID: the impact
It is too early to judge any long-term impact of the hosting
of this process. However, some five months after the event,
key decision makers, process facilitators and a number of
farmer jurors identified some very real impacts. It appears that
the approval of legislation which needs to be in place before
GM crops can be introduced had been indefinitely delayed
as a direct result of l’ECID. This suggestion came from both
3 A more detailed explanation of the methodology followed and the
recommendations produced is given in ARdS, 2006.
anti-GM campaigners and most convincingly from key proGM decision makers. Commenting on his frustration over his
continuous efforts to take legislation to the Council of Ministers, which would allow the introduction of GM crops first
through field testing, one civil servant revealed:
…the delay has been because of the jury. It has been a
great impact, this has caused a problem.
This opinion was verified by the coordinator of an International Biosafety project:
THEME SECTION 1
“The jury was not only a tool for
activism: it acted as a transformative
element for the jurors themselves. The
farmers’ jury had an impact on farmers,
on politicians, on people both for and
against GM crops, and finally on the
jurors themselves.”
3
Everyone is pointing at this Citizens Jury in Sikasso… The
impact (of l’ECID) has been very negative… Here (in Mali)
things are stalling because of the misinformation made
worse by the jury.
This is a significant achievement for l’ECID, for without
such legislative approval it is very difficult for GM crops to be
introduced.
There was one very clear indication of the role of l’ECID
in raising awareness of the issue amongst politicians. It was
interesting to learn of a request from the Sikasso Regional
Assembly for a repeat of the Bamako l’ECID follow-up workshop (held in July 2006) for members of the Regional Assembly. At this workshop, five of the farmer jurors made
presentations summing up their deliberations. This was
followed by an explanation of the process and lengthy discussion. This development must be considered in the context of
the economic importance of the region (as the main agricultural producer) and also in the context of the power of the
Regional Assembly after decentralisation. In the words of a
senior civil servant:
Because Sikasso is so important the government is scared
to go forward.
The President of the Sikasso Regional Assembly, Kokozié
Traoré, confirmed that the jury had improved his knowledge
– and that if the jury’s opinion is no GM, then so shall his
opinion be. He finished the interview with the following:
We are under great pressure to accept the OGM (Genetically Modified Organisms) – but if it is accepted, will the
farmers be able to afford the seed? But who brings the
seed and the fertiliser, who will own this? It will not be us.
The critics, drawing upon their own disciplines,
21
THEME SECTION 1
3Peter Bryant
complained about the lack ‘of scientific basis’ and attempted
to rubbish the methodology. One senior civil servant
commented:
The anti-GM people gave information without giving the
source. From a scientific view point this is not fair.
Another key pro-GM stakeholder stated:
It’s easy to scare them rather than give them the science
based information.
Those searching for evidence of an approach to participation that is capable of going beyond the rhetoric of the
discourse, and leading instead to a transformative process
which challenges power bases, may be heartened by the
impacts listed above. However, less heartening is the feeling
that in fact l’ECID’s main impact will be only to delay the
introduction of GM crops to Mali. One Mali-based anti-GM
campaigner stated:
OGM (Genetically Modified Organisms) will come – all we
can do is delay it.
Ibrahim Coulibaly, CNOP (Coordination Nationale des
Organisations Paysannes du Mali – an umbrella organisation
representing Malian Farmers’ Organisations) also said:
The recommendations will not change the politician’s
mind or the researcher’s, but, it is a kind of warning to
these people. Please be careful.
Outlining what he described as the government’s new
strategy to get GM legislation passed, one senior civil servant
said:
They are trying another way. Wait till they (the public)
forget about the recommendations and then try again.
The notion that in Mali one of the key decision makers is
the farmer is strengthened by the history of powerful political activism and willingness to flex collective muscle as
witnessed through the strikes of 1991, 1996 and 2000. It is
with this in mind that one of the other main impacts of l’ECID
can be seen – that of an increased awareness of the issues
around GM crops amongst farmers. One official from a major
farmers’ organisation commented:
22
“L’ECID has had a very real impact in
Mali, both in terms of stimulating a
national debate and ultimately in
delaying the introduction of GM crops
into the country.”
Our association helped choose the members and they
then came back and gave us a report. Their report helped
us to understand the problem; we then went out to speak
to others.
This increased awareness also extended to NGO, union
and government representatives. The President of the
regional branch of one farmers’ organisation commented:
We were not sure what OGM means but the jury helped
us make up our mind.
This was reiterated by the President of Sikasso Regional
Assembly:
We are happy it (l’ECID) has started to help us understand
the issue.
The increased awareness and national impact of the
process was undoubtedly assisted by the high level of media
interest. Seven local radio stations broadcast the deliberations
live every day. Three national newspapers covered the event
as did the national TV channel. Many interviewees
commented on the role of the media in allowing the debate
to be extended from the l’ECID venue to the homes of thousands of Malians.
The jury clearly also built the capacity and confidence of
the jurors themselves:
It has given me confidence so I’m now prepared to talk
and give the recommendations to ten thousand people or
one million people. I will be able to talk to them with my
heart. I’m not afraid of this.
We came out with great strength. When you have the
recommendations you are powerful, you yourself can
become powerful.
I feel very strong because many people back home support
us. I am ready to take these recommendations forward.
Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an attempt to democratise policy-making on biotechnology
3
The process of citizen deliberation
and inclusion enjoyed a good media
coverage, with all hearings
broadcasted live by seven local
radio stations in the Sikasso region.
Photo: Michel Pimbert
THEME SECTION 1
The jury was not only a tool for activism: it acted as a
transformative element for the jurors themselves. The farmers’ jury had an impact on farmers, on politicians, on people
both for and against GM crops, and finally on the jurors
themselves. The jury raised the profile of debate and made
people aware of issues to a greater or lesser extent. It
provoked responses and it created momentum.
Science, knowledge and citizenship
L’ECID also presents an opportunity to examine the production of scientific knowledge in Mali. It clearly opened up the
debate to a wider audience. An official from a farmers’
organisation commented:
debate, but this was simplified to allow producers to make
the decision.
This broadening of the debate has allowed alternative
perspectives to be developed and articulated. Many important issues were grappled with, including:
• ethical and cultural issues around the production of transgenic crops;
• the role of existing organic modes of production;
• the role of women in agriculture; and
• questions of who should be involved in the setting of agricultural research agendas.
Technical fixes became embedded within economic
contexts:
Usually the debate is at the intellectual level.
A member of l’ECID steering committee said:
What’s the point of encouraging us to increase yields with
GMOs when we can’t get a decent price for what we
already produce?
The jury permits people to understand the intellectual
23
3Peter Bryant
Photo: Michel Pimbert
THEME SECTION 1
Participants of the citizens’
jury reading the newspaper
coverage of the event after
the first day of hearings.
Others talked very convincingly of how l’ECID very clearly
demonstrated the ability of citizens to contribute to policymaking processes. Ousmane Suy, Chair of the Oversight
Panel, offers the following:
know anything. The people who know are the farmers
and they’ve never been to school.
The success of the exercise proves that decentralised
communities and producers are capable of contributing
to public policy decisions.
Maybe it’s not written in a book but we understand what
is a good seed.
Such an opinion was also offered by the head of a
producers’ organisation and a witness at the jury. When
asked if he had learnt anything from his involvement in the
process, he stated:
One thing I discovered was that before going I thought I
knew everything in the rural world because I am an intellectual and a farmer; but I realised that the truth is with
the people who deal with farming. It has been a humbling
truth – I learnt a lot from this process and I realised I didn’t
24
And from a farmer juror himself:
These statements represent a closing of the gap between
the expert and the lay, an acknowledgement that different
forms and sources of knowledge can be brought together –
without having a hierarchy of knowledge.
Inevitably for some, l’ECID represented a threat to a power
base that uses knowledge as a means of legitimisation. Interviews with three key scientists (including two from a state agricultural research organisation) revealed an approach to
knowledge which saw an ordering of scientific knowledge
above other knowledge. One key role player who wished to
remain anonymous summed up their feelings as follows:
Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an attempt to democratise policy-making on biotechnology
3
The final verdict,
with farmers'
recommendations,
is delivered.
Photo: Roger Gaillard
THEME SECTION 1
The decree has not been signed and the blockage is due
to the lack of information. People are against it because
they don’t have enough information.
In a classic example of the use of the ‘deficit model’,
(which sees citizens possessing a knowledge deficit which
merely needs to be filled with expert knowledge), one scientist (who wished to remain anonymous) sums up the role of
farmers in the knowledge production process:
If they have the right information they can make the right
choice.
The same opinion also comes from a retired senior scientist who also wished to remain anonymous:
If the farmers were better educated they would ask them
(the government) to sign the decree.
One scientist commented that the main learning point
for scientists was to reinforce their communication strategy
so that, using the deficit model, farmer knowledge could be
improved. In none of the interviews with scientists did a
single one of them admit to gaining new knowledge from
the farmers.
Conclusion: from deficit to dialogue
L’ECID has had a very real impact in Mali, both in terms of
stimulating a national debate and ultimately in delaying the
introduction of GM crops into the country. It presents an
example of decision-making in action and raises questions
25
THEME SECTION 1
3Peter Bryant
regarding inclusion and exclusion and the privileging of
knowledge:
• how do we build dialogue when not everyone seeks
dialogue?
• how do we avoid continuing to privilege elite or expert
forms of expertise over citizen or lay knowledge?
However, in this case study, many of these questions are
rendered moot when one considers the refusal of Syngenta,
Monsanto and USAID to present their own knowledge for
15 minutes – let alone enter a potentially more threatening
deliberation over a few days on a more equal footing. The
refusal of one key scientist to attend the Bamako l’ECID
follow-up workshop on the basis that it would purely give
legitimacy to the process does not bode well.
CONTACT DETAILS
Peter Bryant
Email: pbinclusion@btinternet.com
Website: www.communityinvolvement.org.uk
26
One cannot help but feel that legitimacy is built through
dialogue. Withholding dialogue is a way to de-legitimise a
process. Active, engaged dialogue provides a two-way
generation of legitimacy – without it, the opposite
happens. Internalising this requires an acceptance of other
perspectives, other objectives and other forms of knowledge. Citizens’ juries are not the only way of introducing
participatory democracy into decision-making regarding
agricultural biotechnologies in Africa. What the case of Mali
does do, however, is allow us to ask questions about who
should be involved in decision-making of this sort, how real
dialogue between scientists and citizens can be promoted,
and how dialogue can help us build better agricultural technologies for Africa’s producers and consumers.
NOTES
The full report of l’ECID in addition to regular
updates is available on the IIED website:
www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/ag_liv_projects/
verdict.html
REFERENCES
ARdS (Assemble Regionale de Sikasso) (2006).
Rapport général. Espace Citoyen
d’Interpellation Démocratique (ECID) sue les
Organismes Génétiquement Modifiés (OGM)
en relation avec l’avenir de l’agriculture au
Mali. Ministère de l’administration territoriale
et des collectivités locales, Assemblée
Régionale de Sikasso: Mali
4
THEME SECTION 1
The UK Nanojury as ‘upstream’
public engagement
by JASBER SINGH
Introduction
In government and commercial circles, developments in
science, particularly molecular-scale and nanotechnologies,
are seen as crucial for Britain’s economic growth. Yet public
confidence in governance and scientific innovation is
acknowledged to be low.
The crisis of confidence in scientific progress among the
UK public, combined with calls for greater public participation
in governance, has led to what Alan Irwin has recently documented as a strategic shift in science-society relations. He
quotes from a European Commission document, which
describes how supposedly ‘innocent’ citizens are increasingly
being actively sought to ‘express their views about the possible directions of science and its impacts on society’ (Irwin,
2006). The increased commitment to engage the public in
science-related policy- and decision-making has been widely
welcomed as a step in the right direction. Policy makers
consider that public engagement will bring transparency and
openness into decision-making on technological developments, and will help to address public mistrust in science.
Initiatives in the National Health Service since 1998 have also
followed this trend (see review of Citizens at the Centre, In
Touch, this issue).
In the 1970s, sociologist Dorothy Nelkin reported that
“The Nanojury was an attempt to allow
open discussion of the policies and
developments in nanotechnologies
through a deliberative jury process.”
much of what passed for participation in governance could
best be understood as attempts by the powerful to co-opt
the public (Nelkin, 1975). Thirty years later, the worldwide
controversy on genetically modified (GM) crops indicated that
consultation processes occurring after a technology has been
developed and commercially released can be used by those
in power to create an illusion of public consent for the new
technology. This has led some people to question the wisdom
of UK public engagement initiatives such as GM Nation.1
Following the GM debate, some have suggested that all such
engagement should occur upstream – that is before the technology has been developed – as this would allow the technology to be shaped through public involvement (Willis and
1 See e.g. Genewatch’s report ‘GM Nation? The UK's public debate on GM
crops’. www.genewatch.org/sub-531175
27
4Jasber Singh
Three members of
the Nanojury
drafting their
recommendations.
Photo: PEALS Research Centre
Photo: PEALS Research Centre
THEME SECTION 1
Grace Maiso, who provided
information about the effect
of new technologies on rural
communities in Uganda.
Wilsdon, 2004). Furthermore, advocates of public engagement state that it ‘enables a society to discuss and clarify the
public value of science’ (Stilgoe et al., 2005).
The Nanojury was initially conceived as one of a string
of public engagement initiatives that heralded upstream
engagement in the post-GM era. Along with many other
public engagement processes which focus on new technologies, the Nanojury provided a public space to debate
issues that surround nanotechnology before the technology
was fully developed or, in most cases, widely commercially
available.2
The Nanojury process
Initiators and organisers
The idea of organising a Nanojury process came from Doug
Parr of Greenpeace UK, together with materials scientist
Mark Welland, of Cambridge University’s Nanoscience
Centre. Greenpeace has a history of protest around GM and
other scientific innovations and is traditionally sceptical of
2
28
See online resources section, this issue.
new government and business-led development. Rather than
simply taking an oppositional stance, the pressure group has
developed sophisticated critiques of certain scientific developments led by government and big business, to evaluate
(mostly Western) benefits and costs. In assessing nanotechnology, Greenpeace sought to pose questions such as:
• Who is shaping the agenda on nanotechnology?
• Who will it benefit?
• Will it improve the lives of the many?
• Is it pro-poor?
• What will be the effect on the environment?
Both Doug Parr and Mark Welland were keen to adopt an
approach that stimulated debate and encouraged public
participation in the issues surrounding nanotechnology. The
UK Guardian newspaper became involved as the project’s
media partner. This led to the collaboration with PEALS
(Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre) of Newcastle University, which has been convening public engagement
processes since the late 1990s.
Doug Parr was particularly keen to develop a process that
could highlight the power issues surrounding scientific development. He believed that nanotechnology would make a
good case study. In particular, he expected the process would
enable an analysis that could highlight where the power in
the development of science is concentrated – for instance, in
funding bodies such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and research councils. The Nanojury was an attempt
to allow open discussion of the policies and developments in
nanotechnologies through a deliberative jury process.
The design of the Nanojury
Whatever the rhetoric that surrounds them, the vast majority of citizens’ juries in the UK have been commissioned by
The UK Nanojury as ‘upstream’ public engagement
Reflections on the Nanojury
The two-way street style of engagement, with two separate
issues and processes running consecutively, provided critical
insights into the nature and quality of the jury process, and
in particular the role of organisers in defining and influencing the process, participation and outcomes. In the jury on
youth issues, the organisers played the role of a critical friend,
and facilitated finding appropriate witnesses in conjunction
with the jurors. During the nanotechnology component of
the jury process, the organisers had a more powerful status,
choosing the witnesses who were to take part and thereby
framing the process, the quality of the co-enquiry and the
types of questions asked.
The nanotechnology process gave the jurors little more
than a passive role. The organisers decided which expert
witnesses the jurors should hear. This limited the range and
substance of the knowledge to be debated, unlike the first
phase of the jury process on young people and exclusion.
3
Available online via www.nanojury.org.uk
Box 1: The Nanojury process
To recruit a diverse group of people – 25 in total – the PEALS team
selected some jury members randomly from the electoral roll, and
others from a variety of community organisations in West Yorkshire.
‘Expert’ witnesses – for, against or ambivalent on issues relating to
nanotechnologies – were invited to share their perspectives with the
jury. Each witness talked for up to 15 minutes, and then jurors were
free to ask for clarification on any of the points made. When the
witness left the room, groups of jurors worked with a facilitator to
discuss the issues raised and produce questions for the witness. The
witness was then called back to answer their questions, in an open
space for dialogue and debate, facilitated to ensure that everyone had
their say. After hearing all the witnesses, the jurors developed a series
of recommendations on the development of nanotechnologies.
THEME SECTION 1
decision makers primarily to provide social intelligence for
policy makers. So no power is ceded to jurors or their process
(see Kashefi and Keene, Haq, this issue). As a result, consultation fatigue is rife across the UK. Many community leaders
and workers are reluctant to take part, having experienced
decision makers’ reluctance to act on citizens’ recommendations. The PEALS team considered it vital to organise the
process in such a way that it resonated for people and was
rooted in their prime concerns.
The two-way street engagement process for the Nanojury took place in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. It involved a
first phase with a bottom-up process, where members of the
jury identified the issues that concerned them. In the second,
top-down part of the process, nanotechnology was specified
as a focus of concern by the funders and organisers of the
process. The Nanojury was a 12-week process with six weeks
dedicated to the bottom-up approach (see Box 1). The jurors’
chosen topic was young people and exclusion. They heard
evidence from youth workers, detached community workers,
drug rehabilitation workers and senior police officers. During
the second six weeks, participants went on to discuss the
dictated topic of nanotechnology. When the deliberations
were complete, the jurors collectively produced recommendations, including a short drama on the participant-led topic
and on nanotechnology. A separate film was also released
by PEALS at a launch of the jury’s recommendations in
London in September 2005.3
4
Power relations between organisers and jury members pose
a challenge to the future design of public engagement
processes. Organisers do provide a link between the jury and
policy makers. But at the same time the dynamic between
organisers and the jury needs to be more interactive, less rigid
and engineered. As Davies and her co-authors suggest in Citizens at the Centre, ‘in seeking to instate citizen deliberation
in a context of handling strategic issues of policy direction,
clarifying the grounds on which the citizens are being asked
to speak – creating jointly with them, an expertise space… is
fundamental’ (Davies et al., 2006).4
Our reflection on the Nanojury is that the range of organisers created a complex dynamic, with differing claims on
how the Nanojury process should be conducted. How
successfully these multiple agendas achieved the wider objective of democratising science requires further analysis by
jurors, facilitators and others.
Critical reflections on upstream engagement
Upstream engagement such as the Nanojury can open up
the discussion around emerging technology. Through the
Nanojury, the jurors gained insights into where and how decisions regarding nanotechnology are made, and were able to
comment on the developments. In this respect the Nanojury
opened up the policy arena on nanotechnology to the public.
What is unclear, however, is the influence that the Nanojury
has had on policy development. As it stands, it is up to the
power holders in business and government to voluntarily
‘take on’ the findings from the jury; there is no direct
accountability to respect their recommendations and
perspectives. The DTI’s promise, made in September 2005,
to provide a response to the Nanojury’s provisional recom4
Reviewed in this issue, In Touch section, p.138.
29
THEME SECTION 1
4Jasber Singh
“Power relations between organisers
and jury members pose a challenge to
the future design of public engagement
processes.”
mendations ‘in the short term’ has neither been fulfilled, nor
its absence explained.5 The jurors and organisers of the Nanojury would welcome a response by the DTI to the Nanojury’s
provisional recommendations – and to be informed how the
public involvement via the Nanojury has influenced policy and
development in the nanotechnology field.6
Two ‘one-way streets’ – science and society
Science policy makers claim to respond to the problems and
needs of society. However, if they cannot hear the voices from
the ground, how can they direct their research to meet those
problems? Jurors mentioned that they were concerned about
crime and the state of education and drug use, especially
among excluded young people. In this context, it is these
views and issues, not just debate about high-tech futuristic
developments, which should be helping to inform the
science-policy agenda. Yet the mutual engagement encouraged by the Nanojury failed to materialise on the side of
policy makers. While scientists and policy makers took part in
the process to encourage non-specialists to engage with their
spheres of work, these experts missed an opportunity to be
part of a mutual learning process on issues on which local
people had developed their own expertise and wanted
urgent policy changes.
A major lesson from this dual engagement process
concerns the science-society divide. Some of those involved
in commissioning the Nanojury seemed to perceive a neat
distinction between scientific and social issues, and gave more
significance to the jurors’ perspectives on social matters.
Upstream engagement can give the veneer of involving the
public in governance of technology, while key concerns about
the direction in which science is taking society, and how to
reorient science towards fulfilling our social and human needs,
are not addressed by the current government agenda.
Towards a community development model
The Nanojury succeeded in ensuring that people living in
an area of recent economic decline had an opportunity to
5 http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/4/9/14, Institute of Physics Publishing, London.
6 See article in Nanotechweb.org, ‘NanoJury gives its verdict.’ 27th September 2005:
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/23208.
30
determine an issue on which they wanted action. The
urgent concerns they raised were more directly related to
their locality. Some jurors certainly seemed to us to be
demanding that future technological progress should be
grounded in the values of community development. We
believe that the jurors would not have been able to draw
such a conclusion if it were not for the two-way street
engagement process.
It is important that the Nanojury experience is presented
to highlight the political dangers of framing issues solely
around technology, rather than human and environmental
needs. The jury, and participatory initiatives in general, are
subtle and intimate processes that touch the lives of the
people they seek to involve. With such intimacy, it is crucial
that engagement is done respectfully and that its practitioners show themselves to be acting in solidarity with the lives
of all those who are participants in the process (Dean, 1996).
Upstream public engagement fails to holistically engage with
the public in this way.
Moving out of the polluted stream
It doesn’t matter how far you move upstream if the stream
is polluted – that is, if it is unable to meet the needs of the
people and if it is weak on issues of justice. Will upstream
public engagement continue to be a force in policy development and continue to foster public mistrust in science?
There is an urgent need to move beyond simplistic
upstream-downstream thinking, with its unfortunate connotations of gravity-driven inevitability.
Initiatives are needed that move into community
centres, youth clubs, places of worship, pubs, football
pitches, parent and toddler groups – to where the people
are and where they have created communities. The Nanojury did move into these community spaces and heard what
people needed, but most nanotechnology specialists, social
scientists and policy makers only listened to the discussions
directly about nanotechnology.
We need to learn this and other lessons from the Nanojury in order to build diverse strategies to overcome the
science-society divide. One way we could do this is by
adopting a community development model, a model which
identifies the needs of people and attempts to respond to
these needs. If we want to see developments in science that
are accepted and of real value to the public, then we must
learn from the community development model and identify the needs of the community. Past attempts at science
shops – particularly in the Netherlands and Denmark – have,
in part, adopted this strategy, as have participatory crop
The UK Nanojury as ‘upstream’ public engagement
Upstream engagement
Community co-inquiry
Participants intended to be a cross-section of a particular population or
region, often at random.
Participants chosen non-randomly to be fully inclusive of groups that
experience oppression or marginalisation.
Lay people (i.e. non-specialists) invited to discuss a potential scientific
or technological development pre-determined by the organisers via the
facilitators.
Mixture of specialists and non-specialists begin by discussing what
issues matter to them in their lives and what they’d like to change,
without any imposition of ideas from the organisers or facilitators.
Non-specialists asked to reach judgements, having been presented with
scientific ‘facts’ from specialists.
The perspectives of non-specialists and specialists are valued equally, as
they all draw on rich experience and are open to be debated by the
group.
Specialists act merely as informers of non-specialists.
Specialists and non-specialists work with citizens on an equal footing in
reaching conclusions.
Process happens in facilitated sessions totalling around twenty to fifty
hours, usually spread over a few days or weeks.
Open-ended process that continues for as long as participants remain
interested.
Form of output (usually a report) determined by funder and/or
facilitator.
Form of output decided jointly between, funder, facilitators and
participants.
breeding programmes in India and elsewhere (Pimbert,
1994).7
The community development model we propose (see
Table 1) should ensure that proposed solutions are analysed
in relation to current political reality and that solutions are
shaped by a co-inquiry with the people they are meant to
benefit. It should be accountable and open to interrogation and the outcome should change if required. The technology’s objectives should be co-produced between
specialists and the non-specialist members of the public.
For instance, a recent community x-change experiment
brought people together to discuss and find solutions to
climate change (Eady, Singh, Taylor-Gee, Wakeford, article
6, this issue). It ensured that there was community and
expert analysis on climate change, but that these analyses
and areas of knowledge were exchanged. It emerged that
climate change could only be challenged if solutions were
integrated into solving community-defined problems, such
as feelings of powerlessness and a lack of collective
meeting centres. A community co-inquiry model would use
people’s experiences as a valuable tool in shaping solutions
to development, not keep solutions to problems in isolated
boxes labelled ‘science’ or ‘society’.
7
See www.scienceshops.org
THEME SECTION 1
Table 1: Differences between a standard model of upstream engagement and a community development or
co-inquiry approach
4
Final thoughts
The Nanojury gained media attention as a pioneering
process of upstream engagement. The BBC Today
Programme was so impressed they commissioned their own
citizens’ jury from PEALS that focussed on the issue of youth
crime and respect.8 But the Nanojury did more than just
open up a new area of science to public deliberation. With
its dual process, it has highlighted the limitations of public
engagement as the developing technology is discussed in
isolation from the main concerns of people’s everyday lives
(see also Eady, Singh, Taylor-Gee, Wakeford, article 6, this
issue). It appears that science development occurs in isolation to people’s everyday concerns.
As this journal was going to press, we noticed that a
leading UK university was advertising for a public engagement officer whose job was to ‘undertake public relations
on behalf of stem-cell researchers’. With the growing
momentum of upstream engagement, the experiences of
the Nanojury should serve as a gentle reminder of the need
to ensure that public engagement is not a expensive public
opinion survey, or worse a marketing exercise, but a worthy
attempt to strive for democracy.9
8 See: www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/politics/citizenjury_reading_
20050908.shtml
9 See e.g. http://practicalaction.org/?id=technology_democracy and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_engagement
31
THEME SECTION 1
4Jasber Singh
32
CONTACT DETAILS
Jasber Singh
London Wildlife Trust
Skyline House
200 Union Street
London SE1 0LX
UK
Email: jasbersingh@gmail.com
REFERENCES
Davies, C., Wetherall, M., and Barnett, E.
(2006) Citizens at the Centre: Deliberative
participation in healthcare decisions. Policy
Press: London
Dean, J. (1996) The solidarity of strangers:
Feminism after identity politics. London, University of California Press
Irwin, A. (2006) ‘The Politics of Talk: coming to
terms with the “new” scientific governance.’
Social Studies of Science 36: 2. New York: USA
Nelkin, D. (1975) ‘The political impact of technical expertise.’ Social Studies of Science 5: 37.
New York: USA
Pimbert, M. (1994) ‘The need for another
research paradigm.’ Seedling 11: 20-26.
Online: www.grain.org/seedling/?id=390
Stilgoe, J., Wilsdon, J. and Wynne, B. (2005)
The Public Value of Science. Or how to ensure
that science really matters. DEMOS: London
Online: www.demos.co.uk/publications/
publicvalueofscience
Willis, R. and Wilsdon, J. (2004) ‘See through
science.’ DEMOS: London
5
by ELHAM KASHEFI and CHRIS KEENE
THEME SECTION 1
Citizens’ juries in Burnley, UK:
from deliberation to
intervention
Figure 1: Map of UK showing Burnley
Introduction
This article describes the experience of two innovative
community-based citizens’ juries that took place in Burnley,
Lancashire, in northern England. Jury One was the first citizens’ jury to be commissioned and part-funded by a community organisation for the benefit of the local community.1
Local residents chose the topic of most concern, chaired the
process and had input into process development. Over three
months, the jury discussed the problem of drug-related
burglaries in their neighbourhoods. They made over 80
recommendations on a broad range of topics such as
housing, community safety, prevention, transport, parenting,
service provision and support options for users. Although the
process had great value for the community and professionals who participated, the jury’s report led to no tangible
outcomes in terms of changes in policy or practice. Despite
prior agreement from key agencies, the agencies took no
action because they did not have to – from the outset the
process had been set up by us as an activist intervention in
the exercise of power, but outside of local governance
processes.
1 The majority of the funding for Jury One came from the research project that
author Elham Kashefi was working on, which was itself funded by a national
sustainable development organisation.
33
THEME SECTION 1
5Elham Kashefi and Chris Keene
“We wanted the jury to be an activist
tool that could lead to change at the
local level, to open up possibilities for
professionals to come face-to-face with
people experiencing the effects of their
policies.”
Two years later, a second citizens’ jury was held in the
area, this time considering what would improve the health
and well-being of people living in the area.2 Local activists
working through a multi-agency steering group initiated this
jury. They brought together professionals working in key
agencies with local residents and grassroots community
workers to develop and steer the process. Jurors met over
one week and made more than 100 recommendations on a
diverse range of topics relating to health and well-being.
Contrary to experience with Jury One, many of their recommendations were acted upon. In particular, an innovative
healthcare centre was opened in the area, with outreach and
community work as its core values. The success of this jury
rested on many factors, but most importantly, it may have
been because there was a match between the issue of
importance to local people and government targets for a
reduction in health inequalities. As an insider project, this
jury was networked into local governance processes.
About Burnley
Burnley is an industrial town situated in a valley in the north
of England, which is populated by 88,000 people. Within
the six square miles that form the urban part of Burnley are
some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.
About a quarter of the population and households in
Burnley live in areas classified in the top 10% most deprived
neighbourhoods in England. South West Burnley (SWB) itself
covers a small part of inner Burnley, and is a mixture of social
housing, private rented terraced houses and owner-occupier
accommodation a few miles from the town centre. About
half of residents in the area live below the poverty line and
a quarter are said to have long-term limiting illness. Until
recently, much of the housing stock was considered unfit for
habitation.
2 Jury
Two was commissioned by a state-funded health agency working at the
local level.
34
Context for our work
The context within which we developed these juries needs
a little explanation. When New Labour was elected in 1997,
public agencies began to be mandated to involve the public
in service planning and provision. Professionals had previously been trained to use their expertise to make decisions.
They were now being asked to consult the public. They had
to change their way of working from being insular and
inward looking to being open, transparent and accountable.
Not only was the public to be consulted on service planning
but they were also to be asked to judge the performance of
these agencies. This was a huge culture shift which, ten
years on, is still far from complete. Nevertheless, social inclusion and public consultation became essential requirements
for agency action. The demand for consultation work was
responded to by the creation of what we can only describe
as a consultation industry. A plethora of consultation
methods, standardised toolkits and do-it-yourself manuals
started to appear to deliver ‘the’ public view at a competitive price. The problem with these processes was that they
delivered the public view in a sanitised and unproblematic
package that could be used by service managers and policy
makers as part of a tick-box process without regard to
quality, effect or content.
During this period, the London-based think-tank, the
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), was developing
citizens’ juries as a way of reinvigorating democratic participation. In the mid-90s IPPR imported a version of citizens’
juries from the Jefferson Centre in Minneapolis in the US.
It promoted them as processes by which the public view
could be obtained in an objective and scientific way. These
juries were piloted in the UK by IPPR, the Kings Fund Policy
Institute and the Local Government Management Board.
They decided to pilot these juries in the UK and their
process involved randomly recruiting 12-16 people to meet
for 3-5 days to discuss a specific issue of concern to the
jury commissioners (such as health agencies and local
authorities). In these juries, expert witnesses are invited to
make presentations and answer questions. At the end,
jurors vote on the question and are given time to present
their recommendations to the commissioners.
The IPPR model was a research tool, used to find out
what people thought about an issue of relevance to the
commissioners. Expert testimony was central to these
processes. The construction of citizens here was very much
as uninformed lay people who needed to be presented
with information from experts in order to make rational
and informed decisions. Also, in pursuance of ‘objective’
Citizens’ juries in Burnley, UK: from deliberation to intervention
Underlying assumptions of IPPR juries
Underlying assumptions of SWB juries
To increase legitimacy of liberal democratic decision-making processes
To establish legitimacy of, and increase trust in, local/community-based
decision-making
(Kashefi, 2006)
To increase trust in local and national government
Recruitment aims to be broadly representative of community
Recruitment to expressly include participation by marginalised
members of community
To deliberate on questions of relevance to authority/commissioners
To deliberate on questions of relevance to community
To promote dialogue about pre-defined options
To question underlying assumptions behind pre-defined options
Discussions must focus on a specific question set by
commissioners/steering group
Deliberations to be guided by participants problematising their own
situation
Facilitators’ role is to remain neutral and objective
Facilitators state their position of alignment with jurors
Jurors need expert witnesses to inform them
Jurors seen as having expertise based on their life experience
Experts invited to impart knowledge
Experts invited as co-enquirers and informants
Citizens’ juries can act as a platform for decision makers to
communicate their way of working and hence increase public
understanding
Citizens’ juries can act as a platform for decision makers to be held
directly accountable and be challenged to reconsider oppressive ways
of working
Process aimed at producing a report for consideration by policy
committees
Process aimed at bringing about locally-defined action
Process seen as one-off piece of consultation to complement
professional decision-making
Process seen as means of engaging with local people as part of
ongoing community action
Deliberation involves being serious, rational, logical and un-emotive
Deliberation involves being emotional and humorous as well as logical
and practical.
Deliberations to be contained and temporally bounded.
Deliberative process to be ‘porous’ over time i.e. allow outside world to
come inside, and inside world to go out.
or ‘scientific’ claims by the Jefferson Centre and IPPR, facilitators were briefed to remain neutral and merely chair the
debates. We, as facilitators, were fuelled by anger at the
injustices we saw and felt passionate about doing something to intervene. We made no pretensions to be neutral
or objective. We wanted the jury to be an activist tool that
could lead to change at the local level, to open up possibilities for professionals to come face-to-face with people
experiencing the effects of their policies, and to humanise
‘policy’ and its implications. We wanted the experts to be
held accountable to the community. In short, we wanted
to create a totally different space to the juries we had read
about. We took the IPPR model and adapted it for our own
purpose.
Jury One: community responses to drug-related crime
This jury was commissioned by a local community organisa-
THEME SECTION 1
Table 1: Contrasts in underlying assumptions of different models of citizens’ juries
5
tion working on sustainable development issues within the
neighbourhood.3 When we began developing the first jury,
we had no pre-determined ideas about the topic for the jury,
the recruitment process or how the jury itself would work.
All we knew was that we wanted to find a way for local
people to be involved in decisions that affected them. As far
as we could see, millions of pounds of public money was
being spent ‘regenerating’ the area but this did not seem to
be improving the lives of anyone living there.
We were keen to involve agencies with responsibility for
the area from the outset. Over the next 12 months we held
meetings with key agencies, councillors, and local authority
officers. We explained why we were interested in the jury
process and what we planned to do. It was important to have
these agencies’ support. Each agreed to respond to the jury’s
3 Elham Kashefi was the researcher evaluating this project; Chris Keene was the
chair of the organisation.
35
THEME SECTION 1
5Elham Kashefi and Chris Keene
“In many small yet significant ways, we
made interventions in the exercise of
power, especially in subverting the
dominant paradigm of professionals as
experts and sole holders of expertise.”
report within three months of receiving it.
In September 1998, 10 local people met for the first time,
as a citizens’ jury.4 We met one night a week in a local pub,
the atmosphere was that of an informal community project.
Six expert witnesses were invited to make presentations to
the jury.5 For the rest of the time, jurors discussed the issue
of drug-related crime amongst themselves, to develop their
own recommendations. After 11 sessions over 3 months, the
jury made more than 80 recommendations on topics such as
housing, community safety, prevention, youth work, transport and support for parents. For example, jurors recommended that the Health Authority should fund a
drugs-testing facility in the neighbourhood to prevent fatalities from impure drugs and that the Health Authority should
draw on the expertise of local people in creating drugs
prevention strategies.
Many of Jury One’s recommendations were about increasing democratic control and accountability of public services, in
particular the police. So, for example, the jury recommended
that agencies involved in administering parenting and curfew
orders should meet with community groups and local residents to plan how the orders are used, or that the rules of
entrapment of drug dealers should be published and openly
discussed with residents of South West Burnley. There were
also many recommendations about how public money should
be spent – that is, that juries could be used as vehicles for
priority setting priorities for public expenditure.
Even though we had done a lot of development work
with agencies beforehand, we received a negative response
from most statutory sector agencies. The Drugs Service was
angry at many jury recommendations (for example, legalising cannabis to break the link with harder drugs and
community drugs testing facilities). The police ignored the
report, although the chair of the Police Authority wrote a
letter in support. The Borough Council wrote a full response
4 The steering group drew up a recruitment profile for the jury based on local
census data and local knowledge. This profile was then used by a market research
professional who talked with residents in the streets and in their homes until she
was able to recruit enough people to satisfy the profile.
5
These were senior workers from health promotion, probation, the police, youth
justice, youth work and the local council.
36
to the jury’s recommendations but nothing ever came out
of its response. A local NGO also wrote a response but
again, we did not hear of anything changing as a result. No
one else responded. All the work that had gone into building up community-based responses to drug-related crime
fell on deaf ears.
Although at the time this felt like a lack of success, later
analysis of the transcripts and follow-up with some of the
people involved has shown that the process in itself was
successful in other ways. First and foremost, it allowed for
the organic unfolding of knowledge, in all its messiness and
with all its contradictions and complexities. Secondly, the
process enabled stories to be told and heard, and this act of
storytelling and listening was key to the development of the
recommendations and how the experts who were there were
opened to new ways of looking at their work. For example,
at the final feedback meeting with local agencies and
community representatives where the jury’s recommendations were being presented, one senior officer remained silent
throughout the discussions and when asked why he had not
contributed to the discussion, he became tearful and said, ‘I
wish some one had told me all this years ago. I’ve been doing
the wrong thing for 20 years.’ Many other professionals had
similar experiences. Thirdly, Jury One was a situated process
that intervened in the exercise of power in that time, in that
place, with those people. In many small yet significant ways,
we made interventions in the exercise of power, especially in
subverting the dominant paradigm of professionals as experts
and sole holders of expertise.
Jury Two: what would improve the health and wellbeing of local people?
One of the reasons for the lack of action from agencies in
Jury One was that we did not have funding for a dedicated
worker who could follow up the report and campaign on
behalf of the jury. Another reason was that we had set up
the process as an outsider project in oppositional mode, and
this positioning left few, if any, direct avenues into ‘official’
spaces we sought to affect. We were aware of these shortcomings and these reflections informed our action on the
second jury that was held in the area.
Jury Two was initiated by a multi-agency working group
(the Health and Social Group) in SWB that was brought
together by a local community development organisation to
improve the health of people living in SWB. In 1999, discussions in the group turned to exploring possibilities for setting
up a Healthy Living Centre as a way of addressing residents’
needs, but the funding bid required evidence of community
Citizens’ juries in Burnley, UK: from deliberation to intervention
6
Primary Care Groups, at the time, were health service commissioners. Based at
the local level, they were seen to be effective mechanisms for responding to
health needs at the local level.
“The Burnley juries were
groundbreaking because community
groups rather than public sector
agencies initiated them for the benefit
of the community (and not for the
benefit of the agencies).”
THEME SECTION 1
involvement in the development of the bid. So the Burnley
Primary Care Group, acting on behalf of the group, commissioned a citizens’ jury on what would improve the health and
well-being of people living in SWB.6 The membership of this
group would eventually prove to be a key factor in the
success of the jury because it had senior representation from
key public sector agencies and local NGOs, i.e. the people
who would be able to act on the jury’s recommendations.
Twelve local people were recruited to the jury and met
over one week in 2000. Each was paid for their participation
and for child- or elder-care. Throughout the week the jury
heard from 21 witnesses ranging from doctors, social
workers, health visitors, community development workers
and senior policy makers to mental health service users and
residents. One key aspect of this jury was the reconstruction
of expertise. Here it was the residents who were seen as the
experts on their own lives, who were holding the professionals to account, and who were doing the problematising.
Jury Two made many recommendations about schemes
which could rebuild the fabric of the communities in South
West Burnley, such as a community transport scheme,
community arts festivals, inter-generational social/activity
groups, equipment share schemes, a community garden
scheme and a community care co-operative. Some of these
projects were already developing with volunteers, but they
needed financial backing. In all, the jurors made more than
100 recommendations, which the jurors presented to the
commissioners on the last day.
All jurors were invited to participate in the follow-up
process and many joined the Health and Social Group for
some time as a result. After a prolonged period of consideration and many funding applications, the group developed
an innovative health centre, which brought together many
of the jury’s recommendations. A community development
worker rather than a medical professional now heads the
health centre, which has a steering group made up of local
residents and other professionals to direct its work plan. Two
jurors sit on the steering group and one has become an integral actor within the centre. Rather than waiting for people
to visit them with health problems, much of the work is done
on an outreach basis in women’s refuges, factories, pubs,
workplaces, schools and any other place where people
congregate. The centre houses anti-bullying workers, anger
management workers, counsellors, health visitors, dentists
and nurse practitioners. Health workers also provide activi-
5
ties for local children during school holidays in recognition of
the fact that without adult supervision, children’s health may
suffer.
The success of Jury Two, in the first instance, rested on
having representatives from key agencies in the Health
and Social Care Group. Secondly, this group then brought
in researchers to develop the jury so that the outcome
would be seen as independent from the commissioners.7
Thirdly, the jury process enabled jurors to hear from
professionals and community activists who were brought
in as co-inquirers.
Opening out the process in this way was crucial to the
success of the jury process. The jury’s recommendations
were embedded within the Primary Care Group’s
programme of work because the issue that was important
to local people – improved access to health care – directly
matched the Group’s target for reducing health inequalities.
Furthermore, all H&SC group members could comment on
any aspect of the jury process – for example, if they were
not happy with the recruitment profile or recruitment
process, or if they felt witnesses were not providing a
balanced view. In this way, researchers tried to prevent
subsequent marginalisation of the jury’s recommendations
by agencies claiming the process was invalid because of who
was recruited, how they were recruited, or who provided
evidence. This wider group also acted as a conduit to other
agencies (such as the Borough Council or the Health Authority) once the jury report was published, and it was instrumental in the dissemination of the jury’s findings.
Conclusion
The Burnley juries were groundbreaking because community groups rather than public sector agencies initiated
them for the benefit of the community (and not for the
benefit of the agencies). They were community interven7
Elham Kashefi and Maggie Mort, based at the Institute for Health Research,
Lancaster University developed Jury Two with the steering group, facilitated the
sessions, compiled the report and participated in the follow-up process.
37
THEME SECTION 1
5Elham Kashefi and Chris Keene
tions because the force for change came from the direction of residents, local activists, community workers, and
jurors themselves. They created a space where the notion
of expertise was subverted, where local people were no
longer constructed as lay people as empty vessels that
needed filling up with information, but instead as experts
of their own lives with valuable knowledge and wisdom
that could shape policy and practice. They named oppressive practice. They were powerful vehicles where untold
stories could be told and heard, and where these stories
of pain and social injustice could directly intersect with
policy and policy makers.
CONTACT DETAILS
Elham Kashefi
Department of Geography
Lancaster University,
Lancaster, LA1 4YQ
UK
Email: e.kashefi@lancaster.ac.uk
Chris Keene
Stoops and Hargher Clough Youth &
Community Centre
Venice Street
Burnley
Lancashire, BB11 4BA
UK
Email: chris_291@msn.com
38
I think for the professionals that were there [at the jury
meetings] it made them look at things differently … They
couldn’t run away and hide from it. It was there in their
face, there was evidence that these things weren’t working.
There was no excuses, there was no back door or tell ‘em
I’ll ring them back later. They had to sit there and face it
and really think about it. I don’t think you can get away
from some of those issues and some of those stories that
were raised up there. They were really heartbreaking things
that had happened. You’d have to be inhuman to not take
that on board. (Anonymous community worker and Steering group member, Jury Two).
REFERENCES
Kashefi, E (2006) Citizens’ Juries: From
Deliberation to Intervention. Doctoral thesis,
Institute for Health Research, Lancaster
University
NOTES
Elham Kashefi is a researcher based at the
Department of Geography, Lancaster
University. At the time of the juries, Elham
Kashefi was working on a project to evaluate a
local sustainable development project that
became the commissioners for Jury One. She
was the lead researcher and facilitator for both
these juries.
Chris Keene is a community development
activist, worker and consultant and resident of
South West Burnley. He played a lead role in
the development of Jury One and was also the
Jury chairperson. He was an advisor and expert
witness for Jury Two and was involved in the
follow up process.
6
THEME SECTION 1
Community x-change:
connecting citizens and scientists
to policy makers
by NIGEL EADY, JASBER SINGH, ALICE TAYLOR-GEE and TOM WAKEFORD
Introduction
Our community x-change process aims to strengthen links
between the public, scientists and decision makers, and to
create opportunities for discussion and debate that will help
to influence the directions of policy.
Our project draws on elements of various methodologies
for public participation, not least the IPPR citizens' jury model
(see Kashefi and Keene, article 5, this issue).1 However, it
seeks to incorporate learning from experiences of bottomup processes of engagement, which provide space for participants to set and shape the agenda. A conventional IPPR-style
citizens' jury would have a decision or question on which to
make a ruling. However, as the name suggests, the community x-change is a process by which a group of citizens
exchange experiences with appropriate stakeholders in order
to co-produce knowledge. Therefore, the boundaries
between experts and lay knowledge are disrupted in order
to create a safe space where all knowledge is respected and
recognised without any form of knowledge being given
special attention on an elevated platform.
An unusual feature of the community x-change
approach, compared to most science communication events
1
Institute for Public Policy Research (www.ippr.org)
“…the aim was to over-represent
groups who might not be able to push
themselves to the fore in a public
meeting or consultation….”
in the UK, is that it provides opportunities for scientists to
participate in an engagement process as regular participants,
without being called upon to act as experts.
Origins
In the mid-1980s in the UK, it began to be acknowledged
that communication is an integral part of being a scientist.
Initial attempts to communicate tended towards a one-way
transfer of information from the ‘knowledgeable’ scientist to
the public. However, with both a perceived lack of public trust
in science and controversy over issues such as genetically
modified organisms (GMOs), foot and mouth disease and
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), to name but a few
topics, it has become clear that a one-way knowledge
exchange is not enough. It is in this context that the community x-change aims to involve scientists not as experts but as
39
6Nigel Eady, Jasber Singh, Alice Taylor-Gee and Tom Wakeford
citizens. For most scientists familiar with a reductionist
approach to a particular question or problem, it is unusual to
be involved in an approach which draws on a broad range
of expertise, and which values lay perspectives on issues
normally the preserve of the ‘expert’.2
The project is the joint initiative of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) and the Policy, Ethics
and Life Sciences Research Centre (PEALS), based at Newcastle and Durham universities. The first x-change was convened
in the summer months preceding the BA’s annual Festival of
Science, a six-day series of talks, discussions and debates
highlighting recent scientific developments and intended for
the public and popular media. A small group of participants
from the community x-change shared their experiences of
the x-change process at a session held at the Festival in
Norwich on 6 September 2006, where a video of the xchange meetings was also shown.
The Norwich community x-change
In the summer of 2006, a group of people of mixed age,
ethnicity and background, took part in the first community xchange, in the city of Norwich in East Anglia, UK. They met
to discuss local issues of concern, and also to reflect upon
and debate about their local environment and climate
change, to share their thoughts and ideas on possible action,
2 ‘Reductionism can either mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature
of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to
simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a
complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can
be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.’ Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism
40
Photos: Community x-change camera volunteers
THEME SECTION 1
Participants discussing issues
in the community x-change
were sometimes aided by an
interpreter (left).
and to frame questions for further exploration. They then
raised these ideas and asked questions of the decision
makers, whom they themselves had nominated to be invited
to the final workshop. Highlights of the discussions,
presented in a series of short videos of the x-changes,
recorded by six young people who had previously participated in a community video project, are available on the
project’s website.3
Over four days in June and July, 39 people – mostly from
Norwich, Lowestoft and Peterborough – met in Norwich. Two
participatory practitioners had spent time building contacts
with community groups throughout the region, to recruit
participants from a wide range of communities. Sixteen
participants had responded to an invitation sent to people
3
www.the-ba.net/communityxchange
Community x-change: connecting citizens and scientists to policy makers
had been devoted to drawing up a list of potential information providers. So the group was able to say who they
deemed to be trusted sources of information and to generate questions for these specialists. Those who attended
included two environment experts, one who works with a
variety of stakeholders, including businesses, on a project to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The other was an environmental activist. A police community support officer, a local
councillor and the local MP also attended.
THEME SECTION 1
on the electoral role, and eight scientists were recruited from
the University of East Anglia and Norwich Research Park. It
should be noted that the process was not trying to achieve
a representative sample of the local population. Rather the
aim was to over-represent groups who might not be able to
push themselves to the fore in a public meeting or consultation. For example, participants included individuals from the
Bangladeshi and Portuguese communities who do not speak
English, and young men from a hostel.
Despite the large group, relationships quickly developed,
especially as participants met others living in the same local
area. Initial discussions focused on issues about the local environment, such as transport and crime. How could public
transport networks be improved? What factors are driving
young people towards criminal behaviour? As the group
began to feel they had ownership of the discussions, and that
no questions or comments were out of bounds, groups
began to gel.
On the second day, a local environment campaigner,
Maxine Narburgh from a charity called Suffolk Connect (now
Bright Green), helped to facilitate sessions along with six of
the charity’s environmental volunteers. In particular, this
helped the participants to relate the issues they had raised to
climate change. For many of the participants, climate change
appeared to be a global issue for governments to discuss and
tackle. However, relating global warming to the amount we
consume, whether we recycle, the modes of transport we
choose – or have – to use, started to open up debate.
On the third day, the participants delved deeper into the
issues they had begun to discuss over the first weekend.
Alongside issues related to climate change, the group were
keen to include social issues of community breakdown and
the lack of public meeting places. Of significant concern were
specific issues around meeting places for, quite often, isolated
ethnic minority women. The participatory process enabled
gender inequalities to be drawn out and drew attention to
the importance of women’s voices in climate change
discourse. Part of the process involved the group looking at
various scenarios, written by the project team, to present
some of the tensions emerging from climate change. Participants talked about the issues in small groups, and two
groups decided to dramatise their discussions. One drama
addressed flooding in Norfolk, and the other issues of exclusion and isolation. In both cases, the dramas brought a real
depth and richness to the process.
In the final workshop, participants had the opportunity
to discuss issues raised during the x-change process with
‘information providers’. One session in a previous workshop
6
Feedback from reviewers
After Norwich, a team of reviewers, Jenny Chapman and
Antonella Mancini, with expertise in community development and participatory approaches, were commissioned to
undertake a mid-term review of the process. The intention
was to draw out lessons learnt so far, to be incorporated into
the next community x-change in Liverpool. These reviewers
read all the reports and diaries, viewed the video and raw
footage, interviewed 21 members of the project team and
the participants, and held a focus group discussion in
Norwich with five participants. Although the sample was
small and unrepresentative, it was clear that the workshops
were enjoyed by most participants and that most had found
the experience interesting and engaging. Some participants,
however, would have liked more clarity about the purpose
behind the workshops. Most expected that something would
come out of the process and, in particular, that the information generated would be presented to decision makers. One
benefit of working with the review team was that it became
clear that a more realistic assessment was needed of
resources – human and financial – available to make change
take place.
In discussion with the reviewers, the project team
acknowledged that they were over optimistic in their expectations as to what they could achieve in a short period of
time, in a process led by people from outside the region and
with only temporary links to local communities. Another issue
that the review team voiced was that there was too little
attention paid to explaining to participants the overall
purpose of what was being done.
The reviewers recommended an externally facilitated
workshop to look at objectives for the next project phase, to
agree clear, shared and realistic objectives and to develop a
clear theory of change as to how those objectives might be
achieved. The project team were only too aware of the inherent power imbalance within the project around decisionmaking on issues of climate change. However, in seeking to
redistribute the power, particularly around local issues of
41
THEME SECTION 1
6Nigel Eady, Jasber Singh, Alice Taylor-Gee and Tom Wakeford
“..this sort of knowledge, derived from
these ‘experts by experience’ is rarely
valued by policy makers.”
Peter McKeown writes:
concern, there was now a clear plan for how participants
might affect change. Future workshops would need to allow
participants to work with stakeholders to formulate and own
a plan to create a better future.
The review team also advocated that the key stakeholders take collective responsibility to improve group dynamics
within the project team. All team members should know
what is happening and why. The reviewers judged that there
had been insufficient feedback and joint reflection about the
model and methodology employed at Norwich. We needed
to prioritise learning, monitoring and evaluation in the next
phase of work. The reviewers specifically recommended a
clear write-up of methodology before the workshops and
that the x-change process would benefit both from ongoing
feedback from participants and from project team members.
Where a number of project partners work together, clear
terms of reference needed to be negotiated within the
project team to enable a transparent and mutually agreed
decision-making process.
Feedback from participants
Four of the scientist participants kept a diary of their experiences, from which the following quotations are drawn. Helen
Czerski asks:
So what will come of all this? It was a fantastic way to
explore the problems in society and to hear many different points of view. There was a genuine feeling that if this
group had a discussion and made a decision, after hearing
a cross-section of opinions and the reasons for them, then
the group as a whole would be far more likely to respect
that decision, even if they didn’t like it. But how do you
use a set of opinions expressed by such a group? It was
very useful for all of us, but how could we apply what we
discovered more generally? I think that the links made
between people who live close enough together to see
each other on the streets of Norwich or Colchester will be
very valuable to them, but the whole of East Anglia is a
bit too large for that sort of interaction. I hope that more
of these happen and that it makes local communities
more cross-linked as a result. The more people who are
exposed to the opinions of others in society in an envi42
ronment like this, the better – or so I think. Thank you to
the BA for giving me the opportunity to participate. And
if you ever hear of one of these happening near you, don’t
hesitate to volunteer!
I certainly came away from the x-change with a lot of food
for thought, as well as a lot of optimism about people’s
enthusiasm for dealing with problems within local areas.
Like most of us, I’ll be interested in seeing what becomes
of the outcome – what thoughts it provokes when shown
at the [BA] Festival, and how it compares with the results
of other similar exercises. I particularly hope it is followed
up on by local government, and attracts interest from the
local press, as opportunities to hear people frankly
discussing their thoughts in an unpressured environment
are all too rare.
Laura Bowater writes:
The wonderful thing about the x-change was that it
brought together a great big melting pot of different
people from many communities and walks of life who
under normal circumstances would never ever interact with
each other. It made me see that in today’s society we are
individuals who have some contact with our immediate
community but that we have hardly any contact with
different communities or members of society […] The really
amazing thing that I discovered was that almost everyone
in these communities wanted to find ways to break
through the barriers […] and form wider links with other
people from other backgrounds, other beliefs, and other
age groups. We noticed that our immediate environment
and where we live can make a huge difference to creating
these links. It was felt that having green, pleasant spaces
where people want to pass the time as well as town and
community centres that are inclusive and welcoming are
steps that would start to break down the isolation and the
alienation that people feel in British society today.
Reflections
The community x-change has highlighted the importance of
recognising community perspectives in developing solutions
to one of the biggest challenges of modern times – climate
change. The key message we took from the x-change was
that feelings of disempowerment and isolation were at the
forefront of people’s minds, especially some of the women
Community x-change: connecting citizens and scientists to policy makers
CONTACT DETAILS
Nigel Eady
British Association for the Advancement of
Science (BA)
Wellcome Wolfson Building
165 Queen’s Gate
London SW7 5HD, UK
Email: nigel.eady@the-ba.net
Website: www.the-ba.net
“The true legacy of this project in the
long term could be significant changes
in the way we ‘do’ science.”
For institutions, such as the BA and universities like
Newcastle and Durham, the key challenge from this project
is to embed participatory approaches within the organisational fabric and move beyond one-way communication of
science. A great amount can be achieved through careful
planning. Key questions must be asked at the outset about
the thinking behind the approach chosen:
• What are realistic timescales for this project?
• What are the barriers to engagement?
• Who can we work with to ensure critical monitoring and
evaluation before, during and after the process?
• Have we considered all the various sources of knowledge
which could be utilised to produce a creative solution?
These questions could also have profound impacts on
government, learned societies and universities.
As our community x-change process begins in Liverpool,
so we have recognised a drawback in the funding model
behind our project. It does not allow our project team to
become integrated into the community in which it works. We
have therefore employed a Community Engagement Worker
from the area of Liverpool in which we will be working. The
funding for this process ends in the near future and we want
to maximise the possibility of future interactions between
participants. So we are working closely with a number of
community groups from the area within which we have
drawn our participants. In parallel, we are seeking to share
our learning and encourage others to implement it more
widely within our organisations. The true legacy of this project
in the long term could be significant changes in the way we
‘do’ science. This would be the most significant demonstration
of long-term success of the community x-change.
Jasber Singh
London Wildlife Trust
Skyline House
200 Union Street
London SE1 0LX
UK
Email: jasbersingh@gmail.com
THEME SECTION 1
and younger participants. A conclusion we have reached
following our experiences in Norwich is that changing the
culture that disempowers and isolates these people is inherently linked to the development of climate change solutions.
Like nanotechnology (see Singh, article 4, this issue), climate
change does not perhaps fit as neatly fit into the ‘science’
box as some suppose.
Perhaps the enormous threat of climate change provides
an opportunity to reinvigorate democracy and collective
action. These, no doubt, will be among the key ingredients
required to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. The x-change
highlighted the limitations of top-down behavioural change
initiatives that target the individual and do very little in allowing communities, especially women and young people, to
develop safe spaces for collective analysis of issues of primary
concern in their locality – which, no doubt, will be both social
and climate-related.
The other challenge that the community x-change highlights again and again is one of institutional culture change.
Over the last 25 years, the focus of the UK science
communication community has gradually moved away from
dealing with complex issues using simplistic methods of information provision. There is now a glut of initiatives in the
sphere of what has become known as public engagement.
Scientists will act as citizens in much the same way as any
group of individuals in such processes. However, the sort of
innovative and flexible thinking that allows knowledge to be
co-produced, as we attempted here, is much less readily
found. There is now increasing appreciation of knowledge
gained from those other than professional experts, for
example within the farming community about ecology, or
within patient groups about treatment procedures and
regimes. But this sort of knowledge, derived from these
‘experts by experience’ is rarely valued by policy makers. Few
of them, in the UK at least, behave as if the expertise, values,
hopes and fears for research and regulation can yield creative
solutions to complex problems.
6
Tom Wakeford
Beacon for Public Engagement
Newcastle University
6 Kensington Terrace
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
UK
Email: beacon@ncl.ac.uk
Website: http://beacon.ncl.ac.uk
Alice Taylor-Gee,
British Association for the Advancement of
Science (BA)
Email: alice.taylor-gee@the-ba.net
43
THEME SECTION 1
7
Hearing the real voices:
exploring the experiences of the
European Citizens’ Panel
by NIALL FITZDUFF, PETER BRYANT, GWEN LANIGAN and CATHERINE PURVIS
Introduction
Citizens’ panels were set up in regions of England and Ireland
to discuss the future of rural areas. In 2006, these panels sent
representatives to a larger panel at the European Parliament
in Brussels, Belgium. These European Citizens’ Panels were
made up of 86 citizens from ten regions of Europe.
The English regional panel consisted of 15 adults and 15
young people aged between 13 and 83. They were involved
via a random selection process from rural Durham and
Cumbria in northern England. Drawing on the methodology
of the citizens’ jury, the panel met four times over six months.
They shared personal experiences of life in rural areas and
discussed issues with key decision makers and information
providers. At the end, the panel generated a set of recommendations on rural issues, which are currently being taken
forward in a three year ongoing project.
The process in the Irish border region involved two distinct
phases. Randomly recruited participants worked with a team
of external facilitators to increase their confidence and to
ensure that they were in a position to interact with policy
makers efficiently and with confidence. Rather than being
asked to respond to precise topics, participants were asked to
44
Members of the
English Rural
Community Xchange undertake a
mapping exercise.
Photo: Swingbridge Video
The English and Irish panels
Hearing the real voices: exploring the experiences of the European Citizens’ Panel
7
Members of the
Cross-border
Irish Citizens’
Panel.
Photo: Niall Fitzduff
THEME SECTION 1
come up with the topics on which they felt they needed to
be consulted. The second phase of this process involved inviting policy makers to meet with the now confident and energised participants, giving them the chance to hear what the
participants had to say.
The purpose of this format was to allow the participants
to lead the consultation process, rather than them being
asked to respond to topics or issues. The process itself raised
some interesting points, not least that despite some of the
issues being actively out for consultation at the time, policy
makers were generally reluctant to engage in the process.
However, the policy makers who did take part did so in an
open and transparent manner. They were very positive in relation to taking on board the comments and feelings of the
participants. They are to be commended for their bravery,
their open-mindedness and their contribution to this process.
The English experience of Brussels
Seven young people and three adults from the English panel
took part in a three-day event in Brussels, together with a
further 76 citizens from across Europe. Each citizen participated in a series of workshops focused on concerns, themes
and visions, until finally the panel agreed a set of Europeanwide recommendations. At the gathering’s culmination, the
citizens presented their recommendations in the form of a
report to a number of high-profile European politicians and
civil servants in the European Parliament buildings.
The interaction with European decision makers took place
in an auditorium with fixed seating. Upon speaking into an
illuminated microphone, each speaker was simultaneously
translated into seven different languages and his or her
image relayed onto television screens on each person’s desk.
Recommendations were read out, and copies of the report
were presented to key decision makers, followed by an open
question-and-answer session. The reaction of the citizens to
the meeting was mixed, with one group poised to walk out
if the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural
Development, Mariann Fischer Boel, refused to discuss the
report. Others seemed relatively happy with the bland
commitment from some decision makers to use the report
for ‘the design and the vision of future regional policy’.
The Irish experience of Brussels
The intense experience of spending four days together with
participants interacting in different languages, meeting highly
placed officials in the EU institutions and producing their own
report was an amazing achievement. At this level the experience was fulfilling. However, for the most part the policy
makers defended their policies, missing the opportunity to
engage in a new type of dialogue. There was a sense of
taking the status quo to task.
How real is all this in terms of participation and change?
An optimistic view would be that citizens’ panels can influence regional change, given that perhaps 5% of policy is up
for negotiation. At EU level, it may be 1% that can be influenced. Then pitch that against 87 ‘citizens’ and their legiti45
7Niall Fitzduff, Peter Bryant, Gwen Lanigan and Catherine Purvis
“Handled well,
the feelings of
empowerment
experienced by those
who take part in terms
of speaking to those
in power is palpable
and tangible.”
macy in representative terms against the population of
Europe. As an educational exercise, the process has merit but
it is costly. Handled well, the feelings of empowerment experienced by those who take part – in terms of speaking to
those in power – is palpable and tangible. Citizens could be
visibly seen to have been empowered and to grow in confidence throughout the process. But it is another matter as to
whether it can achieve real change and add value to flagging
democracies. Could such processes have the potential to be
more than just a new toy for academics, policy makers and
other professional elites? As with other articles in this issue,
it is too early to say.
Final reflections, by Peter Bryant
So what can we learn from this unsatisfactory interaction and
how could we have changed our practices? Our responses
could probably be at two levels. Firstly, it would be possible
to improve the process by making minor adaptations to the
methodology. In advance of such a meeting, an attempt
could be made to meet each of the decision makers to
explain the process and its outcomes and push for them to
commit to follow up (for example, by offering to pay for a
meeting with ten citizens from the panel to discuss the deliberations in more depth). Time could be spent with citizens
preparing them for the interaction and improving their political capabilities (for instance, by undertaking power analyses,
gaining a better understanding of European decision-making
processes, role playing the future interaction and rehearsing
strategies for pushing for action). Interaction with decision
makers could be in a more informal setting, taking into
account the need for translators. Assertive facilitation of such
a meeting could discourage politicians from offering only
platitudes and no commitment to action.
The second option recognises the limitations of tinkering
with the process and instead calls for a rethink of the role of
approaches such as citizens’ panels or juries as tools for
46
Young participant
in Brussels reports
on his group’s
discussions.
Photos: Peter Bryant
THEME SECTION 1
People from nine regions of
Europe present their case to
the European Commissioner
for Agriculture and Rural
Development, Mariann
Fischer Boel, who refused to
discuss their report.
activism. This approach challenges the idea that through
random sampling a selection of citizens can be ‘representative’ of a wider set of communities. Instead, what is most
important is that citizens are selected who are more able to
take action and push for the implementation of the recommendations, upon the conclusion of the deliberative phase of
such a project. This could be achieved by linking the process
directly with a relevant social movement or movements.
Such an approach could look something like this. The citizens for the English panel are selected from the membership
of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The selection may be
random to a point, but with a bias towards marginalised
members of the population who have little voice. Having
undertaken a process of deliberation, which has also
increased their political capabilities, the panel members are
then supported by the TUC as they lobby decision makers,
or use whatever strategy they see fit to try and affect change.
However, not everyone agrees that citizens’ juries should
be reshaped as tools for activism:
For me random selection is the most democratic way to
select citizens. However, it is a biased method because
those randomly selected persons accept to take part in the
process by being ‘politically’ active. Two approaches
should probably be combined: random selection
combined with targeted people coming from under-represented groups.
Betty Nguyen, a French project facilitator.
It was always Peter Dienel’s [credited as one of the original designers of a Citizens’ Jury process] point of view that
the participants get their legitimacy from being an ‘ordinary’ citizen selected at random for some time and a
certain purpose/topic (which is defined by the institution
who is the commissioning body and has its own democratic and legal legitimacy). ‘Taking action’ is not within
Hearing the real voices: exploring the experiences of the European Citizens’ Panel
their legitimacy. Of course, it is their natural right to take
action. But then they act as only themselves, with
nobody’s mandate. For me, it is important and gives the
recommendations weight that the citizens are selected at
random from the whole population. If we choose them
from trade union members or special groups of society we
inject our bias and political objectives into the process.
Hilmar Sturm, facilitator.
The adoption of a strategy, which links so closely with a
social movement, is a call for the repoliticisation of ‘participatory’ and deliberative processes such as citizens’ juries,
away from a technocratic instrumentalist approach, which
sees them as little more than sophisticated extractive market
research tools.
After listening to a presentation on the European project,
a friend of mine from Bolivia commented on the political
naivety of such processes when held in Europe – and he may
be right. In Mali l’ECID – a citizens’ jury (see Article 3, this issue)
of small farmers and producers examining the issue of GM
cotton – has had a tremendous impact. Organised directly
through a regional assembly and in conjunction with local
farmers’ movements, it has led directly to the decision to delay
the trialling of genetically modified (GM) crops. The government there has the memory of farmers’ direct action fresh in
their minds and cannot risk the alienation of such a powerful,
organised movement. In Europe, a depoliticised, glorified
focus group will never have such an impact. However, the
English panel may be moving in a positive direction. They
continue to meet some eight months after the Brussels
meeting. On hearing the news that the European Parliament’s
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has
declined their request for a public hearing in favour of meeting
with ‘technical experts’, they have decided to return to the
European Parliament building in Brussels in 2008.
CONTACT DETAILS
Niall Fitzduff
10 The Esplanade
Holywood
County Down, BT18 9JP
Northern Ireland
UK
Email: nfitzduff@googlemail.com
Gwen Lanigan
Carraig Bheic
Golf Links Road
Bettystown
County Meath
Northern Ireland
UK
Email: gwenlanigan@hotmail.com
Peter Bryant
Email: pbinclusion@btinternet.com
Website: www.communityinvolvement.org.uk
Catherine Purvis
Beacon for Public Engagement
Newcastle University
6 Kensington Terrace
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
UK
Email: catherine.purvis@ncl.ac.uk
Website: http://beacon.ncl.ac.uk
THEME SECTION 1
“Could such processes have the potential
to be more than just a new toy for
academics, policy makers and other
professional elites? As with other articles
in this issue, it is too early to say.”
7
47
THEME SECTION 1
8
48
Shorts: four brief analyses of
citizens’ juries and similar
participatory processes
Ignoring and suppressing grassroots participation in a northern English town
THEME SECTION 1
8a: Ignoring and suppressing
grassroots participation in a
northern English town
8
by TOM WAKEFORD, BANO MURTUJA and PETER BRYANT
In the spring of 2004 we began work on a citizens’ jury
process that we co-designed with the residents of a town in
northern England. One third of its population is minority
ethno-cultural heritage communities. The subject of this ‘doit-yourself jury’ was to be decided by the twenty volunteers,
drawn at random from community organisations and the
electoral roll.
At the end of a day-long workshop, the jurors settled on
the role of the police relating to drink and illegal drug use
among young people. This topic made local politicians
nervous, they asked that we postpone the jury until after the
local elections in a few months’ time. They refused to provide
information to the process or cooperate with it.
Having heard a wide range of perspectives from a diverse
set of ‘witnesses’ the jury sought to recommend a number of
solutions to the problems highlighted during the process. The
jury at no point divided along ethnic lines. The following is an
extract from our 2004 report about the process:
We observed that white residents living in areas of diverse
ethno-heritage often feel patronised by conventional antiracism campaigns. Such messages are promoted by the
same authorities who seem to have failed to address some
of the most urgent problems facing their communities.
Our final report suggested that some Asian and other
minority communities might welcome a re-direction of
resources towards initiatives that allow them to join
together with white community members and bring pressure for change, especially since many of the most pressing social and economic problems affect all the local
population regardless of their background.1
We suggest that the re-building of democratic engagement in northern England, as in many other parts of the
UK, will be greatly enhanced by an increase of face-toface meetings such as those that form the essence of a
do-it-yourself citizens’ jury. However, such exercises are
only likely to be successful when they involve a broad
range of local community groups and are not controlled
by any one stakeholder or funder.
Though the jury presented their report in person to the
council leader, a member of the European Parliament and
opposition politicians, the council studiously ignored the
process, both before and after the election. As organisers and
facilitators we and the jurors fundraised for ongoing activities
1 See
online resources section for links to the full version of the report.
49
THEME SECTION 1
8Tom Wakeford, Bano Murtuja and Peter Bryant
by ourselves, including a stall at the local market. But without
the backing of a strong campaigning organisation, our
impact on the way in which the local council consulted its
population was minimal.
The funder of the jury, a well known UK grant-making
foundation, was extremely sympathetic to the jury’s desire to
make their local council more accountable. They even
attended meetings at which council officials expressed interest in working with the jurors. But four years later, jurors have
had no contact from the council and have become sceptical
that the council has any intention of working with them.
On reflection, we as organisers recognise at least two
mistakes we made that allowed the council to domesticate
the jury process, even though it was independent of them.
Firstly, we underestimated the power of the local council to
marginalise the process. By parachuting into a complex local
CONTACT DETAILS
Tom Wakeford
Beacon for Public Engagement
Newcastle University
6 Kensington Terrace
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
UK
Email: beacon@ncl.ac.uk
Website: http://beacon.ncl.ac.uk
community and organising a process without it being jointly
owned and planned by accountable community organisations that had legitimacy with the council, it was easy for
senior local policy makers to portray the jury as troublemakers. Secondly, we wrongly expected that the multi-racial
group of individuals that emerged from the jury process
would be empowered enough to become activists in their
own right, supported by an infrastructure that could easily
be organised remotely from outside the region. In reality, the
community empowerment our project envisaged required
long-term investment in grassroots community work. Despite
modest ongoing support from an extremely patient funder
we have not yet found a formula that allows us to overcome
the suppression of our alternative to the ‘pork barrel’ politics
that dominates the dysfunctional government of an economically deprived town.2
Bano Murtuja
Vis-a-Vis Research Consultancy Ltd
Apex House
47 Preston New Road
Blackburn, BB2 6AE
UK
Email: Bano@vis-a-vis.org.uk
Website: www.vis-a-vis.org.uk
Peter Bryant
Email: pbinclusion@btinternet.com
Website: www.communityinvolvement.org.uk
2 ‘Pork barrel’ is commonly used as a political metaphor for the appropriation of
government spending for projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular
constituents or campaign contributors. This usage originated in American-English
with reference to gifts of salt pork in a barrel by slave-owners to their slaves.
50
The art of facipulation? The UK government’s nuclear power dialogue
‘Facipulation’ is a recently coined word for the process
whereby facilitators and other convenors of participatory
processes get participants to produce the result that the
facilitators want, whilst making the participants think they
are expressing their own ideas.
© Channel 4
Transcript of UK TV’s
Channel 4 News, 19th
September, 2007:1
With just three weeks left
to run, the government’s
public consultation into
nuclear power has run
Jon Snow presents a Channel 4 News into trouble and a
item on the government’s nuclear
complaint to a profespower dialogue.
sional body.2 In nine daylong meetings across Britain two weekends ago, nearly
a thousand people were shown videos, presentations,
and handouts, and their opinion on building new nuclear
power stations canvassed […]
… now Greenpeace would [be bound to] say that [the
1 www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=9237
2 This refers to the UK Market Research Society, which is meant
to regulate
practice among its members, including ensuring that public consultations, for
example, are carried out ’transparently [and] objectively’.
THEME SECTION 1
8b: The art of facipulation?
The UK government’s nuclear
power dialogue
8
dialogue carried a
pro-nuclear bias], you
could argue, but
independently 20
senior academics too
have come forward
and will be writing to
government with
A facilitator from Opinion Leader
similar reservations.3
Research leads participants through a
nuclear power dialogue session.
They say the consultations were deliberately skewed by linking nuclear to fears about climate
change, because the government knew past [market]
research had shown it’s the only way to get people to
accept nuclear, albeit reluctantly.
Similar concerns have come from some members of the
public who attended – on websites and in unsolicited
emails to Greenpeace. [The emails read] ‘In the video,
alternative viewpoints had doom-ridden music in the
background. The government’s view was then given
against calm, relaxing music,’ [said one participant]. ‘I feel
I have been mugged,’ [said another participant].
3A
previous UK Government consensus conference on radioactive waste was
critiqued by Helen Wallace, then Science Director at Greenpece UK, in PLA 40,
pages 61-63.
51
8The art of facipulation? The UK government’s nuclear power dialogue
© youtube.com
THEME SECTION 1
Involve’s
youtube film
of the Nuclear
Dialogue.
Youtube clip: I’m Richard Wilson from Involve [Deputy
Chair of Sciencewise] and I’m here at the Nuclear Dialogue
on Saturday here in London.4 5
[Richard Wilson to reporter]: We [Sciencewise] did offer
our advice. Sciencewise consists of a panel of experts – practitioners, academics etc… Because of the timescale it wasn’t
practical for us to be involved in the commissioning [of the
dialogue process]. But I know that the advice we offered [to
the government] wasn’t ever taken on.6
Opinion Leader Research said: We refute the points made
in the complaint [from Greenpeace]. We believe our work
was carried out to the highest professional standards.
Opinion Leader will co-operate fully with the Market
Research Society investigation.7 8
See www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=9237
4
Involve, according to its website ’was founded in 2004 to determine how new
forms of public participation can strengthen democracy in Britain and elsewhere’.
Involve has its offices in London and is governed by a board chaired by the
former head of the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and includes members of a
leading market research company, Ipsos MORI.
5 Sciencewise is ‘a programme funded by the Government to help policy makers
find out people’s views on emerging areas of science and technology so that they
can take these into account when making national policy decisions.’
6 Though neither Sciencewise nor Involve complained about the process,
Greenpeace UK made a formal complaint to the Market Research Society alleging
improper conduct of a consultation process.
7 Opinion Leader Research was commissioned by the Government to undertake
the dialogue.
8 The news story followed an official complaint made by Greenpeace UK to the
Market Research Society, which has a code of conduct for its members, which
includes Opinion Leader Research.
52
Genetically modified meetings: the Food Standards Agency’s citizens’ jury
Extract from a report from the Policy Ethics and Life Sciences
(PEALS) Research Centre, Newcastle University (PEALS, 2003).
During April 2003, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA)
commissioned what it called a ‘citizens’ jury’ from Opinion
Leader Research, which is a division of the public relations
firm Bell Pottinger (also known as Chime Communications).
In contravention of standard practice for citizens’ juries, no
panel of stakeholders was assembled to oversee balance and
fairness in the jury process. Senior staff at the FSA stated that
it was itself an independent agency and had been advised
by OLR/Bell Pottinger that no such oversight panel would be
necessary.
A major disadvantage of not having drawn on a broad
range of interest groups for oversight of the jury process
became apparent when the question was set for the jury to
consider. This was announced by the FSA as: ‘Should GM
food be available to buy in the UK?’ One of the witnesses to
the jury immediately objected to this question, commenting
that ‘with a question like that I can predict a “yes” verdict
without even needing to give evidence’. Not only was this
question open to the accusation of being skewed, like some
opinion poll surveys, towards getting a particular answer, but
THEME SECTION 1
8c: Genetically modified
meetings: the Food Standards
Agency’s citizens’ jury
8
Norfolk Genetic Information
Network (NGIN) and Friends
of the Earth, two
organisations who challenged
the legitimacy of the FSA’s
jury process.
it is likely to have severely limited the scope the jurors had to
discuss a range of issues relating to the links between GM
technologies, the food system and farming that they – rather
than the FSA – might have thought were pertinent. Citing
advice from Bell Pottinger, the FSA ‘disagreed that it is good
practice to allow jurors to set their own agenda’.
Alongside many other quality control issues surrounding
the use of ‘off-the-shelf’ processes that their organisers
decide to call citizens’ juries, the FSA initiative leads us to
believe that the practice of giving such juries a one-line question, such as the one given to the FSA citizens' jury should
be discouraged and that it is misguided for any organisation
organising a jury process to believe itself so independent that
it can forgo the transparent oversight mechanism that a
multi-stakeholder panel provides.
REFERENCES
PEALS (2003) The People’s Report on GM
Crops. Newcastle University: UK.
53
THEME SECTION 1
8by the RIGHT 2B HEARD COLLECTIVE and SWINGBRIDGE VIDEO
8d: If we have time, motivation
and resources to participate,
does that mean we gain
authority and power?
By the RIGHT 2B HEARD COLLECTIVE and SWINGBRIDGE VIDEO
The script of a video contribution to a Joseph Rowntree Foundation conference on participation, November 2007.
All the voices in the video are from people with direct
experience of being participants in one or more citizens’ jurytype processes.
Narrator: If we have time, motivation…
Simon: Motivation? What’s my motivation for this scene?
Yeah, alright mate, why do I want to come to a session about
arts and crafts when I’m absolutely starving? Food motivates
me.
Narrator: If we have time…
Narrator: If we have time, motivation, and resources…
Simon: Time? There is not enough hours in the day.
Simon: Please sir, can we have some more?
Trisha: I don’t have enough time for myself as it is at the
moment, let alone giving up time for something that I’m not
going to see the results from.
Janet: How do I find time as a single parent to go out into the
community to find out what is needed to be done?
Jackie: Time? Where do we get the time to reflect on what
we’ve done? When do we get time to go back and explain
what we’re talking about at meetings to the public, to the
people that we are supposed to be representing?
Simon: Time? I only do things if I’m paid, none of this volunteering stuff.
54
Trisha: Give me £100 and I’ll get some community participation. Give the top guy £100 and he’ll use it for a round of
drinks.
Anonymous: They’ll get us to organise participation to decide
how to distribute what’s just peanuts, while all the big money
is in their control.
Trisha: Why do you start off with a huge budget and by the
time you’ve worked out what the table centres [flowers] are
for the men at the top, it gets down to me for community
action and there’s £3.50 left.
If we have time, motivation and resources to participate, does that mean we gain authority and power?
8
Right 2B Heard
member Janet and
her son Adam.
THEME SECTION 1
Narrator: If we have time, motivation, and resources to
participate…
Janet: They are telling me I have to participate, but I haven’t
been told what to do since I was 15.
Madhusudhan: Participation? Participation?
Janet: Yeah, right! (laughs)
Joe: What’s the point? (laughing) Why take part in anything?
Nothing ever happens, it just doesn’t work.
Swingbridge Video
Joe: We’ve been asked, and we’ve been asked. We’ve been
invited to meetings, we’ve been invited to participate, but
what happens?
Madhusudhan: Participation? Yes!
Simon: (Shouting) Power!
Narrator: If we have time, motivation, and resources to
participate, does that mean we gain authority?
Joe: Power? Empower, isn’t that the guy that sends me the
bill every month for the electric?
Peter: We need to facilitate the empowerment of citizens
through deliberative democracy.
Trisha: Power. People go on about power but the decisions
already been taken, we’re just rubber stamping it.
All: (shouting) Rubbish!
Simon: Power mad.
Anon: I don’t know who’s in charge.
Joe: That and the big stick make me work every day (laughs).
Simon: I hate it!
Simon: We want more!
Narrator: If we have time, motivation and resources to participate, does that mean we gain authority and power?
Joe: Power. If the powers that be see this we’re out of a job
in the morning.
CONTACT DETAILS
Swingbridge Video
Norden House
41 Stowell St
Newcastle Upon Tyne,
Tyne and Wear, NE1 4YB
UK
Email: Swingvid@aol.com
Website: www.swingbridgevideo.co.uk
NOTES
Right 2B Heard is made up of people from a
variety of backgrounds who have participated
in processes of participatory democracy since
2001 – particularly those from communities
that have undergone marginalisation in the
past.
You can watch the video online on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eurmFan_a-A
On screen appearances: Peter Bryant, Janet
Davies, Si Donnelly, Jackie Haq, Madhusudhan,
Joe Thomas and Trisha White. Also taking part
but not pictured: Assad Afzal, Farmeen Aktar
and Jasber Singh.
Facilitated by Hugh Kelly and Lynne Caffrey of
Swingbridge Video. Assistance and support
from Emma Stone (Joseph Rowntree
Foundation) and Tom Wakeford (Newcastle
University).
55
Theme 2:
Participatory
budgeting: lessons
from Latin America
and the UK
56
9
THEME SECTION 2
The watering down of
participatory budgeting and
people power in Porto Alegre,
Brazil
by DANIEL CHAVEZ
Introduction
Figure 1: Map showing Porto Alegre
In the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, previously famous as the
birthplace of the World Social Forum and the global capital
of participatory democracy, the centre-right coalition that
took office after the electoral defeat of the left in 2004 has
implemented a new institutional scheme in Porte Alegre. It
is known as governança solidária local (local solidarity governance), which allegedly will deepen and broaden civic
engagement. The scheme has been praised by mainstream
international organisations but – for reasons to be discussed
below – also strongly criticised by local NGOs, engaged
researchers, leftwing political parties, and civil society organisations. This process is consistent with broader changes
taking place at the international level through the sustained
export of a lite version of participatory budgeting by rather
non-democratic and non-participatory institutions such as
the World Bank.1
Between 1988 and 2004, when the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers’ Party) governed the city, the citizens
of Porto Alegre developed an exemplary model of democratic local planning and management. The idea of the orçamento participativo (participatory budget) contributed to
1
Lite is a reference to diet versions of soft drinks such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
57
THEME SECTION 2
9Daniel Chavez
58
“This conflict is important for the
inhabitants of Porto Alegre. But it also
has a wider significance for urban
politics across Latin America and the
rest of the world.”
transforming urban residents – who had been powerless
under the rule of authoritarian and corrupt elites – into
active subjects with increasing power to influence decisions
shaping their daily lives. Through almost two decades of trial
and error, the popular roots of participatory budgeting gave
it a real influence over government and marked a genuine
innovation in democratic politics (Menegat, 2002). It is this
popular decision-making power that is now at stake in a very
practical conflict over the meaning of participatory budgeting, and participatory governance more generally.
This conflict is important for the inhabitants of Porto
Alegre. But it also has a wider significance for urban politics
across Latin America and the rest of the world. Beyond
Brazil, there have been strong efforts by the World Bank and
other mainstream ‘development’ institutions aimed at
neutralising the emancipatory politics of participatory budgeting, by promoting its global expansion as just another
managerial technology for efficient ‘good governance’.
Nowadays, in many parts of Latin America and in Europe,
even conservative and neo-liberal municipal governments
are implementing what they call ‘participatory budgeting’, in
the hope of it offering them democratic legitimacy as they
pursue unpopular market-driven policies (Shah, 2007).
Across the global South, during the past five years, the
World Bank has been busy exporting an ideologically
‘neutral’ version of participatory budgeting in countries and
cities under political conditions very different to those originally found in Brazil.
When the new government assumed office in Porto
Alegre in 2005, the mayor publicly declared his commitment
to preserve and develop participatory budgeting, while
confirming the launch of a more comprehensive institutional
reform. The basic features of the new approach were
vaguely outlined in a booklet published by the Partido
Popular Socialista (PPS, Socialist People’s Party – a neoconservative party founded by former communists). The new
scheme for local governance is conceived as ‘an executive,
non-deliberative forum; a network created to foster joint
responsibility agreements’ (between private, government
and voluntary and community sectors). In this new institutional space ‘there is no conflict, no elections, no delegates’
(Busatto and Zalewski Vargas, 2005).
During the electoral campaign, the incoming mayor, José
Fogaça, had committed himself to maintaining the participatory budgeting programme, and also to political and logistical support for the World Social Forum. The PPS-led
coalition narrowly won the mayoral election with a strategy
that played on a desire for change after almost two decades
of continuous leftwing administration, while explicitly recognising the left’s record of good government. The catchphrase
of Fogaça was simplistic but effective: ‘let’s keep whatever
is working and let’s change whatever is not’.
After more than a decade in power, mainly focused on
the social and political dimensions of municipal rule, the PT
had not paid enough attention to financial sustainability and
growing administrative problems. The PT began to lose its
local hegemony, first among the middle class and then
among those who had been the main beneficiaries of the
strategy of ‘turning investment priorities upside down’
(prioritising the poorer neighbourhoods and social sectors
of the city in the allocation of municipal resources). Disenchantment with the federal government also contributed to
the setback, as the anti-PT feeling promoted by the conservative sectors converged with falling expectations and hope
after the radical changes that were expected when Lula da
Silva took office as President of Brazil never materialised.
The fate of participatory budgeting under the new
conservative government has since been the beginning a
matter of great concern among social activists. The title of
the December 2005 issue of De Olho No Orçamento
(‘Watching the Budget’), a bulletin published by Centro de
Assessoria e Estudos Urbanos (CIDADE), a local NGO active
in the field of urban politics and a participatory budgeting
watchdog, says it all: ‘Institutional formality maintained, but
getting rid of direct citizens’ participation’.2 Since then, the
processes and structures of participatory budgeting have
been decaying: the government no longer provides
adequate financial and institutional information for participatory budgeting participants. Elected and appointed officials no longer attend the local assemblies, and the overall
level of accountability of the municipal government has
declined.
Another sign that the original democraticising purpose
of the participatory budget is not safe in the hands of the
current administration is the recentralisation of decision2 See
www.ongcidade.org
The watering down of participatory budgeting and people power in Porto Alegre, Brazil
(CIDADE, 2008).
making power. Felisberto Luisi, a social activist with over a
decade of engagement in the process of participatory budgeting, gave me an example when I interviewed him in 2006:
Before, the multi-year investment plan was discussed by
the citizens, but in 2005 that plan came already written
by the government. The Mayor’s Office and the City
Council are beginning to take back the power that previous governments had granted to the people.
More recently, the municipal government has been criticised for investing more in propaganda and public relations
– including the organisation, in February 2008, of a
mammoth international conference focused on the ‘radicalisation of local democracy’ – than in responses to citizens’
demands. According to research just published by CIDADE,
in 2007 the municipality spent 15 million reais (10 million
dollars) on publicity. Meanwhile, only 21 of the 219 public
works and social projects included in the annual investment
plan (which is supposed to be the main product of the participatory budgeting cycle) were executed as planned. The chart
above shows a marked decline in the accountability and efficiency of the municipal government (see Figure 1).
Government officials retort that the new commitment
to local solidarity governance means that deliberation is no
longer restricted to the municipal budget. It should also
include the ‘social budget’ to which civil society organisations and the business community of the city are invited to
contribute. They also insist that the new strategy aims to
include those previously ‘excluded’ from the participatory
“Only by debating the promises and
limitations of real-world experiments in
citizens’ participation such as that of
Porto Alegre will we be able to
radicalise urban politics and build the
foundations for deeper and stronger
democracies.”
THEME SECTION 2
Figure 1: Execution of public works and social projects
included in the annual municipal investment
plan (in % of the total originally planned).
9
budgeting process, referring to private companies, foundations, universities, churches, and state and federal agencies.
In this context, popular organisations become just one actor
among many. According to Sergio Baierle (2005), this would
be tantamount to rejecting the principle of popular sovereignty that always characterised participatory budgeting.
The real aim of the new governance scheme seems to be
the shift of responsibilities away from the state through
‘partnerships’ that, in practice, are a new form of privatisation of public policy. This requires the subordination of
popular organisations to the rules and interests of the most
powerful – large private business, in particular.
Local community organisers are increasingly divided.
Many of the most experienced activists have lost their
connections with the grassroots. This has contributed to the
NGO-isation of the urban movement and the parallel loss of
the original radically popular identity of the participatory
budgeting programme. Moreover, from the outset, the new
administration has attempted (rather successfully) to assimilate and ‘neutralise’ social leaders and technical staff
formerly affiliated with the PT, offering them new jobs in
local government
On the political front, too, the situation does not look
promising. By the late 1990s, the left had become increasingly bureaucratised. The Workers’ Party had tried to
compensate for the loss of its social base by co-opting social
leaders, starting a cycle that weakened both the party and
the movement. More fundamentally, the PT has not been
able to develop a coherent strategy to deal with the changed
framework of local politics. It has been weakened and atomised by the electoral defeat in Porto Alegre and the wider
crisis of the party across Brazil caused by the mensalão – the
scandal triggered by revelations of systemic political corruption by elements of the PT leadership (Wainwright and Branford, 2006).
After the local defeat of the left in 2004, Porto Alegre
has become the scene of a sharp conflict between opposed
59
THEME SECTION 2
9Daniel Chavez
“...even supposedly well-developed
processes of local participatory
democracy could be highly affected by
institutional alterations produced by
party politics.”
political strategies. Further analysis of the conflict unfolding
in the city can help to decode the rhetoric and realities of
the latest global wave of ‘partnerships’, ‘new governance’
and ‘community empowerment’. Only by debating the
promises and limitations of real-world experiments in citizens’ participation such as that of Porto Alegre will we be
able to radicalise urban politics and build the foundations
for deeper and stronger democracies.
Faced with this scenario, a group of Brazilian and European organisations active in ‘reclaiming democracy’
campaigns jointly organised an international conference in
Porto Alegre, in October 2007, under the title The Future of
Participatory Democracy: Technical Fix or Popular Sovereignty? The activity had four interrelated objectives:
• to analyse and debate the place of the state and the urban
popular classes in the emerging urban landscape of the
21st century;
• to evaluate the limits and possibilities of participatory
budgeting and other forms of community-based direct
CONTACT DETAILS
Daniel Chavez
Transnational Institute
PO Box 14656
1001 LD Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email: chavez@tni.org
Website: www.tni.org
60
management of social policies;
• to provide a space for analyses and discussion of existing
alternatives around the theme of participatory democracy
as social emancipation and social transformation; and
• to raise suggestions and guidelines for building an international network of grassroots-based participatory democracy activists.
The conference was convened by CIDADE, the Transnational Institute, Oxfam-Novib, and the Methodist University
of Porto Alegre. It had 194 participants from Brazil,
Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Philippines, Canada, Spain, the
United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States. The
main result of the conference was the creation of the
Popular Sovereignty Network, conceived as an international
space for interchanging experiences and developing joint
strategies for the invigoration of local sources of popular
power.
In short, the recent changes observed in Porto Alegre
show that even supposedly well-developed processes of local
participatory democracy could be highly affected by institutional alterations produced by party politics. Despite the existence of a vast academic literature published on the Brazilian
case, the watering down of participatory budgeting – which
contradicts previous assumptions about its strength and even
its ‘irreversibility’ – highlights the need for further research
on the objective quality and social roots of citizen participation. It also constitutes a warning against complacency once
a participatory ‘method’ has been mainstreamed.
REFERENCES
Baierle, S. (2005) ‘Lutas em Porto Alegre: entre
a revolução política e o transformismo
Relatório do projecto MAPAS.’ Rio de Janeiro:
Ibase
Busatto, C. and Zalewski Vargas, P. (2005)
Local Solidary Governance: Political grounds of
the change in Porto Alegre. Porto Alegre:
Partido Popular Socialista
CIDADE (2008) ‘Execução de obras e serviços
no OP cai drasticamente desde 2005.’ De Olho
No Orçamento 12(23), April. Porto Alegre:
Centro de Assessoria e Estudos Urbanos
(CIDADE)
Menegat, R. (2002) ‘Participatory democracy
in Porto Alegre, Brazil.’ In PLA Notes 44, June
2002, IIED: London
Shah (ed.) (2007) Participatory Budgeting.
Washington, DC: World Bank Institute
Wainwright, H. and Branford, S. (2006) In the
Eye of the Storm: Left-wing activists discuss
the political crisis in Brazil. Amsterdam:
Transnational Institute (TNI)
10
THEME SECTION 2
Participatory budgeting in the
UK: a challenge to the system?
by HEATHER BLAKEY
Introduction
Participatory budgeting (PB) is currently generating a lot of
interest amongst policy makers and local authorities in the
UK.1 A way of involving communities in real decisions, it is a
technique learnt from nearly 20 years’ experience of popular
mobilisation in Latin America, where communities in Porto
Alegre, Brazil have been involved in spending the city’s regeneration budget since 1989 (see Chavez, article 9, this issue).
It is an idea that has spread across Latin America, and is now
being explored by several European countries.
In the UK, Hazel Blears, the Minister for Communities and
Local Government, announced that she hopes to see every
local council distributing a proportion of its funds via PB-style
‘community kitties’ by 2012 (DCLG, 2008). Ten pilots already
existed when she first made this announcement in July 2007,
mostly brought into being by committed local government
officials. However, the support of a government minister
clearly took the development of participatory budgeting in
the UK to a new level.
In its native context of Latin America, PB is seen as a
1 The Department of Local Government and Communities has been hosting a
national reference group on participatory budgeting since 2006, and funds the
Participatory Budgeting Unit to support local authorities in developing PB pilots.
“PB is a source of inspiration for many
around the world who are interested in
justice and democracy. The question is:
can it work here?”
radical alternative to representative democracy. Through the
direct participation and deliberation of individuals (at public
meetings) in setting budget priorities for the municipal investment plan, participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre is seen to
have led to a shift in standards of living for its poorest
communities (Hall, 2005). Although it was originally the
project of the Workers’ Party, which came to power in 1989,
the people of Porto Alegre went on to control the budget
process as well as the budget itself – with budget delegates
refining the process each year, to ensure that it is a fair and
participatory process.2
2 Since the change in local government in Porto Alegre in 2005, there has been
an increasing de-politicisation of active participation (International Centre for
Participation Studies – ICPS, 2008, p.10). However, it is PB’s more political history
that has served as inspiration for pilots in the UK (according to ICPS interviews
with organisers and practitioners in the UK, 2007-8).
61
THEME SECTION 2
10Heather Blakey
“If the decisions about what must
happen have already been made, how
can local people really be involved?”
Essentially, it rests on four principles:
• direct participation of individuals in setting budget priorities;
• deliberation (i.e. informed decision-making rather than an
opinion poll);
• social contract (through their participation, citizens become
co-responsible for project implementation); and
• accountability (shared and transparent management of
resources).
Few would dispute that it has generated real changes in
terms of the lived realities of the city’s poorer communities.
This is in line with its intended goal of helping poorer citizens
and neighbourhoods receive greater levels of public spending, and it has reversed a historical trend of declining participation within poor neighbourhoods.
Participants are not being ‘consulted’ but are themselves
making decisions.3 Put very simply, PB involves a real transfer
of power and resources. Therefore, it is important that participants are able to deliberate, to share and defend their ideas,
so that decisions are taken on the basis of considered reflection. PB should not be simply a referendum on spending
priorities. Equally, direct participation is a crucial feature of
PB.4 Each person has a vote and the right to speak, meaning
that there is an unequivocal link between involvement and
outcome. In Porto Alegre, in just ten years, participation in
the budget process rose from a little over 1,500 people in
1989 to more than 20,000 in 1999.5 Participatory budgeting
also acts as a ‘citizenship school’ for participants – their ability
to participate increases as a result of learning gained through
the process itself.
Accordingly, PB is a source of inspiration for many around
the world who are interested in justice and democracy. The
question is: can it work here? Is it possible to transplant a
political method from Brazil and expect it to deliver in the
same way in the UK? Latin America and the UK are undeniably very different settings, and the same political system may
3 The
process for decision-making varies from process to process, but it is the
distinction between consultation and decision-making which characterises PB. For
a detailed description of the decision-making process in one pilot in the UK, see
the longer version of this paper.
4 ICPS (2008), p.8.
5 There is not space here to fully explain the process in Porto Alegre. For more
information, see Hall (2005), Wampler (2000) and Chavez (this issue).
62
not transplant easily to a different political and social context.6
Local government in Brazil has greater power than local
government in the UK, and despite the UK’s longer history
of representative democracy, it appears that Latin Americans,
who have more recently struggled for democracy, are more
likely to participate in that system in order to solve social
problems. While in the UK activists are increasingly disillusioned with and distant from the state, in Latin America,
there is a strong tradition of collective action which has
mobilised many excluded and marginalised people, who now
seek inclusion within the state (Pearce, 2004). Volunteering
and social activism in the UK remain healthy but this is
increasingly divorced from the formal democratic system,
generating a very different political culture in which to
encourage participation (Home Office, 2004).
Fixing the system?
Broadly speaking, in Latin America, PB has arisen through
social movements, backed by political parties of the Left
demanding a voice. In the UK, the motivation is more topdown: a partnership of state officials and an increasingly
professionalised voluntary sector develop participatory
processes such as PB (as opposed to a more overtly political
partnership of politicians and ‘the people’).7 As a result, the
focus can too often be on ‘the people and how to involve
them’ (in the system as it stands) rather than focusing on ‘the
system and how to improve it’. The question here is the
extent to which the people developing systems of PB in the
UK see the problem.
• Is PB meant to ‘fix’ the people who are disengaged from
the political system?
• Or, is it the system itself which could be seen as excluding
and hierarchical?
Accordingly, PB has emerged more as ‘participatory grantmaking’ in the UK (participatory decision-making about
awarding grants to community groups) rather than involve6 For
example, there are many critics of modern efforts to ‘spread’ representative
democracy around the world – to implant it, as in Iraq and, less recently, Latin
America itself, without sufficient reference to local conceptualisations of
democracy or local political contexts (Avritzer, 2002). Perhaps, with even the
World Bank promoting participatory budgeting (World Bank, 2007), it is time to
take a closer look at how effectively ideas such as participatory budgeting do – or
could – transplant to the UK, and with what results.
7 The ICPS research into PB in the UK that this article is based on also looked at
efforts to involve the voluntary and community sectors in decision-making
processes. This research is outlined briefly in our research briefing ‘Here, the
People Decide’?, 2008. The issue of the ‘professionalised sector’ emerged as an
important factor, characterised by senior voluntary sector officials who have
followed a voluntary sector ‘career path’. This is not to say that the development
of experience and skills in the sector is necessarily problematic, but it clearly
influences the nature of actors involved in ‘community work’ – for example, a
shift from activists to paid workers.
Participatory budgeting in the UK: a challenge to the system?
10
Residents voting at
Keighley’s participatory
budgeting Decision Day,
25th November 2006.
Photo: Heather Blakely
THEME SECTION 2
ment in Council budgeting and expenditure. The danger is
that PB is seen as the means to deliver the involvement of
more people – a technique that can be taught (usually by
consultants for a fee) rather than as a radical overhaul of how
we understand our place in the democratic system.
Of course, these differences do not mean that PB has no
place here. On the contrary, PB inspires exactly because it
does seem to offer a sorely needed alternative to ‘business as
usual’ politics.
PB in practice: lessons learnt
To see how the inspiration translates into practice, the International Centre for Participation Studies (ICPS) at Bradford
University followed one PB pilot in the north of England
between March 2006 and April 2007.8 As with all the UK
8 The
longer paper that this article summarises is based on this research.
pilots, this was a small-scale experiment, but the overwhelming message was that PB in the UK can inspire, and
that it can help people to see how and where to get involved
in local decision-making. PB involved a much greater number
of people in decision-making than any other local neighbourhood renewal planning process.9 Approximately 300
people attended the PB Decision Day, with perhaps half
coming from just one neighbourhood following a public
meeting encouraging people to support the local school.10
9 Neighbourhood
Renewal is a UK government programme which focuses on
community involvement in generating social outcomes for deprived communities.
Residents of all neighbourhoods eligible for Neighbourhood Renewal Funding
were invited to attend the Decision Day, to vote on grant applications by local
organisations such as community groups and schools. £130,000 was allocated by
residents on that day. The Decision Day followed a consultation process in which
residents were asked to name three priorities for the area. This information was
given to grant applicants as a guide, but the money was allocated by area on the
day according to the Neighbourhood Renewal rules.
10
63
THEME SECTION 2
10Heather Blakey
64
“The important point for all organisers
and participants is to be alive to
creating opportunities for local, and
genuinely empowering, engagement
with each process.”
What works here? Developing local processes
The sudden understanding that attendance impacted directly
on outcomes in their neighbourhood motivated a large
turnout. This clearly suggests that our problem is not apathy,
but a lack of faith in our ability to make a difference – when
people understood that their action would make a tangible
difference to outcomes that they cared about, they turned
out in considerable numbers.11
Yet there are warning signs too. The planning group for
the pilot involved the Local Strategic Partnership, the voluntary sector and the council, but not local residents.12 As a
result, all the deliberation took place between paid workers,
rather than between communities and individuals, missing
two important elements of a radical PB process. However,
the evidence from this pilot suggests a very high level of
commitment to the radical potential of PB on the part of the
organisers. So why were they still unable to create space for
deliberation, or to involve residents in the planning process?
The reality is that many national constraints conflict with a
commitment to genuine participation. Prime amongst these
is New Labour’s ‘delivery culture’, which prioritises the
achievement of set targets. Deliberations then inevitably
focus on how to achieve these preordained targets, rather
than any discussion of what should be achieved. This situation encourages organisational control – it is the organisers
who will be held responsible if the targets are not met. What
is more, if the decisions about what must happen have
already been made, how can local people really be involved?
Their participation is reduced to helping to find the best ways
of meeting the targets, rather than deciding just what the
priorities should be.
So, it seems that PB does have a radical potential, to inspire,
to engage, and crucially to bring about real social change.
We are just at the beginning of this journey in the UK. There
is an increasing constituency of committed practitioners and
activists with a nuanced understanding of participatory budgeting. But we must not take its potential for granted. We
must be alive to the factors which undermine the promise of
genuine participation, and those which help the process
move in the direction of those more radical outcomes. These
include local ownership of the process (not just involvement
in what projects are funded), the conscious creation of space
for deliberation, and a commitment to community development work around budget literacy.13
We must learn to ask the right questions. What works
here? And of course, when we ask that question, ‘here’
should not mean ‘in the UK’ but must refer to the neighbourhood of each individual process. Each process must be
allowed to have the flexibility to develop, and be owned,
locally. We also need to ask how participatory budgeting fits
with the wider political system. In other words, participants
need to have the opportunity to consider how the PB process
they are part of fits with bigger local authority decisionmaking processes. How can participants get involved in actually setting priorities for spending – in budgeting, not just in
‘grant-making’ from a fixed pot? In the words of an activist
local to the pilot we followed: ‘we shouldn’t just be helping
decide how to share the pie, we should be asking why isn’t
the pie bigger!’
The answers to these questions cannot be determined at
a national level, but must be explored by the participants in
each process. UK government interest in PB offers an important opportunity, so long as the strategic national direction
keeps open these spaces for local innovation. The important
point for all organisers and participants is to be alive to creating opportunities for local, and genuinely empowering,
engagement with each process. For those of us in the UK
who believe in the radical potential of genuinely participatory processes such as PB, this is an interesting time.
11 For more information on this particular UK process, please see the longer
version of this paper.
12 Local Strategic Partnerships exist in nearly all local authority areas in England
and Wales. They bring together representatives from the local statutory, voluntary,
community and private sectors to address local issues and contribute to strategic
planning.
13 Based in part on detailed observation of one UK process, and involvement in
the national reference group.
Participatory budgeting in the UK: a challenge to the system?
NOTES
Heather Blakey’s research focuses on
participatory practice, participatory research
methods, identities in Bradford, community
engagement and outreach.
This article is a shortened version of a paper
entitled ‘Radical innovation or technical fix?
Participatory budgeting in the UK.’ Please
contact Heather for the full version of this
paper.
REFERENCES
Avritzer (2002) Democracy and the public
sphere in Latin America. Princeton University
Press
DCLG (2008) Participatory Budgeting: a draft
national strategy. Department of Local
Government and Communities. London: UK
Hall, J. (2005) Breathing life into democracy:
the power of participatory budgeting.
Manchester: Community Pride Initiative
Home Office (2004) Home Office citizenship
survey: people, families and communities.
Home Office Research Study 289, London:
Home Office
ICPS (2008) ‘Here, the People Decide’?
Research briefing. International Centre for
Participation Studies: Bradford, UK
Pearce, J.V. (2004) ‘Debate: collective action or
public participation? Complementary or
contradictory democratisation strategies in
Latin America?’ Bulletin of Latin American
Research 23:4
Wampler, B. (2000) A guide to participatory
budgeting. Available online:
www.internationalbudget.org/resources/
library/GPB.pdf
World Bank (2007) Participatory budget
formulation. Available online:
http://go.worldbank.org/S9ZD1PNII0
THEME SECTION 2
CONTACT DETAILS
Heather Blakey
International Centre for Participation Studies
Bradford University
Bradford
UK
Email: h.blakey2@bradford.ac.uk
Website: www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/icps
10
65
Theme 3:
Gender issues and
challenges of
representation
66
11
THEME SECTION 3
The Greater Involvement of
People Living with HIV/AIDS:
from principle to practice?
by the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF WOMEN LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS
Introduction
The International Community of Women Living with
HIV/AIDS (ICW) is the only international network of HIV-positive women. ICW envisions a world where HIV-positive
women are respected and meaningfully involved at all political levels where decisions that affect our lives are made. Our
hope is that with your experience of participatory ways of
working, you will respond to this paper with advice, support
and engagement on these issues.
In 1994, at the Paris AIDS Summit, 42 national governments declared that the principle of Greater Involvement of
People Living with or Affected by HIV and AIDS (the ‘GIPA
principle’) is critical to ethical and effective national responses
to the pandemic. While the GIPA principle is widely accepted
in theory, our experience is that the views and voices of HIVpositive people still tend to be overlooked or ignored. GIPA
is a useful mobilising device to rally around but no strategy
was put in place to secure effective involvement. Furthermore, the principle was never gendered. It has proved hard
for HIV-positive women to have their voices heard, and
harder still for young HIV-positive women and others who
are more marginalised, such as sex workers, positive women
prisoners and injecting drug users.
Meaningful implementation of the GIPA principle is not
“While the GIPA principle is widely
accepted in theory, our experience is
that the views and voices of HIVpositive people still tend to be
overlooked or ignored.”
simply about seating HIV-positive women at decision-making
tables where a mandatory space has been created; it is also
about us setting the agenda. It is not only vital that HIV-positive women with the skills and capacity to make decisions are
involved as equal partners – but that those in positions of
power learn to engage with us in ways that are inclusive and
respectful, or else our involvement becomes tokenistic.
Both the technical and personal experiences of our
members demand that they be involved at every level of the
development, design and delivery of sexual and reproductive
health, treatment and care services for HIV-positive women
and girls around the world. To ensure ‘services to fit women’
(rather than ‘women to fit services’), groups and individuals
concerned with these issues must work in creative, interactive and participatory ways with HIV-positive women, as well
as with others who work directly with community members
67
THEME SECTION 3
11The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS
and other relevant groups. Only through such collaborative
efforts can we adequately address the barriers that prevent
women and girls from accessing these services.
Here, we discuss:
• our struggle to ensure that all our members’ voices are
heard in our advocacy efforts;
• the gendered barriers to greater involvement; and
• the resulting tendency for organisations, institutions and
networks (including ours) to ‘cherry-pick’ and ‘gatekeep’
when it comes to involvement.1
This article draws on experiences from our members’
involvement in many processes over the years. We share such
experiences through our newsletter, members’ e-forum,
during our advocacy development and training workshops,
and in informal exchanges between members.
Our issues don’t get discussed
HIV-positive women’s issues are often excluded in national,
regional and local mainstream dialogues. The following
quotes from HIV-positive women who have taken part in
programme and policy initiatives illustrate the exclusion of
their experience during design, planning, and implementation.
Our input is not implemented, and our ideas are not taken
into consideration.
We have organisations, but men lead them, and our issues
don’t get discussed.
Policy makers sit in boardrooms and decide what is relevant to our lives – we are not part of the process.
This ongoing marginalisation of HIV-positive women is
not only a feature of mainstream policy arenas. HIV/AIDS
organisations do not adequately take into account the
perspectives of women and reflect the patriarchal norms of
societies at large. Despite women’s strong leadership in
support groups, we find that national, regional and international organisations and networks of people living with HIV
and AIDS are dominated by men. Too many NGOs and civil
society groups working on HIV see themselves as caretakers
1
Cherry-picking is the act of pointing at individual cases or data that seem to
confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases
or data that may contradict that position. Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking. Gatekeeping is the process through
which ideas and information are filtered for publication. Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatekeeping_(communication)
68
and advocates for HIV-positive women, leaving us to assume
that they do not think we are empowered or responsible
enough to think or advocate for ourselves.
Women are used for their experience, but because the
woman is not very educated they think that they need
professionals to decide on things. (ICW member, Tanzania)
One World Bank officer once said at a meeting, ‘We can’t
involve representatives of HIV-positive women’s networks
in our meetings because they don’t know how to behave
in them.’ (ICW member)
Issues important to us are often not seen as important by
people not directly affected by HIV. Our daily experiences
starkly reveal the barriers to achieving our rights both as
women and as people living with HIV and AIDS. These experiences can give us insights and knowledge which, if ignored,
may well reduce the positive content and impact of work
around HIV and AIDS. It is not impossible for people who are
HIV-negative or who may not know their status to support us
and understand our issues. But any decision-making forum
on HIV that does not involve HIV-positive women who represent positive women’s networks is missing a vital perspective
representing a body of ‘expertise by experience’.
ICW has identified a real need for safe spaces, and for
research and advocacy development projects specifically run
by and for HIV-positive women from different backgrounds
or with different experiences and lifestyles. We have developed specific projects with young positive women, and HIVpositive women who are or were injecting drug users.
However, outside ICW a frustration for us is that ‘women’ (or
‘gender’) is generally seen as one category, differentiated
from, for instance, injecting drug users, prisoners, or young
people. This implies that HIV-positive women prisoners, for
example, have the same experiences and priorities as HIVpositive male prisoners. For women who are already marginalised such as sex workers, mobile populations, prisoners,
injecting drug users and young women, the additional
marginalisation of their HIV-positive status can silence their
voices. Even within activist circles our young members do not
feel their concerns are taken seriously by older members.
Similarly, ICW members who inject drugs have struggled to
get their voices heard either by HIV-positive non-injecting
drug users or HIV-positive male injecting drug users.
Increased involvement needs to be qualified in terms of
type and quality. Yet policies and guidance papers on HIV
The Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS: from principle to practice?
11
Cartoon: Kate Charlesworth
THEME SECTION 3
69
THEME SECTION 3
11The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS
rarely qualify GIPA. These policies remain rhetorical and often
satisfy themselves with the inclusion of HIV-positive women
as research respondents or service recipients.
People sign up to GIPA without knowing the meaning of
GIPA – they do it to get funding. (ICW member)
Such experiences with GIPA have led people to speak
about MIPA – meaningful involvement of people living with
HIV and AIDS, and even MIWA – meaningful involvement of
women living with HIV and AIDS. Yet whatever it is called, if
organisations working on HIV do not have a clear idea of
what we mean by ‘meaningful’ we will continue to be used
to legitimise exclusive processes of engagement. ICW
produced a poster depicting a continuum of involvement
moving from manipulation and tokenism to what we then
considered to be more meaningful forms of involvement, e.g.
the setting up of networks by HIV-positive women (see Figure
1). However, we now realise our poster misses a more political view of GIPA whereby HIV-positive women hold governments to account in terms of what they are doing to uphold
the rights of HIV-positive women and what a healthy relationship with policy makers would look like.
Last year I was invited to speak about GIPA and stigma
and discrimination at UNGASS.2 The government of x
organised a meeting for all the delegates from x and told
the delegates what they should say […] I was criticised and
put aside for making a big noise and being critical about
the government. (ICW member)
We have also noted how we shape our argument to get
our message across. For example, HIV-positive women
activists often use the gender inequality argument rather
than a direct rights-based argument to gain recognition of
the importance of their sexual and reproductive health and
rights (SRHR) (see Box 1). The inequality arguments are
powerful and ICW makes reference to these over and over
again.
Many HIV-positive women get HIV in their marriage beds.
Women often cannot negotiate safe sex.
2 UNGASS refers to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on
HIV/AIDS, 2001 at which a Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS was made.
Regular review meetings are held to monitor progress towards the commitments
made.
70
Box 1: Sexual and reproductive health and rights
• Sexual health: Includes healthy sexual development, equitable and
responsible relationships and sexual fulfilment, freedom from illness,
disease, disability, violence and other harmful practices related to
sexuality.
• Sexual rights: the rights of all people to decide freely and
responsibly on all aspects of their sexuality, including protecting and
promoting their sexual health, be free from discrimination, coercion
or violence in their sexual lives and in all sexual decisions, expect
and demand equality, full consent, mutual respect and shared
responsibility in sexual relationships. We also have the right to say
‘no’ to sex if we do not want it.
• Reproductive health: The complete physical, mental and social wellbeing in all matters related to the reproductive system including a
satisfying and safe sex life, capacity to have children and, freedom to
decide if, when and how often to do so.
• Reproductive rights: The rights of couples and individuals to decide
freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children, to
have the information, education and means to do so, attain the
highest standards of sexual and reproductive health and, make
decisions about reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and
violence.
• Reproductive care: Includes, at a minimum family planning services,
counselling and information, antenatal, postnatal and delivery care,
health care for infants, treatment for reproductive tract infections
and sexually transmitted diseases, safe abortion services where legal
and management of abortion-related complications, prevention and
appropriate treatment for infertility, information, education and
counselling on human sexuality, reproductive health and responsible
parenting and discouragement of harmful practices. If additional
services, such as the treatment of breast and reproductive system
cancers and HIV/AIDS are not offered, a system should be in place to
provide referrals for such care.
Source: ICW factsheet, adapted from definitions of SRR from the
programme for action resulting from the International Conference on
Population Development (ICPD), 1994.
Women are dependent on men so they cannot assert their
reproductive choices.
We have a hard time simply getting these facts recognised and addressed. Yet, significant as they are, it is only half
the story. Some of these messages can over-emphasise
women’s victimhood. They do not address the fact that
women also have sex outside of marriage, can choose to
have unprotected sex, or get pregnant by choice. ICW wants
to see the sexual and reproductive rights of all HIV-positive
women respected. However, we are caught between feeling
that gender inequality arguments are somehow seen as ‘old
hat’, and an HIV/AIDS policy context which prefers to avoid
the language of rights, particularly sexual and reproductive
rights.
The Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS: from principle to practice?
ICW is frequently asked to provide ICW women advocates
or to speak at international meetings with the aim of feeding
into policies and programmes. These invitations raise a
number of questions, which are discussed further below.
• How can we train up less experienced HIV-positive women
to take on advocacy roles at international levels, and avoid
creating a situation where only a select few have access to
the policy-making arena?
• How can we ensure that ICW representatives are effective,
feel supported and are able to present their experience as
well as the collective ICW perspective and a clear agenda
for change?
• Why do already skilled and experienced activists often
prefer to ‘go it alone’ rather than attend such meetings as
a linked ‘representative’ of a network of HIV-positive
women?
• The bigger question is, do we even want to continue
engaging with policy processes which only open their doors
to a select few?
We have not sufficiently challenged definitions of ‘positive leadership’, which contribute to empowering a select
few as global advocates and leading lights, in an individual
capacity, and at the expense of the many. We are therefore
complicit in creating an ‘aidserati’ (a global HIV elite), cherrypicking and gate-keeping so that the same faces and names
remain on the circuit to the exclusion of others.
They call their friends or people that they know. (ICW
member, Tanzania)
One way ICW is trying to address this is through a
programme working with young HIV-positive women to
develop their advocacy and policy-influencing skills, knowledge and plans. We have run young women’s dialogues
(YWD) in Southern Africa, South Africa, Swaziland and
Namibia. Originally using a training workshop format, we
now build in ongoing support for up to a year to allow the
women to develop their skills and implement their plans after
the initial workshop. We also encourage seasoned activists
to mentor less experienced activists.
However, we need to ensure that we are not just fostering a new elite without really challenging the way that policy
making is done and the way that positive people are used to
legitimise largely exclusive and restrictive policy processes. Do
we want to be present at all if our involvement is purely
about legitimising others’ agendas?
We also need to ensure that our representatives are
“ICW has identified a real need for safe
spaces, and for research and advocacy
development projects specifically run by
and for HIV-positive women from
different backgrounds or with different
experiences and lifestyles.”
THEME SECTION 3
Who represents who and what?
11
accountable. How do we, and they, ensure that their individual experiences, perspectives and concerns represent those
of other HIV-positive women? Should we even expect them
to put forward the views of others? And how do they
communicate their advocacy experience back to other
women? In situations where ICW is asked to identify a person
to be part of a forum where policies or strategies are being
devised, we need to ensure that they speak from ICW’s
perspective, aims and politics. Yet we have yet to articulate
clearly how this could happen, or even what this would
involve, given that ICW is a network with a membership with
such diversity of individual experience. Positive women representatives tend to be invited to decision-making fora at the
last minute and this further reduces the scope for advance
consultation with other HIV-positive women. Such consultation is vital, however, because it enables women to get
involved without publicly declaring their status – which many
women are reluctant to do.
If GIPA is a conditionality of funding, then people living
with HIV need to have a voice in the process – and this
needs to be confidential – not just being put on display
for the donor to see. (ICW member)
Organisations for people living with HIV/AIDS are underfunded and their input undervalued. Positive representatives
at the policy table are usually there as volunteers. Our attendance is dependent on funding by policy makers and often
only out-of-pocket costs are covered. This makes it difficult
for anyone in work to take on such a role. It also creates an
uncomfortable imbalance when we are around a table with
people representing other bodies who are on full-time
salaries. Many activists rely heavily on the per diems they get
from attending events and workshops run by other organisations. This can create resentment from other activists when
they see the same people going to events again and again.
If organisations are really committed to ensuring that HIV
programmes are successful then adequate funding should be
71
THEME SECTION 3
11The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS
“Organisations need to recognise that
when they do not involve us in ways
that are respectful and meaningful the
quality of programmes and policies
suffers and their impact is lessened.”
available to make sure that our time and energy is compensated for.
Policy making environments can be quite intimidating
and we often find ourselves the ‘lone voice’ of HIV-positive
women.
I sometimes find I am the only HIV-positive woman at a
high-level forum. (ICW member)
We spend weeks away from loved ones, often unpaid,
sitting around big tables, our input strictly limited when, for
example, we are designated as observers only or are not
given a specific slot for speaking. We do this on the offchance that we can have some influence within parameters
that have already been determined. Much decision-making
is done in the ‘corridors of power’ rather than in meetings to
which we are invited. Perhaps policy makers should spend
some time with our members in the environments where
they live, and learn from them how to be more inclusive. Too
often, our lack of capacity is used as an excuse not to include
us, when in fact those that currently make the policies need
to think about their capacity to engage with us.
We need to look at ways of engaging in processes that
lead to positive change in our lives. They may involve mentoring, sharing, building networks, and creating dialogues and
accountability so that groups of people feel their voices are
represented, even when they are not physically present at
meetings. This must not occur as a one-off, but involve continuity and two-way dialogue. Our challenge is that our
members are spread broadly across the globe, many with
little access to information communication technology (ICT).
At ICW we are continually trying to adapt, develop and
experiment with more inclusive forms of representation. We
would welcome ideas from other organisations and
networks on their experiences.
ICW’s membership reflects in many ways the diversity of
women’s lives in general. All HIV-positive women can, with
encouragement, relay their experiences of living with HIV and
feel solidarity with other HIV-positive people around the
72
world. The impact of ‘telling’ truths and illustrating barriers
to sexual and reproductive health through personal stories
can be powerful. It can help influence policy makers to
understand and take on board the reality of living with the
virus. This can be one important element of GIPA and one
which demands as much respect and attention as any other
– when it is not exploitative, and used with full sensitivity to
the personal issues it may raise.
However, there are additional levels of skill, capacity and
political sophistication which are needed in any meaningful
application of the GIPA principle. We want the expertise and
political sophistication of a growing number of us to be
recognised and respected.
In Namibia, for example, we have set up the 13-member
Namibia Women’s Health Network. It is made up of mainly
HIV-positive (12 of the 13) young women.3 The project is
empowering these women and four female Members of
Parliament through a series of trainings, which include sexual
reproductive health and rights.
Being part of the network and working with other positive women – it has made me realise that I am not alone
and there are other people like me. It has released that
inner person and psychologically I am no longer that
stressed and oppressed. (ICW member from Namibia)
The 13 women will be linked with MPs and a committee
of 26 women, who are being selected from the 13 regions
(two women – one older and one young woman – from each
region), who will monitor services and talk to community
members to bring important issues to the policy makers. The
project wants to ensure that HIV-positive women are meaningfully involved in making decisions, including national policies, that impact on their lives. Through training
parliamentarians, we hope to build the capacity of those in
positions of power to engage with HIV-positive people in
ways that are equitable, respectful, and productive for all
involved.
Now they have the committee to work with. Now we can
see that we have a point where we can channel our
concerns. Before when you spoke about MPs they were
distant and it was difficult for a community to imagine
reaching them. (Member of Family Hope Sanctuary in
Namibia)
3 A similar approach has been applied regionally by ICW Latina for the past four
years (ICW News 25, 2004).
The Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS: from principle to practice?
tokenistic to meaningful behaviour may make us unpopular
(particularly when organisations seek to work with us so that
they can tick the right boxes). This is partly because it involves
HIV-negative women and men questioning their own role in
tackling this pandemic and partially because we are often
working with organisations with more resources and power
than we have. We are not just asking others to think about
this issue – we are asking everyone to ask themselves: What
am I doing, and what is my organisation doing, to meaningfully involve HIV-positive women?’
THEME SECTION 3
This example from Namibia does not entirely do away
with the problems of selection and representation. But it does
build into its workings a commitment to consult and liaise
with communities. Organisations need to recognise that
when they do not involve us in ways that are respectful and
meaningful the quality of programmes and policies suffers
and their impact is lessened. The longer we wait to involve
HIV-positive women, the more time is wasted in addressing
the challenges around HIV faced by countries and communities. We realise that our efforts to move organisations from
11
CONTACT DETAILS
Collective authorship by the
International Community of Women Living
with HIV/AIDS
International Support Office
Unit 6 Building 1
Canonbury Yard
190a New North Road
London, N1 7BJ
UK
Email: info@icw.org
Website: www.icw.org
73
THEME SECTION 3
12
Understanding local difference:
gender (plus) matters for NGOs
by NAZNEEN KANJI and SU FEI TAN
Introduction
This article aims to promote a more consistent analysis of
recognised local difference in the work we do as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), particularly, but not only,
gender differences. We want to do two things.
• Illustrate why and how it is important to ‘disaggregate’
populations – to separate out different subgroups for analysis – going beyond ‘the local’ and ‘the community’ in our
analysis. We use examples of selected publications from the
International Institute for Environment and Development
(IIED).
• Provide a basic tool for thinking about difference in the
work we do, focusing on the management of natural
resources for sustainable development.
The article is based on a longer review of IIED publications, produced for internal learning. It is particularly relevant
for intermediary rather than grassroots or membership
organisations.
Why difference?
Poverty reduction is an overarching goal of most development organisations. IIED’s mission statement links livelihoods
with ecological resilience. It is:
74
… to shape a future that ends global poverty and ensures
fair and sound management of the world’s resources.
One key principle underlying the way we work is to
… support a greater voice for less powerful interests by
building their capacity to act and speak, by linking local
and global levels.1
But does IIED’s work and that of similar organisations
incorporate an understanding of how ‘less powerful interests’ are differentiated?
It is now more widely acknowledged that economic
reforms (structural adjustment policies) and market-led development have increased socio-economic inequalities, between
countries and between groups within countries. As IIED’s
Natural Resources Group strategy puts it:
The importance of geography is being overtaken by social
inequalities and large segments of the world’s population
are marginalised.
1 From the IIED Strategy Document 2005-2008. See
www.iied.org/aboutiied/strategydocument.html
Understanding local difference: gender (plus) matters for NGOs
The trend is one of greater inequalities within rural and
urban areas. Those with greater assets and power are much
better able to participate in and harness the benefits of
market-led development.2 One example is the expansion of
industrialised, commercial and often export-oriented agriculture and forestry. It tends to concentrate land and natural
resources in the hands of a few, marginalising production for
local and subsistence use. Market liberalisation tends to
benefit larger farmers and widens inequalities between them
and small, resource-poor farmers.
We argue that international and national NGOs could
strengthen their approach and results with a greater understanding of the need for a differentiated policy, which takes
into account local context and dynamics. Gender is a key
dimension of social difference, which affects people’s experience, concerns and capabilities in the management of natural
resources. While many NGOs already disaggregate fairly
systematically on assets and income differences, a stronger
focus on gender perspective, and an understanding of other
differences such as race, caste and age would give us a firmer
basis for understanding how policies affect different groups.
Gender and difference
Unequal gender relations and women’s lack of secure rights
to land and natural resources tends to exclude them from
decision-making over land and natural resource use in many
parts of the world. However, women often bear the main
responsibility for ‘putting food on the table’ and are heavily
involved in the day-to-day management of natural resources.
If we examine the sustainable livelihoods framework,
which is used by a number of agencies involved in development programmes, it is clear that there are differences in the
level of assets, or what is sometimes termed capital, of different groups (see Box 1). In different contexts, caste, race and
age may be very important. In almost all contexts, gender
tends to be important.
Existing assets (material and social, e.g. networks and
access to information) affect the power to access and influ2 See
for example: World Development 28: 7 (2000) and IIED Gatekeeper no. 100
‘Global Restructuring, Agri-Food Systems and Livelihoods’ (2001) –
www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=9166IIED
Box 1: Assets in the livelihoods framework
THEME SECTION 3
“Gender is a key dimension of social
difference, which affects people’s
experience, concerns and capabilities in
the management of natural resources.”
12
ence policies, institutions and processes. Increasing scarcity
and competition over natural resources leads to increased
vulnerability for disadvantaged groups. Household level
studies indicate that, in the current context, competition
between men and women and between generations often
leads to the edging out of women and young men from
control over productive resources, so that ‘family property’ is
effectively privatised by older men.3 While situations obviously vary, there is concern that women systematically lack
access to land, credit, income, education and information
relative to men, while bearing heavier roles as carers, in the
context of HIV and AIDS and often declining health and
welfare provision.
Women’s roles and activities tend to make them less
active in markets than men. When they do participate, the
way markets (financial, goods and labour markets) are structured often deny women equal access. Similarly there is
differentiated access to state institutions and political parties.
Much of what women do contributes to the unpaid ‘care’
economy (e.g. childcare, cooking meals) as opposed to the
‘commodity’ economy although they are interdependent.4
The care economy is under-valued and yet represents an
essential underpinning of human and societal well-being.
3 See
e.g. the 2006 IIED Briefing paper ‘Innovation in Securing Land Rights in
Africa: lessons from experience’ (www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=12531IIED)
and more specifically the paper presented by Christian Lund ‘Securing Land
Rights: some reflections on approaching the issue.’
4 For further explanation see Elson et al. (1997).
75
THEME SECTION 3
12Nazneen Kanji and Su Fei Tan
Box 2: Examples of differences in power and access to
information
• Within low income/resource poor communities, women have less
knowledge of land registration processes and rules. In Mozambique,
women were unaware that their land had been registered by
community ‘representatives’.
• In Ghana, chiefs who are well informed and connected are able to
sell off land without the knowledge or consent of their communities.
• In southern Niger, the restrictions that young women face on their
mobility, also restricts their knowledge of basic political processes
such as the right to vote.
The perspective of poor women, who constitute approximately half the population in most societies, provides a
unique and powerful vantage point from which to examine
environment and development strategies:
• Firstly, women constitute the majority of the economically
and socially disadvantaged in most societies, with additional burdens imposed by gender-based hierarchies and
the subordination of women.
• Secondly, women’s work in the survival, ongoing reproduction and care of human beings and the environment is
critical and yet continues to be undervalued.
• Thirdly, gender-based inequalities are used to undermine
the wages and working conditions of an increasing pool of
women’s labour used in fuelling economic growth. Exportled industries (such as textiles, electronics and garments)
are a case in point.
The scope of work of many NGOs may make disaggregation difficult at times, but we should, at a minimum, avoid
romanticising or homogenising ‘local communities’ (see e.g.
Whitehead and Tsikata, 2003). When NGOs work on natural
resource management, we tend to define groups according
to their use of particular natural resources and/or production
systems.
• Do we need to look at how identities and power at the
local level intersect with such systems and who benefits
from them? These are the factors which actually determine
access to – and benefits from – resources.
• Do we privilege formal policy processes and not give
enough importance to the influence of customary systems
and to everyday and informal struggles which can also
influence outcomes?
• Are there times when local difference matters less and
when whole communities are equally affected, or are
effects always differentiated?
• Do we see women’s rights as human rights – or is there an
implicit hierarchy of rights (and oppression) which underpins our analysis?
76
“Do we see women’s rights as human
rights – or is there an implicit hierarchy
of rights (and oppression) which
underpins our analysis?”
Review of IIED papers
In order to explore these complex questions, we examine
two papers by IIED, which deal with agriculture and small
farms. They were selected as they aim to represent the interests of small farmers and rural communities and both seek
to feed into policy processes and provide recommendations.
In our analysis we asked three questions:
• Does the analysis recognise difference in the population
which is discussed in the paper? (Difference refers to a)
access to and control over livelihood assets and b) social
positioning and decision-making power);
• Do the conclusions and recommendations/policy implications build on a disaggregated analysis?
• What are the consequences? Does it matter, when and
how?
Transformations in West African Agriculture and the Role
of Family Farms
This paper by Camilla Toulmin and Bara Gueye (2003) was
prepared as a scoping study for the Sahel and West Africa
Club Secretariat. It provided the basis for developing a
longer-term programme to examine the transformations in
West African agriculture and the challenges faced by smallholder production systems. The study was carried out as a
desk review of relevant material and did not involve field
work.
Does the analysis recognise difference in the population
discussed in the paper?
In analysing transformation in agriculture and family farms,
there is a clear disaggregation between farm households
using the ‘three rural worlds’ typology:
• the first category is globally competitive and linked to
agribusiness;
• the second is locally oriented with access to and control
over land but facing declining terms of trade, which means
they are able to exchange what they produce for less than
before; and
• the third group has limited access to productive resources
and has diversified livelihoods, including migration, for
survival.
Understanding local difference: gender (plus) matters for NGOs
12
Women
working in
rural Niger.
Photo: Marie Monimart
THEME SECTION 3
The size and composition of households and how the
availability of labour affects household productivity is also
discussed. Case studies are cited describing the migration of
younger men to earn cash outside family farming. There is
much less emphasis on gender disaggregation. For example,
household heads are assumed to be male. There is also an
assumption that family farms have links with communities,
which are based on solidarity and mutual help. This is
contrasted with commercial agriculture where there is often
no social connection between entrepreneur and local
community. However, this picture of family farming is at variance with much of the empirical work on women’s labour in
agriculture, where there is often struggle over time, resources
and benefits at the household level. Equally, there are often
struggles e.g. over land and water within communities that
operate family farms.
Do the conclusions and recommendations build on a
disaggregated analysis?
The analysis then moves to the drivers of change and the
challenges. Here, the pressure on family farms to use their
cheap labour to adapt is not analysed in terms of the results
of women’s work burden (and effects on her own and the
household’s health and well-being), which has been a
common finding in wider poverty analysis of farm households. In addition, research on the intensification of cash
cropping has shown that food crops may suffer and that
income received from cash crops may be controlled and used
by men in ways that lead to a decline in household nutrition
and welfare.5
In assessing the rise of producer organisations (e.g.
cotton producers) there is little attention to the composition
5
See e.g. Dey (1980) and Wold (1997).
77
THEME SECTION 3
12Nazneen Kanji and Su Fei Tan
of the membership in terms of size of family farm, gender
or age. The question arises about whose voices are being
heard in policy forums, and whether these voices represent
the interests of more marginal farmers, youth and women.
Similarly, the paper recognises that women rarely have direct
access to credit, inputs and extension, and that women
provide huge inputs into agriculture. But the implications for
a programme of work are not analysed. The detrimental
effects of power relations at the global level are clearly
signalled in the conclusions and suggestions for future work.
However, there is less attention to or awareness of local
power dynamics. For example, whether an organisation
such as ROPPA (Réseau des organisations paysannes et des
producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) reflects marginalised
farmers’ views.6
What are the consequences? Does it matter, when and how?
Since the objective is to set out a programme of work on
family farming, more can be done to have a clearer and
deeper understanding of the unit of analysis – family farms
– which gives voice to the concerns of younger and older
members, women and men. There are assumptions of
harmonious households and communities, which are not
empirically supported. Without such an analysis there is a risk
of ignoring the interests of less powerful groups as described
above.
It would also seem vital to include poverty and sustainability issues as well as the ‘productivity’ of family farming
systems, which seems to be the main focus. This focus may
be a response to the ‘international’ idea that family farms are
inefficient. But we also need to make it clear that the costs
and benefits of different kinds of family farms vary according
to social positioning. It is also a chance to explore whether
international development goals of equity, efficiency and
sustainability sometimes compete and contain contradictions.
The meaning of ‘efficiency’ also needs to be unpacked, as it
can be at the risk of inequitable costs and benefits to different groups in the farming population.
Prajateerpu: A citizens jury/scenario workshop on food and
farming futures for Andhra Pradesh, India
This report was co-authored by Michel Pimbert and Tom
Wakeford (2002). Prajateerpu was devised as a means of
allowing those people most affected by the ‘Vision 2020’ for
food and farming in Andhra Pradesh, India to shape a vision
6
78
Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organisations of West Africa.
“Women’s rights are critical if we are to
achieve sustainable development. We
cannot afford to view these struggles
for rights as a luxury or of secondary
importance in relation to other areas of
contention.”
of their own (see also Kuruganti et al, this issue). A core
group of Indian and UK-based co-inquirers began from an
awareness that the views of small farmers, and those of other
marginalised rural communities whose lives depend on agriculture, had been almost entirely excluded from decisionmaking during the development of Vision 2020. Prajateerpu
sought to facilitate deliberative and inclusionary processes for
policy analysis and review. The reports describe participatory
action research that took place against a background of
social, political and scientific controversy in which researchers
were active participants. It used different methods in combination, including the citizens’ jury, scenario workshop and
public hearings. An IIED researcher was an active member of
the action research process and the aim was to put expert
knowledge under public scrutiny with the aim of democratising knowledge.
Does the analysis recognise difference in the population
discussed in the paper?
The jury selection process did not seek to achieve representation from all social groups. Instead, it purposefully and positively discriminated in favour of the poor and marginalised
farmers and landless. Emphasis was put on recruiting dalit,
adivasi and women farmers. The selection criteria for jurors
included:
• small or marginal farmers living near or below the poverty
line;
• open-minded, with no close connection to NGOs or political parties; and
• likely to be articulate in discussions.
Jurors were chosen from a wide variety of agricultural
backgrounds (different agro-ecological zones). They represented small and marginal farmers, food processors and an
urban consumer. In addition, the diverse composition of
witnesses, including government officials, agriculture experts
and academics, ensured that a range of different groups in
society fed their views into the process.
Understanding local difference: gender (plus) matters for NGOs
12
Jurors, two thirds of
whom were women,
present their vision
during the
Prajateerpu process.
What are the consequences? Does it matter, when and how?
The methodology employed ensures that IIED and/or other
intermediary organisations at the national level are not
representing the views of marginalised groups. Rather, this
project directly ‘supports a greater voice for less powerful
interests by building their capacity to act and speak, by
linking local and global levels’. This is a part of IIED’s strategy and principles. Such participatory methods build capacity for much more direct, rather than representative,
democratic processes.
This methodology is challenging. Conflicts which occur
between groups in such a process have to be managed. Even
the process of selecting jurors may be contested – for example,
those who do not feel it is important for women to participate
directly. As with many methodologies based on ‘stakeholder
dialogue’, much depends on the facilitation. If facilitators
encourage such differences to be aired, then a more inclusive
and real consensus may be reached than in forums where
there are unacknowledged differences in power, or where
some of the most marginalised groups are missing.
Lessons learnt
Intermediary NGOs, particularly those such as IIED working
at international level, tend to have some distance from the
grassroots. They work primarily with and through partners.
This almost inevitably weakens staff understanding of specific
contexts and dynamic processes of change and their
outcomes. We have argued that a perspective which disaggregates is important and that we cannot see the local (or
communities, farmers etc.) as homogenous. We need to
avoid over-simplification and clearly acknowledge that differences in power operate at all levels. Gender analysis provides
an important lens which interacts with class, ethnicity and
age but also cuts across them. So for example, gender analysis can reveal the problems that young men face in accessing
land and natural resources when these are scarce.
Women’s rights are critical if we are to achieve sustainable development. We cannot afford to view these struggles
Photo: Sarojini Naidu School
The conclusions and recommendations come from the jurors
themselves and represent their views and interests. The
emphasis in this initiative was placed on the process of deliberative and informed debate. It enabled groups who are
discriminated against on the grounds of wealth, caste,
ethnicity and gender to use their knowledge, interact with
‘experts’ and express their opinions.
THEME SECTION 3
Do the conclusions and recommendations build on a
disaggregated analysis?
for rights as a luxury or of secondary importance in relation
to other areas of contention. Rather, a gender perspective
should be integrated into the analysis, in that inequalities of
class, income, gender, race and ethnicity interact in particular contexts to determine outcomes. In some parts of the
world, for example in South Asia, it is widely recognised that
targets for poverty reduction will not be met without reducing gender inequalities. Having said this, we understand that
these can be sensitive issues. But if we have good relationships with partners on the ground, we should be able to
broach these issues. In any case there are usually many NGOs
and community-based organisations (CBOs) already working
on gender. We should be careful to include them in our
choice of partner. Discussions on gender are easier for staff
based in the North if we understand and are open about
difference in our own societies and cultures.
One way we can deepen our understanding of local
contexts is to spend time in the field, as opposed to meetings and workshops in national capitals. When this is difficult, we should engage in discussion with community-based
organisations on their views about difference and inequality
of different kinds. Respecting culture does not mean we
cannot speak with partners about issues of equality and how
they are interpreted by different groups in their and our societies. Avoiding such debate can even be seen as patronising.
Respecting culture does not mean undermining hard-won
universal declarations of human rights. For example, there is
a real danger at the current time that cultural relativism is
used to excuse breaches of women’s basic human rights in
extremist interpretations of Islam and Catholicism.7 Both men
and women within these societies are contesting these views.
At a very minimum, if we are unable to be in the field
regularly or take part in policy processes at the local level
7
The principle that each culture must be analysed on its own terms and the
behaviour of others should not be judged by one’s own culture.
79
THEME SECTION 3
12Nazneen Kanji and Su Fei Tan
Box 3: Some factors of differentiation
• Divisions of labour
• Access to and control over resources and services, e.g. land
• Participation in decision-making
• Distribution of benefits and incentives
ourselves, then we must refer to or build on other organisations’ empirical work. What we must avoid is the ‘add
women’ syndrome where the words are added without any
analysis or substance. We are not arguing that each piece of
writing done by NGO staff must reach the same depth of
understanding of local context, difference and inequality –
but that we can improve our outputs by acknowledging
power inequalities at the local level much more systematically,
taking a gender perspective in our work and viewing
women’s rights as human rights.
Basic tools for addressing difference in NGO work
Given the breadth of work at IIED and in many NGOs, it is
difficult to provide a tool which is adequate for all the sectors,
context and levels of our work. In general, a good starting
point is to think about the key factors which lead to differentiation (Box 3). What follows are some simple guidelines
related to different categories of NGO work.
more equitable and inclusive development, management of
natural resources, and so on. We can also reflect which
particular differences at local level have a bearing on the
objectives we are trying to achieve.
• Discuss with partners which aspects of difference are
important and why.
• Make sure this is reflected in the terms of reference, research
questions and plan, and the methodology to be used.
• Wherever possible, participatory tools and approaches
should be used to ensure that different groups within
communities can voice their interests and frame the
debate.
For example, in the IIED research programme on ‘How
land registration affects poor groups’ the research questions
included:
• What are the differences for men/women/incomers in
terms of registering claims over land?
• Are women able to register their land as well as men, are
incomers excluded?
In Ethiopia, the first phase of the research showed that
women were particularly vulnerable to losing land rights, but
that there was also some innovation in registration procedures which could protect their rights; so a piece of work
was commissioned on women’s land rights in Amhara which
has since been used widely.
Desk studies/secondary research
This kind of research is often carried out by staff, sometimes
as a scoping exercise, to inform the development of further
work. As this work lays the foundation it is important to have
as nuanced a view as possible of context and factors of differentiation at the local level.
• Find out which differences are important and why (e.g.
caste is a very important factor of differentiation in the
Indian context. In the Sahel the important factor may be
the type of production system, such as pastoralism, which
defines stronger or weaker access to natural resources). It
is also important to identify and use information gathered
through participatory processes as these are likely to be less
filtered and to represent better the interests of marginalised
groups.
• Do a wider search for information on websites. A few useful
ones are included at the end of this article.
Commissioned research
International and national NGOs commission consultants or
organisations. Often work of this kind is commissioned to
improve knowledge of an issue for policy, or to provide
specific information for a programme.
• Specify that local difference is addressed in the terms of
reference.
• Ensure that the methods allow important differences to
emerge, and specifically that participatory tools and
approaches are used.
Work on producer organisations should include questions such as:
• What kinds of farmers are members of these producer
organisations?
• How are these organisations governed?
• How are leaders chosen and how are different interests
represented?
Collaborative policy research with partners
International researchers work together with national partners on a specific project or research programme. This is
where we can reflect better the processes that are happening on the ground and the kinds of action that will result in
80
Convening actors to discuss specific issues and policies
IIED, and other international NGOs, facilitate processes of
debate and information sharing at various levels, local,
national and regional.
Understanding local difference: gender (plus) matters for NGOs
CONTACT DETAILS
Nazneen Kanji
Quality of Life Assessment Programme
Aga Khan Development Network
c/o Aga Khan Foundation UK
3 Cromwell Gardens
London SW7 2HB
UK
Email: nazneen.kanji@akdn.org
Su Fei Tan
Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and
Livelihoods Programme (SABL)
International Institute for Environment and
Development (IIED)
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H 0DD
UK
Email: sufei.tan@iied.org
Advice to donors (policy and programmes)
In arguments around major policy choices that will affect all
poor groups (that is, the debate between promoting large
commercial or smallholder agriculture or giving rights to
indigenous groups as a whole) it may be necessary to simplify
messages and forego a more nuanced view of the different
interests at local level.
But as soon as you get into programmatic advice, the way
in which you advise donors to support e.g. smallholder
production, must take account of difference at the local level.
Since all donors tend to have written policies and make statements which support inclusion, equity including gender equity,
sustainability and human rights – it is a question of following
through the implications of broad principles and policy statements for differentiated and context-specific policy and
processes which may actually support these principles.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Photo on page 79 by kind permission of the
Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Arts,
Fine Arts and Communications, University of
Hyderabad.
THEME SECTION 3
• Make sure that a range of interests are represented
(including groups that may not be organised/vocal). A
good example is the work on citizens’ juries. This actively
sought to support the voices of more marginalised groups
within the context of a facilitated informed debate on a
specific issue. In IIED’s and other UK organisations’ work
to support pastoral civil society, on the other hand,
currently no pastoral women’s organisations are involved.
We need to look for other organisations, or identify
women within the organisations already involved with the
project who could be supported to represent women’s
interests.
• Make sure that less powerful groups are supported to
make their voices heard, e.g. organising time for women
to meet and discuss their views to present to wider audiences.
12
REFERENCES
Dey, J. (1980) ‘Gambian women: unequal
partners in rice development.’ Journal of
Development Studies 17:3
Elson, D., B. Evers, and J. Gideon (1997)
‘Gender Aware Economic Reports: Concepts
and Sources.’ Genecon Unit, University of
Manchester
Pimbert, M. and T. Wakeford (2002)
Prajateerpu: A citizens jury/scenario workshop
on food and farming futures for Andhra
Pradesh, India. IIED: London
Toulmin, C. and B. Gueye (2003)
‘Transformations in West African Agriculture
and the Role of Family Farms.’ Drylands Issue
Paper 123. IIED: London
Whitehead, A. and D. Tsikata (2003) ‘Policy
Discourses on Women’s Land Rights in
Sub–Saharan Africa: the implications of the
re–turn to the customary.’ Journal of Agrarian
Change 3 (1-2)
Wold, B.K. (1997) ‘Supply Response in a
Gender Perspective: the case of Structural
Adjustment in Zambia.’ Statistics Norway: Oslo
81
THEME SECTION 3
13
The ivory tower and beyond:
Bradford University at the heart
of its communities
by JENNY PEARCE, MARTIN PEARSON and SAM CAMERON
What is community engagement?
Externalities
It is important to distinguish community engagement (CE)
from other university outreach activities – e.g. widening
participation, lifelong learning, knowledge transfer, cultural
activities, volunteering, and research and consultancy. While
all these activities are valuable ways in which the university
contributes to its locality, community engagement differs in
both its goals and the character of the relationship that the
university aims to build. Community engagement builds partnerships and shared objectives based on mutually recognised
and valued community and university competences. This is
at the core of the effort to break down barriers between
academia and the community, encouraging mutual respect
and building shared approaches to challenges facing the
district.
There are benefits outside of those accruing to the partners
and these should contribute to building social trust and social
networks in the Bradford district. Through these we seek to
enhance sustainability, well-being and local cohesion, and
ultimately to contribute to the building of a learning- and
knowledge-based society.
Partners have access to university facilities and resources as
opposed to receiving a one-off provision of goods or services.
Partnership
Our measurement tool is based on four principles: Reciprocity, Externalities, Access and Partnership (REAP).
Partnerships deepen and develop through the extended reciprocity and improved access. They are an output and
outcome of community engagement activities, which should
eventually also become key inputs to improving and enhancing those activities.
Reciprocity
Beyond number-crunching
There is a flow of knowledge, information and benefits in both
directions between the university and its community partners
in all activities which they agree to embark on together.
We felt that a pure quantitative (economic or numeric)
measure could not capture the importance of this area of
work. Community engagement is not market activity – most
How to measure it?
82
Access
The ivory tower and beyond: Bradford University at the heart of its communities
approach to ongoing evaluation guided by the four components of REAP. It aims to avoid costly end of project evaluations or costly (and it argues, ultimately unconvincing in terms
of measuring qualitative progress) data collection procedures.
Rather, it advocates a self reflection and systematisation
culture, through which each activity or project sets its own
goals and measurement procedures.
The REAP approach in practice
of it is not even ‘near market’ – that is, something which
could be sold or measured by proxy estimates such as ‘willingness to pay’. Community engagement in its purest form
seeks to provide some benefit to the community that is not
an accidental by-product in the pursuit of some other aim.
Reciprocity means that the university engages literally with
the community so that the knowledge base of the academics involved is informed by new information from the
members of the community they engage with. Community
engagement is not a ‘free service’ to the community, like
community development, but is based on these non-market
forms of reciprocity. Attributing a monetary value to such an
enterprise, or to collect data through surveys and other
mechanisms which assume it has such a value, would
compromise reciprocity, leading the community to wonder
whether there is a ‘hidden’ economic agenda.
The most difficult component to ‘measure’ is that of
externalities. We argue that these are mostly in the form of
enhanced social capital – or informal and formal social interactions, associations and networks which generate trust and
well-being for individuals and society.
Measuring the broader impact of university-community
engagement outside participant partnerships is a very difficult task, and would require a serious investment by universities and local authorities in data collection and conceptual
clarification of the meaning of social capital, particularly at
the level of communities. The REAP tool encourages ongoing
systematisation and self-evaluation of goals set by university
and community members involved in particular activities. It
encourages constant self reflection and ‘measurements’ of
activities, which have been defined by participants. Participants might do this by baseline interviews of those who they
wish to influence. They might include quantitative elements,
such as how many people attend events. But these would be
supplemented by qualitative measures, which assess how
those who attended gained from their attendance.
REAP does not establish a model of self evaluation which
is applicable across all university-community activities, but an
Our measurement tool is essentially a means of self-assessment, planning, monitoring and reviewing of community
engagement activities. It is intended as a guide to thinking
through potential partnerships using a practical breakdown
of the component parts of REAP. It is to be used actively and
creatively whenever a partnership is begun, with potential
projects and collaborations weighted according to the four
REAP criteria to decide whether a project will meet those
criteria. It should be used through the project life to assess
progress through indicators and milestones set by partners,
and finally to self-evaluate the outputs and outcomes of the
project. Qualitative evidence should be rigorously gathered
through interviews, questionnaires, focus groups and participant observation as the programme of activities develops.
Costs of activities should be calculated and these can be set
against income raised to cover those costs. But the team is
not advocating evaluation on the basis of income generated.
The REAP tool is based on building strong qualitative indicators of ongoing progress towards agreed goals, outputs and
outcomes.
THEME SECTION 3
“The increasing emphasis placed on the
provision for life-long learning has
meant that more relationships had
developed with communities,
particularly with schools and community
groups.”
13
REAP and community engagement in Bradford
The REAP self-evaluation and measurement tool was developed as part of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
award to the university 2004–2006.
The HEIF funding enabled Bradford to broaden its scope
of community engagement work and to enhance its existing
work. REAP aimed to foster a new culture of working with
communities. The first step for the REAP authors was to map
the existing work and create a database for the university of
its history of CE activities. The authors discovered that each
school had a very unique approach to working with communities, dependent on a number of factors, such as individual
staff and student interests, internal (school and university)
and external drivers.
Economic factors played a particular role. For some, any
work with communities is seen as a potential income-generating opportunity and may only be worth undertaking if the
economic returns are great enough. Schools such as Infor83
THEME SECTION 3
13Jenny Pearce, Martin Pearson and Sam Cameron
matics, Engineering and Management have a more developed marketing potential and history, and clearer sense of
product. There were a variety of projects developed by the
university which had relevance to local individuals, businesses,
organisations and government. But how to make these
accessible to local communities was not normally part of the
culture of university schools’ thinking.
Where there has been a conscious effort to open up a
university project or course to the local communities it is
normally the result of interests of an individual or group of
staff members who are involved in the community in their
own time. Examples include the Manningham Corridors
Project in partnership with Manningham Means Business, a
major initiative by the School of Management to engage with
the local communities.1 The same is also true in SAGE (School
of Archaeology and the Environment) where some academics’ involvement with local history societies had led to
collaboration with the university to strengthen a local history
network.
The increasing emphasis placed on the provision for lifelong learning has meant that more relationships had developed with communities, particularly with schools and
community groups. SLED (School of Lifelong Learning and
Development) had been particularly active in developing
these relationships. Within the School of Social and International Studies, the Department of Social Studies and Humanities had a history of researching ethnicity, gender, youth and
other social divisions in the locality – but with little actual
consultation and involvement of the local communities in the
design and carrying out of research. Academics also sometimes acted as consultants on issues of interest in the locality. For example, staff from the Department of Social Studies
acted as consultants to local government on issues such as
youth participation and local electoral reform.
The School of Health was one of the most embedded
schools in the locality with local partnerships with the local
health service, primary health care trusts, and with community and voluntary groups such as Sharing Voices, Bradford
Mind, and other local health service users. An innovation in
the way the university worked with communities was the
Programme for a Peaceful City, which was established by the
Department of Peace Studies in 2001 and extended its work
in the wake of the Bradford riots in July of that year. It aimed
to build an interface between the community and academics to discuss and address the problems of community inter1 This
project was pioneered by one member of staff in the locality and aims to
support economic regeneration through research and hosting knowledge-sharing
between businesses and the university.
84
“Thinkspace’s big challenge is how to
interest academics in learning from
community activists. Innovations like
this have to be fostered and nurtured
before they are more widely
embedded.”
action in the district of Bradford. The PPC was always based
on the idea of working ‘with’ not ‘to’ the community. Bradford District has a vibrant history of community organising,
but it also faces many problems of how to build interaction
between communities of different social, cultural and ethnic
backgrounds within a context of high levels of poverty and
unemployment.
From this brief survey, we conclude that the university’s
work with communities has often been instrumental (such as
recruitment), sometimes promotional about the university’s
profile, sometimes a source of research and consultancy
opportunity, sometimes as a source of income generation,
but was largely eclectic and ad hoc. However, the relationships built up by the School of Health and the Programme for
a Peaceful City provided a source for a new, more strategic
approach to CE work, which had at its core the principles
outlined earlier in this article.
During the two years of HEIF funding, the University of
Bradford experimented with a new approach to CE and
REAP was developed in tandem with this tool. The university appointed six community associations who would act as
catalysts to link communities with the university and to
develop collaborations where appropriate. REAP was used
by each of the associates in pilot projects, helping to modify
the REAP tool.2
As HEIF funding has ended, the university has lost all but
three of its community associates. Some impetus has gone
out of the CE process, which we hope will be recovered as
the new university vice chancellor develops his agenda
around this area of work. The university is at present particularly active in the promotion of its Ecoversity initiative, which
aims to use REAP as a measurement tool. In the meantime,
the most vibrant of the university CE initiatives remains the
Programme for a Peaceful City, and we outline what it does
and how it makes use of REAP.
2 This
process can be explored in detail in the final REAP report.
The ivory tower and beyond: Bradford University at the heart of its communities
PPC continues to bring together academics and practitioners
to reflect on key contemporary debates. Key to its work are
the REAP principles. The PPC recognises that society needs
different types of knowledge and we also facilitate reflection
spaces that explore dialogue and deliberation – and how we
negotiate difference in complex and unequal urban spaces.
Activities are prioritised where reciprocity is acknowledged.
The activities below all begin with discussions that explore
reciprocity and set an agenda for assessing and systematising
whether in practice it unfolds in the course of the activity.
Each activity also aims to ensure that it contributes something
to the wider Bradford District, rather than just those involved
directly in the activity itself. The Thinkspace aims to ensure
that all the individuals attending are at the same time
committed to taking the learning through their networks out
into the wider urban setting. We agree how this can be
assessed in a cost effective way by Thinkspace members.
Thinkspace’s big challenge is how to interest academics in
learning from community activists. Innovations like this have
to be fostered and nurtured before they are more widely
embedded. REAP encourages an active approach to reflection and monitoring of activities, ensuring a clear rationale
for activities, a clear mutual agreement between those
engaged from the university and the community, and a
commitment to developing the most cost effective and
meaningful way of assessing impact. This will involve quantifying numbers attending events against the costs of the
events. But it also involves qualitative assessment in the
course of the activities, using quick interviews, focus groups,
and event evaluations, to ensure that expected outcomes are
taking place. Some of the current activities of the PPC are
listed below.
Belfast Exchange
The PPC and partners worked with the Institute of Conflict
Research (Belfast) in 2007 and 2008 to organise an
exchange visit to Belfast to explore whether learning from
Northern Ireland would be useful with regard to the state’s
current response to violence in the UK, such as the July 7
bombings. Six Bradford Muslims attended a seminar in
Belfast in November 2007. We then hosted eight guests
from Northern Ireland along with 40 local participants in
February 2008 to explore two key thematic areas – human
rights and preventing violence. Guests from Northern Ireland
included former paramilitaries and human rights activists
such as Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Local participants
included activists and senior police officers. The event was
funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and was also
supported by Bradford Youth Development Partnership and
the Hamara Centre in Leeds. Reciprocity was built through
the PPC’s own learning around disagreements in Bradford
District on how to respond to the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda of the UK government. Our Bradford partners
gained knowledge of the Northern Ireland context, but also
a safe space to discuss their own preoccupations with the
UK government’s agenda. Externalities were many given that
our partners had many connections through which to
disseminate the learning and discussion, but also the February 2008 seminar brought in other agencies, including the
police, to participate in the discussion and to reflect on ways
to build greater trust around preventing a violent extremism
agenda and to ensure that it was applied with respect for
civil and human rights.
THEME SECTION 3
Programme for a Peaceful City (PPC)
13
Thinkspace
The PPC has established a Thinkspace with academics from
a range of universities and practitioners from Bradford and
beyond to explore issues of dialogue, diversity and participation. Practitioners are involved from organisations such as
Diversity Exchange, Schools Linking, Mediation Northern
Ireland, Bradford Youth Service, and Manningham Mills
Community Association. Academics (from Professors to PhD
students) are involved from Manchester University and Leeds
University alongside University of Bradford academics from
the School of Health and Peace Studies.
Local Partners
The PPC has continued to work with local partners on a range
of events such as an open space discussion with the Diversity
Exchange in December 2007 asking local practitioners to
explore ‘What really matters to you about Bradford?’
We also worked with academics in Social Sciences and
Humanities and the Equity Partnership (which supports Bradford’s lesbian, gay and bisexual communities) to facilitate a
discussion on the tension between religious belief and sexual
orientation.
Disseminating research
Key work also involves making more research available to
local external partners and to open up academic seminars to
practitioners. The PPC works particularly closely with the
International Centre for Participation Studies (ICPS) but also
with research centres in Social Sciences and Humanities,
Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID) and
the School of Health.
85
THEME SECTION 3
13Jenny Pearce, Martin Pearson and Sam Cameron
Public events re. religion and secularism
The PPC works in partnership with organisations such as the
Islamic Society of Britain (local branch) and Bradford
Churches for Dialogue and Diversity to bring exciting speakers to the university as we continue to explore religious and
secular issues. We have recently been liaising with a representative of the British Humanist Society to discuss future
ideas. Speakers in 2007-8 have included Dr Reza ShahKazemi, Asim Zubcevic from the University of Sarajevo and
Professor Ziauddin Sardar.
Conclusion
We advocate working with communities, and with a willingness to make academic knowledge and expertise available
to the communities of Bradford. This is combined with the
recognition that academics can benefit in their research and
teaching from the knowledge and experience of the communities around them. This approach can, we argue, demonstrate the benefits of higher education to the wider
CONTACT DETAILS
Jenny Pearce, Martin Pearson and Sam
Cameron
International Centre for Participation Studies
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford, BD7 1DP
UK
Email: j.v.pearce@bradford.ac.uk
Website: www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/icps
86
“By looking ‘beyond the ivory tower’,
universities can help to build a learningand knowledge-based society for the
many, not just the few.”
population. Universities should become less intimidating,
elitist and impenetrable, and increasingly valued by their local
communities. By looking ‘beyond the ivory tower’, universities can help to build a learning- and knowledge-based
society for the many, not just the few. As social networks and
social trust are enhanced over time, social capital will accumulate. This is likely to contribute to more cohesive, equitable and democratic local communities where greater
self-confidence and mutual trust creates improved capacity to
analyse and address local problems and conflicts, and to
access the skills and knowledge which makes this possible.
Theme 4:
Community
activism from
the grassroots
87
THEME SECTION 4
14
The changing face of
community participation: the
Liverpool black experience
by DAVID CLAY
Overview
The city of Liverpool has the longest established black
community in Britain, concentrated in the Toxteth area. Here,
‘community participation’ has long been a reaction to racism
or a fight for better services. My first experience of community mobilisation came in the early 1970s, when police failed
to protect black residents on a new housing estate, and this
led to campaigns for black studies and the formation of the
Liverpool Black Organisation in 1976. However, after the
Toxteth riots of 1981 – the culmination of all the frustrations
experienced by the black community, particularly in regard
to police and community relations – the face of community
participation was set to change. As government agencies
concentrated on regeneration and economic initiatives,
community participation was now in the hands of civil
servants and those employed to bring about ‘consultation’.
Grassroots action was slowly eroded as the community was
broken up and dispersed, and government agencies now
direct ‘community participation’ in the city.
Who am I?
My name is Dave Clay. The son of an African father and an
English mother, I was born in the Toxteth area of Liverpool
during the 1950s. We lived in the slums of Liverpool, within
88
walking distance of the docks. The city of Liverpool has the
longest established black community in Britain, epitomised
by its role in slavery. There is an abundance of historical information pertaining to the development of Liverpool’s black
community, most notably Liverpool Black Pioneers and Black
Liverpool by Dr Ray Costello, A History of Race and Racism by
Law-Henfrey, and Loosen the Shackles by Lord Gifford (see
above).
The Liverpool black population
The city of Liverpool has a population of 403,625 (population census 2001) with the black population estimated at
35,848 (8.5%). These figures are without doubt underestimated, and the real size of the ethnic population is open to
question. Suffice it to say that the majority of black families
reside in the Toxteth area. It is within such a multi-racial environment that my views and opinions are formed.
During my childhood, racism was endemic. It was not
until government legislation was introduced (Race Relations
The changing face of community participation: the Liverpool black experience
logical implication of this was frightening. ‘Why should our
kids feel inferior?’ we all asked. The answer was easy. This
was a period when Agatha Christie’s novel, Ten Little Niggers,
was available in most primary schools.2 It was period when
`little black sambo’ and `golliwogs’ were the order of the day.3
There were a million ways to make black people feel inferior.
Black studies: we demanded black studies within the school
curriculum. No, they said, but we will fund black studies
outside of the school curriculum. Consequently night classes
were set up. This coincided with the culture revolution in the
USA – `black is beautiful’ and `black and proud’ were better
alternatives to bleach. Collective community participation
was proving to be positive for black development.
A community fights back
Liverpool Black Organisation (LBO)
The Liverpool black community has never been far from the
headlines. In 1919, Liverpool experienced race riots. Returning soldiers from the First World War could not come to terms
with the reality that black people had jobs in munitions factories, and the number of mixed marriages and relations had
visibly increased. Mobs of white people descended on the
black area of Toxteth, resulting in the murder of Charles
Wootton, a former black sailor, who was drowned in the
River Mersey.
The Charles Wootton Centre for Further Education was
established during the 1970s in the Toxteth area. During the
early 1970s, a new housing estate had been built in the area,
known as the Falkner Housing Estate. Bigots took exception
to the fact that the first families to move in were black. The
estate was attacked on two consecutive evenings. I was part
of a group that protested and accused the police of failing
to protect the residents. They told us that it was their duty to
protect the estate. After a third night of attacks we took the
situation into our hands and erected barricades to protect
the residents. The community mobilised. Despite the incident
escalating into a confrontation with the Liverpool police, the
attacks stopped. This was my first experience of the community standing up against both the racism of the perpetrators
of the attacks and the racism of the police.
I was part of a generation of black kids who were born
in Liverpool, only spoke Liverpudlian and in affect were black
‘scousers’ – a colloquialism for people born in Liverpool.1 I
remember reading about a six-year-old black girl, born in
Liverpool, who tried to bleach her skin white, believing that
if her skin was white she would be accepted in the playground, since she had no language differences. The psycho-
There was little or no history of black involvement in trade
union activism since very few black people were employed
in the city. There was no single body that had the interests of
the Liverpool black community on the top of their agenda. It
was vital that we organised ourselves. This resulted in the
formation of the Liverpool Black Organisation in 1976.
There is no space here to highlight how the organisation
created a participative structure that became a thorn in the
side of racism. Nevertheless, I would like to recollect a
successful protest that was inspired by the work of the late
community activist Saul Alinsky. His tactics were based on
addressing apathy and showing the community that you
could ‘legally’ challenge authority and win.
1 The local accent and dialect of Liverpool, also known to outsiders as ‘scouse’.
THEME SECTION 4
Act, 1965) that direct discrimination was made illegal. In
reality, the only difference, for example, was that you could
not state in a job advertisement that ‘no blacks need apply’.
You simply did not employ black people. Inadequate housing,
low employment, overt racism, police brutality, institutionalised racism, gang warfare and educational underachievement have been the reality for black people in Liverpool. It is
then of no surprise that community participation was usually
a reaction to racism or a fight for better services. The city of
Liverpool is renowned for its working-class resistance and
militancy, epitomised by a militant local council during the
1980s. But the history of black resistance has been hidden
for many years.
14
The Half Penny protest
When a 15-year-old black youth told the organisation that
he had been accused of stealing a coat while in a top store
in Liverpool city centre, it was a perfect opportunity to deploy
the Alinsky tactics. Security staff had demanded to see the
inside of his coat, claiming that it had been taken from the
store. The youth was adamant that it was his own coat. He
was wrestled to the ground and his coat ripped off. It transpired that he was telling the truth. He complained to the
store via a solicitor. He was informed that, ‘Following a full
investigation into your complaints we fully support the
actions of our security staff.’
2 Agatha Christie was one of the most prolific writers in history, whose books have
outsold any others apart from the Bible and Shakespeare. The title of this book, one
of 80 novels she wrote, was given a different name for the US market.
3 ‘Golliwog’ is a rag doll-like children's literary character created by Florence Kate
Upton in the late 19th century based on a black minstrel. Between 1910 and 2001
one of the world’s leading jam manufacturers used the character as a marketing
tool, giving away golliwog badges. This was despite protests from black people,
against whom the term ‘wog’, derived from golliwog, had long been used.
89
THEME SECTION 4
14David Clay
"Today, real community participation
would no doubt contravene Section 5 of
the Public Order Act, or come under the
scope of the Terrorism Act, epitomising the
changing face of community participation."
At this particular time half pennies were legal tender in
Britain. In fact, you could legally spend up to 60 pence. So you
can imagine the difficulties that would arise if, for example,
you paid your bus fare with 120 half pennies. One of the
fundamental principles of Alinsky tactics was that every action
brings about a reaction. It was how you plan for the reaction
that is crucial. It was decided to visit the store at the peak shopping time, Saturday morning. The planning had been meticulous as well as fun. There would be a half penny group who
would purchase goods across the eight tills we had identified.
Basically, just causing inconvenience to shoppers and staff alike.
A solicitor and a vicar were at the door to deal with any reaction. This was a legal protest that would happen every Saturday. Within two hours the management asked us what we
wanted. We presented the store with a list of demands, including reimbursement for the youth and a pledge to become
equal opportunity employers. All demands were met. Community action had achieved a victory.
1981 Toxteth riots
The Toxteth riots were the culmination of all the frustrations
experienced by the black community in Liverpool, particularly
with regard to police and community relations.
The events of 1981 are well documented.4 What is important here is how the riots were to change the face of community participation in regard to Liverpool and the black
community.
The arrival in office of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, was to see the development of
numerous governmental agencies such as the Toxteth Task
Force. Government neighbourhood policy revolved around the
principle of ‘consultation’.
The next 20 years concentrated on regeneration and
economic initiatives. Community participation was now in the
hands of civil servants and those employed to bring about
consultation. Grassroots action was slowly eroded as the
community was broken up and dispersed. Social outlets were
destroyed under the banner of regeneration.
The growth of housing associations in Toxteth also played
a role in stifling local protest. Neighbourhood schemes were
now run by this growing housing sector. The Race Relations
Act further put an obligatory duty on authorities to produce
diversity and inclusion statements. Liverpool’s early wealth was
built on the slave trade, and the city invested in slavery again,
building a number of slave galleries in museums telling us ‘not
to forget our history’. In reality it is now convenient to exploit
our history to coincide with the 2008 European Capital of
Culture label. Yesterday we could not have black studies, but
today we can view a Ku Klux Klan outfit down in the gallery.
Community participation is now led by any agency that has
a stake in Toxteth and you had better believe me when I tell
you that there are countless agencies with such a stake. Today,
real community participation would no doubt contravene
Section 5 of the Public Order Act, or come under the scope of
the Terrorism Act, epitomising the changing face of community participation.
Despite these developments, the
fruits of grassroots struggle have
achieved some rewards. In 1999
Liverpool Council apologised for their
role in the slave trade and the month
of October was officially recognised
as Black History Month. A yearly Libation ceremony (a ceremony involving the sacred act of pouring – see picture inset)
takes place at the city docks as the black community continues
to impact on the future of the city.5
CONTACT DETAILS
David Clay
British Association for the Advancement of
Science (BA)
Wellcome Wolfson Building
165 Queen’s Gate
London SW7 5HD
UK
Email: d.clay527@btinternet.com
4 They were one of the most serious series of riots ever in the UK, lasting nine
days, during which one person died after being struck by a police vehicle
attempting to clear crowds, and (according to the police) there were 468 police
officers injured, 500 people arrested, and at least 70 buildings demolished.
90
5 ‘Libation’ comes from an ancient Greek word referring to the ritual pouring of a
drink as an offering to a god. Its modern use often relates to the remembrance of
past historical events
15
THEME SECTION 4
Community participation:
‘activists’ or ‘citizens’?
by JACKIE HAQ
An activist is born…
In the late 1970s, as a young first-time mother, I moved to an
inner-city estate in north east England. I felt lonely and
isolated from my family who lived some distance from me.
When my second daughter was born, I met a paediatrician
at the local health clinic. I became involved in a local child
health project he had established. Here, incidences of perinatal mortality and childhood ill-health were much higher
than the national average – partly due to relative poverty, in
terms of low income, long-term unemployment and a subsequent lack of resources and choices.1
The pioneering doctor set out to address the health
inequalities by bringing together a diverse team of medical
staff, including health visitors and doctors, who were based
initially in empty classrooms at a local school. From here, the
staff provided healthcare in clinics across the area. Local people
met regularly with the staff, to identify community health
concerns and critically assess service provision from a local
perspective, to increase accessibility and take-up of services.
Even small changes could make significant differences to
the quality and accessibility of service delivery. Pregnant
1 Throughout the 80s, parents and their adult children in many local families
were unable to find paid work.
“The critical principle underpinning the
work was our commitment to collective
action. Local residents met regularly to
identify and prioritise our concerns and
explore possible solutions.”
women had reported opting out of pre-natal care at the
hospital because it did not meet their needs. The uncertainty
of length in waiting times meant some women had to leave
before being seen, to pick up older children from school.
Mothers-to-be who attended the clinic with very young children found the waiting times stressful. Children became
increasingly tired, cross and bored. In the consulting room,
there were no changing facilities, so women had to undress
in front of (often male) doctors. The regime produced anxiety,
embarrassment and distress for many women, which prohibited their interaction with the medical team.
Women from a pre-natal group held a series of meetings
with the midwives and a senior consultant obstetrician from
the area’s maternity hospital. Subsequently, the clinic
provided screens for more privacy before and after examinations. A more appropriate appointment system was estab91
THEME SECTION 4
15Jackie Haq
“The effect of the so-called ‘partnership’
model was to divide and rule, limit and
sanitise community participation.”
Crime Against Residents). They demanded and gained more
beat police and initiatives that targeted police resources at
specific crimes. Through regular planning and action meetings, the community achieved more respectful and effective
policing of the neighbourhood.3
lished and a designated play area with toys was provided in
the clinics. One midwife told us that her staff had always
been to afraid to bring these matters to the attention of the
consultant, who was held in high regard by patients for his
approachable manner, but who also had a reputation for
striking fear into colleagues and staff. She was relieved that
we had spoken out.
Developing appropriate practical action: the vital
local perspective
Community development and collective action
In the estate where I lived was another community project. It
was firmly grounded in principles of community development, working from the people’s agenda, the so-called
‘bottom-up’ approach, and committed where necessary to
taking collective action in pursuit of locally identified priorities. Although members of the community development staff
were local authority employees, they were seconded to the
management committee of local residents, who were responsible for the day-to-day management of the workers and the
direction and implementation of the work programme.
The project was the hub of many campaigns and initiatives directed at improving life on the estate. The critical principle underpinning the work was our commitment to
collective action. Local residents met regularly to identify and
prioritise our concerns and explore possible solutions, including locating resources we needed to create positive change.
As members of the management committee, we brought a
range of existing skills in planning, budgeting, organising and
time management that came directly from raising our families,
and from various paid jobs. We augmented this expertise with
training on project management and committee skills.
Successes included setting up the first credit union in the
region.2 Before, loan sharks regularly preyed on the community, lending money at exorbitantly high interest rates – we
found one woman who was charged in excess of 1000%
interest. Legal moneylenders also operated on the estate, and
charged very high interest rates. The credit union charged,
by law, 1% per month on outstanding balances and was
open to anyone in the community who saved with us,
regardless of any previous bad debt record.
Local people also formed an action group, SCARE (Stop
2 A credit union is a cooperative financial institution, privately owned and
controlled by its members.
92
At its best, this intense, locally-led, hands-on and sustained
community development approach reignited a strong sense
of community spirit and of belonging, and a pride in the area
that overcame the negative stereotypes of outsiders.4 Many
campaigns started on the estate were taken up city-wide,
and at times nationally.
However, those achievements were, at times, hard fought
for and hard won. Community priorities often encountered
opposition from those in power, including local government
officers and elected members. Many of us were mothers:
when we asked the local government authority to allocate
funding for childcare support so that we could hold our
regular planning and committee meetings we were met with
disbelief.5 Despite possible funding being available, we were
told to fundraise by holding pie and pea suppers, or to wait
until our children were grown up! Instead, we initiated a
sustained, citywide crèche campaign and continued to raise
the profile and value of quality childcare to enable community participation until it became commonplace.
The campaign began locally: women took their children
to council meetings open to the public. As the children ran
around, talked loudly and at times requiring food, water and
toilet facilities, the public officials quickly recognised that
childcare was a valuable asset when conducting meetings.
The community project subsequently employed someone to
work with residents and childcare providers to develop a
strategy for childcare at local and citywide levels. This
promoted the benefits of good quality childcare and set out
policies and standards which were adopted by the city.
At first, local community activists adopted a piecemeal
approach, responding to issues as they occurred.6 Later we
3 Previously, many residents at community meetings talked about very limited or
non-existent police responses to reported crime, due in part to a lack of officers
allocated to the area. A significant number of residents who contacted the police
recounted being met with abusive and contemptuous comments and attitudes
from some police officers.
4 The local area was portrayed in a very negative manner in the media.
5 The ‘local government authority’ is also referred to as ‘the council’.
6 Issues included poverty and high unemployment; loss of shopping facilities as
local stores were closed by national food suppliers who opened out of town, out
of reach hypermarkets; crime, including burglary, vandalism and arson. Stolen
cars being raced around the estate led to the death of an eleven-month-old child.
Community participation: ‘activists’ or ‘citizens’?
Government-funded ‘community engagement’
The ‘old style’ community development with which I was
familiar throughout the 1980s was based on the struggle for
social justice, and for equality of opportunity, led by local
people, supported by community development workers. The
approach was, necessarily, confrontational, given the initial
and often sustained resistance by those traditionally in positions of power and decision-making (see also Clay, article 14,
this issue). In demanding change, from our own unique
‘community’ perspective, we challenged existing power
bases, most often within local government. At times we challenged central government policy – e.g. on privatisation of
school meals provision – which, when implemented elsewhere, resulted in poorer pay and conditions for workers and
lower food hygiene standards. We challenged disrespectful
policing. We confronted negative media representation of
our neighbourhood and community. We rejected repeated
attempts of passive ‘consultation’ as insulting and demanded
active participation in decision-making and policy formation.
But with City Challenge, and other subsequent statefunded regimes, the emphasis shifted from working on
community-led, community-identified priorities to fundingled, local and central government-themed priorities, such as
reducing council housing stock in favour of housing associations and private housing.7 The local government authority
set up a decision-making committee of councillors, private
7 Council housing was owned by the local government authority, which was
responsible for repairs and maintenance of housing stock and allocation of
properties. Councillors on the authority were, therefore, accountable to the local
electorate for decisions affecting housing. Government policy removed that level
of accountability and further reduced available council housing stock.
“In demanding change, from our own
unique ‘community’ perspective, we
challenged existing power bases, most
often within local government. At times
we challenged central government
policy.”
THEME SECTION 4
developed a locally-led area strategy, bringing together local
individuals and groups, senior local government representatives, statutory and voluntary organisations and the police,
to deliver co-ordinated and targeted initiatives to regenerate
the area socially, physically and economically. The main
strands of this strategy tackled crime and fear of crime,
increased access to jobs and training, and working with
young people to provide legitimate alternatives to the prevailing negative street culture. It initiated major improvements
to housing and the environment, and opened a number of
out-of-school clubs for children of working parents. Some of
this was funded (after persistent community representation)
by mainstream local government funding, and some by the
then newly-announced, central government City Challenge
fund. The advent of City Challenge was to signal a new era
of government-sponsored ‘community engagement’.
15
and voluntary sector people and community representatives,
but the balance of power remained firmly with the local
authority, despite the political rhetoric about partnerships.8
The commitment and hard work of the community representatives on that board was notable. All dedicated time and
efforts freely. However, I was concerned that the balance of
power and decision-making remained firmly with local and
central government. The potential for collective community
representation on the board was subverted by competing
claims between community board members for limited
resources for each representative’s own community: the
community forum sub-group spent many hours haggling
over the allocation of a few hundred thousand pounds in a
‘community chest’ fund while millions were allocated on the
nod of the local authority and private sector (see also Blakey,
article 10, this issue). The effect of the so-called ‘partnership’
model was to divide and rule, limit and sanitise community
participation (Haq and Hyatt, 2008).
Later, as subsequent funding regimes emerged, aimed at
inner city regeneration, attempts were made to take on
board some of the lessons learnt.9 Funding allocation became
more flexible as programmes rolled out, to take into account
changing priorities, but still the chance to incorporate new,
responsive projects decreased. Some efforts were made to
hold elections for board members, although as always the
issue of accountability to the wider community remained.
Community representatives still had little or no time to
disseminate information between the board and the communities, and potentially became gatekeepers holding the
community at bay from the boards and strategic partnerships. Timescales for regeneration initiatives increased,
providing the opportunity for continuity and sustained
community participation. But in reality, the programme of
initiatives was still, frequently, meeting the priorities of local
government rather than community agendas, not least
8
9
See Davoudi et al. (1994) at www.ncl.ac.uk/guru/assets/documents/ewp13.pdf
These included Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) and New Deal for
Communities (NDC).
93
THEME SECTION 4
15Jackie Haq
because the politicians on regeneration boards were still
immersed in the local authority decision-making infrastructures and support mechanisms such as secretarial support,
attendance allowances and a civil service of council officers
preparing briefing papers on up-to-date policy documents.
The unpaid representatives from the community sector could
not match these resources: they were still on the periphery of
policy- and decision-making.
Recently, another form of ‘community engagement’ has
emerged: citizens’ juries.10 In 2007, I conducted a small-scale
evaluation of the long-term impact of two citizens’ juries (CJs)
and another type of community engagement process
(community x-change) facilitated by PEALS (Policy, Ethics and
Life Sciences Research Centre) at Newcastle University during
the past five years.
The stated principle underpinning these processes was
‘the conviction that non-experts can make informed and
important recommendations on issues concerning the
current and future well-being of their fellow citizens.’11 As in
the previous examples, local people showed a determination
to bring about positive change, not only for themselves but
also for others within and beyond their own communities.
The two CJ-type processes focused on and debated a
particular issue – one on service provision for elderly people
experiencing repeated falls; the other case I studied, genetically-modified crops. In each, there were observable
outcomes from this form of community engagement. These
included resources on how to run a citizens jury, reports on
the resulting discussions, with recommendations and topics
identified for further deliberation (PEALS, 2003).
Local participants in the CJ-type processes viewed the
experience positively, but were frustrated by the absence of
political engagement in order to pursue the outcomes of their
deliberations. The following remarks are from a local activist
on a jury debating genetically modified (GM) crops:
Many jurors I interviewed voiced the desire to take direct
action to ensure their recommendations were acted upon.
Yet there did not seem to be a mechanism whereby community leadership could emerge among the participants to
pursue this goal. Without any developed community structures and without links to regional or national social movements, there was a lack of direction and a passive reliance on
the activities of a PEALS researcher to initiate and lead. When
facilitators, by necessity, moved on to pursue funding for
other projects, the loose network of participants became frustrated and immobilised, still keen but without a sense of
direction, structure or resources.
In contrast, resources for a two-year follow-up process allocated after an initial five workshops in the Rural Community Xchange project, (run in Cumbria and County Durham, UK)
ensured that local people continued to work on a wide range
of issues and making peoples’ voices heard.12 They contributed
their perspectives to a European Citizens’ Panel, and are exploring ways to influence policy and practice at local, regional,
inter/national levels.13 However, it was evident from my study
that, just as in the days of old-style community development
projects and subsequent funding-led regimes, many politicians
continue to regard themselves at the sole legitimate conduits
for, and guardians of, political action and social change.
Some Panel delegates expressed frustration about how
issues would be prioritised at the European level. Representatives from all the countries present had to agree upon 10
European priorities to feed into the European Union Commission. The British and Irish both wanted housing to be a priority, but this was not included. A senior European Minister for
Rural Development said she would listen to recommendations but would not comment or ask questions. The British
delegates felt they were not listened to (they became the
10
12
Citizens’ jury-type processes and ‘community
engagement’
All the articles in Theme 1 of this special issue cover various versions of citizens’
juries. See also the online resources section.
11 See www.ncl.ac.uk/peals/research/completedprojects/diyjury.htm
94
Well, the GM one, that was a report that went out, but we’ve
no idea of what or where it happened. The report went in, it
was sent off to government – it was their way of saying they
are ‘consulting the public’. There were no mass meetings
anywhere but this is how they say they are consulting the
public about GM foods. And the report went in, we had this
Professor from Argentina, we had this farmer from Canada
and the people from RSPB [Royal Society for Protection of
Birds] put their views on it. Well many people were against it
[genetically modified crops] and the report reflected that. But
we never heard what happened with that report.
“The community development approach
fosters the politicisation of activists. It
facilitates the collectivising of issues
leading to collective action.”
See www.citizenspanel.eu/images/partners_docs/
2007-06-11_ecp_uk_citizensreport.pdf
13 See www.citizenspanel.eu and article 7, this issue.
Community participation: ‘activists’ or ‘citizens’?
Half the people in our group aren’t old enough to vote, so
how could we feed into this process?
Young British delegates pointed out that no youth or
young people’s issues were prioritised. They felt that the
European agenda appeared to only agree and prioritise
recommendations that fitted into previously agreed funding
streams and that fitted into current policy.
Any form of community involvement/participation highlights inherent power dynamics within civic society. Who are
the appropriate representatives and decision makers? How
are decisions made? A superficial parallel could be drawn
between community development and CJ-type approaches.
The stated starting point is that community involvement is
both valued and promoted. However, there are significant
differences between them. An integral tension in all the
approaches outlined surrounds the role and status of the
local people involved: are we obliging citizens or activists?
Activists or citizens?
To date (and despite repeated debates), there is no compulsion in Britain for citizens to become active in their communities. Citizens may choose to engage or ignore political
processes and structures. For those who do bring a community presence into deliberative and decision-making
processes, one critical question remains: who sets the
agenda? Here lies the paramount distinction between the
‘old-style’ community development and subsequent
‘community engagement’ approaches. Community activists
choose to work on issues affecting them and their community on a daily and often long-term basis. They establish
parameters of debates and seek action by a variety of means
to achieve their aims and objectives.
A citizens’ jury deliberates crucial issues, but the agenda
is often set elsewhere – by those in positions of power, be it
government, business or universities. The terminology of the
CJ process also provides a clue to the preservation of the
status quo: ‘expert’ witnesses present diverse opinions, which
are then interrogated, debated and evaluated by the ‘citizens’. In comparison, the community activists view themselves as experts.
As the jury process runs its course, there is a veneer of
“A citizens’ jury risks merely being being
an island of activity. In effect, it
becomes theatre, an illusion. It is
carnival – for a short time, roles and
power bases are reversed.”
engagement, but how do we determine success? Without
structures to ensure accountability, funding or commissioning
bodies retain the power to accept or reject recommendations. Consequently, the process of ‘engagement’ takes centre
stage rather than a focus on outcomes or continuity. Because
the CJ process is time-limited, and in the absence of a longterm commitment by funders, there can be no expectations
of sustainable relationship-building leading to refined decision-making in response to evolving circumstances.
THEME SECTION 4
‘invisibles’). Then the legitimacy of citizens’ panels was questioned by politicians in the European Parliament on the basis
that the system of elected members of Parliament was superior and already in place to act on the will of the people.
However, as one young participant said:
15
When the carnival comes to town…
A citizens’ jury risks merely being an island of activity. In
effect, it becomes theatre, illusion. It is carnival – for a short
time, roles and power bases are reversed. The experts are
scrutinised, the ‘audience’ become interrogators. Participants
enjoy taking part in the carnival. There is food, a convivial
atmosphere, new experiences and places visited. Opinions
are sought and for a while ‘citizens’ voices are heard. In the
exuberance of the moment, there may be bonds of friendship experienced, and promises made in the holiday atmosphere. Expectations, and spirits, are raised.
Then the carnival leaves town. Both experts and citizens
go back to their daily routines. The long-term impact, if any,
of CJ-type processes is undocumented or uncertain (though
some, such as Kuruganti, Pimbert and Wakeford, article 2,
this issue, feel they can point to some). Without a strategy
for achieving this impact, they offer no more than a veneer
of participation and theatrical consultation. It is perhaps
ironic, then, that the new UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown,
when indicating a wish for more citizen involvement in
democratic processes, cited citizens’ juries, rather than
community development, as a preferred way forward.14 15
14
‘Government [is] putting our trust in the people – and we will renew people’s
trust in government. And our local democracy [will be] strengthened by citizens’
forums and new citizens’ juries where citizens and their representatives have the
chance to fully debate the concerns that matter to them.’ See
www.labour.org.uk/leadership/gordon_brown_s_leader_of_the_labour_party
15 This is despite other UK government reports advocating the value of a
community development approach. See
www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/153241.pdf
95
THEME SECTION 4
15Jackie Haq
The over-arching commonality between all genuine
forms of community engagement or deliberative democracy
that I have encountered is the determination, commitment to
community and to others above self-advantage, and a
passion and sense of social justice from the people involved.
This is a resource beyond compare and beyond price.
However, the key issues, as always, are how, by whom and
for whose advantage this is encouraged and utilised. What
long-term impact will result from each model of community
participation? Of course, it is legitimate to run citizens’ juries
as a means of contacting and sampling the views of individuals. The advantages are that it may engage a wider sample
of people than the ‘usual suspects’ i.e. those already involved
in grassroots politics. To a certain extent, the process brings
together a broad spectrum of knowledge bases to the discussions.16 However, it is surely dubious to formulate ‘evidencebased’ policy on this basis, if agendas are set by funders, if
dissemination is controlled by commissioning bodies, and
there are no structures or resources to pursue alternative
perspectives or facilitate longer-term, more nuanced debates
and actions.
Without links from the micro/local level to the
macro/socio-economic political levels, the potential for longterm change must be in doubt. The community development
approach fosters the politicisation of activists. It facilitates the
collectivising of issues leading to collective action. It may lead
on to repercussions far beyond the original geographical
location or community of interest. At its best, this approach
will challenge the status quo and existing power bases. It is
therefore potentially risky for participants, policy makers,
practitioners and politicians, although the benefits to
communities may be great.
CONTACT DETAILS
Jackie Haq
PEALS Research Centre
Citywall
St James Boulevard
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4JH
UK
Email: J.M.Haq@ncl.ac.uk
In contrast, the notion of ‘evidence-based’ policy formulated on the basis of findings from citizens’ jury-type
processes may well be more attractive to those in power.
The ‘community engagement’ is short-term and stagemanaged. Although based on the adversarial jury system in
practice the outcome appears to be a sanitising of the
process of engagement, rather than the (at times) more
confrontational community development approach, which
demands sustained interaction between politicians and
communities.
Over the years, successive waves of ‘engagement’ have
ebbed and flowed and sometimes crashed upon local
communities. The citizens’ jury is merely the latest model
proposed, largely by politicians, for so-called ‘community
participation’. In practice, the CJ process may contain or even
stifle community participation when it precludes proactive,
community-led agendas. By their very nature, time- and
resource-limited CJs cannot accommodate broad, long-term
community direction and participation.17 While it may be
possible for participants of a CJ to organise beyond the public
hearing, this has resource implications, not only in terms of
finances for childcare or carers’ support, but also access to
political and administrative structures. Currently there is no
legal obligation upon government or other funders of citizens’
juries to act on the recommendations or findings from the
process. With no legal status, and without a collective sense
of identity or cause, the jury may produce little more than a
wish list or record of deliberations. Rather than engaging the
dynamics and power of a social movement, the jury process
may become little more than a series of interest groups,
whose voices will be noted, but the existing institutional and
political power bases will remain untouched and intact.
REFERENCES
Haq and Hyatt (2008) ‘Paradoxes of
“Progressive” Government: urban policy under
New Labour and the decline of grassroots
activism.’ Urban Anthropologist (forthcoming)
PEALS (2003) Teach yourself citizens’ juries.
PEALS, Newcastle University
17
16
96
See discussion at http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU37.html
For further discussions on deliberative democracy, see
www.nanojury.org.uk/pdfs/nanojury_is_out.pdf and also article 4, this issue.
16
THEME SECTION 4
Girijana Deepika: challenges for
a people’s organisation in
Andhra Pradesh, India
by MADHUSUDHAN
Introduction
I would like to share the experiences of an organisation of
indigenous peoples – Adivasis – of the East Godavari District
of Andhra Pradesh, India. Neo-liberal reforms begun in the
1990s have resulted in a wholesale attack on traditional
farming communities in India. Various government policies
have given corporations free passage to take control over
food and farming systems, while indigenous people are
merely ‘involved’ and ‘consulted’ as part of a development
plan.
The resources, culture and knowledge of indigenous
communities are being transformed into tradable commodities, displacing the creators of this knowledge from their
places and identities, and destroying long-standing systems
of survival. Indigenous people are under constant threat of
being evicted and displaced from their ancestral homelands.
It is in this rapidly changing context that I describe the
experiences of an adivasi people’s organisation, which has
been resisting this threat to the survival of the indigenous
community. Adivasi communities have organised themselves
to take back control and autonomy over their food production and farming.
Under the leadership of an indigenous Adivasi People’s
Formation, local people have initiated a process of reclaiming
their collective rights to their land, resources and ways of
living. As a co-traveller on this journey, I have found the
process inspiring at three levels:
• the organisation being developed by Adivasis themselves;
• the interventions that challenge the dominant frameworks;
and
• the emerging politics of resistance.
A people’s organisation – the challenges
In 1990, a group of Adivasi youth began to organise themselves in response to the monopoly of outsiders representing
their issues and concerns. Until then, there had only been
non-Adivasis speaking for Adivasis, in the belief that they lack
knowledge and are easy targets for exploitation because of
their innocence and ignorance. These young people realised
that the unequal power structure created by the politics of
representation by outsiders could only be avoided through
regaining control over the decision-making process. They
initiated an organisation called Girijana Deepika to channel
their voices, identity and ancestral relationship with the land.
This was a turning point in asserting their right to be heard
and to plan strategies of resistance.
Girijana Deepika evolved as a learning organisation that
constantly reviewed its structure, representation, and gender
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16Madhusudhan
THEME SECTION 4
Some of the
activists of
Girijana
Deepika.
relations, revisiting and altering its objectives according to the
changing global scenario. The group consolidated its
strengths and weaknesses and worked towards the creation
of a membership-based organisation under the leadership of
women. Its major strategies were to regain control over their
freedom, language, knowledge, way of life, ecosystems and
culture and so build solidarity between the people for social
change.
The strength and resilience of this group as it has evolved
through a period of economic reforms is based on its strong
ideological position, centred on the land as an ecosystem,
which integrates the physical, biological and spiritual spaces
of Adivasis. The Adivasis’ struggle has been primarily around
the control of this space for their survival. This struggle
embodies the elements of knowledge, language, culture, and
spirituality and the relationship between land, water, forests,
wildlife and systems of governance.
Girijana Deepika adopted two strategies:
• To revive informal community systems of governance and
organise people through these traditional forums. This
strategy was designed to combat the divisive processes
created by the many institutions set up by various government development programmes within each village. These
institutions were dividing the community, setting one
98
against the other – elders versus youngsters, women
against men, village against village, tribe against tribe.
• To take back control over the ecosystem and resources,
thereby enriching people’s livelihoods, and challenging the
corporatisation of the resources.
Exposing the dismantling of systems of local
governance
Girijana Deepika began to rediscover the oral histories of the
community and mapped out the changes in traditional institutions that had resulted from state policies. It became
evident that the space for organising the community had
been taken over by multiple institutions set up by various
government programmes in the village. Government development projects that purported to alleviate poverty in fact
dismantled the systems of local governance. Each resource
was to be managed by a separate institution, established
through a distinct ‘development programme’, with each
programme funded through the same bi-lateral institutions
(World Bank and so on) that had forced economic reforms
upon India. Examples include forest protection committees
for forests, water users committees for water resources,
watershed committees for land development, educational
committees for managing schools and self-help groups
Girijana Deepika: challenges for a people’s organisation in Andhra Pradesh, India
16
A meeting of the
Tholakari, meaning
‘new beginning’, the
common platform for
women from the Gotti.
THEME SECTION 4
ostensibly to empower women.
Those institutions were lauded for enabling ‘people’s
participation’. Critical analysis, however, reveals that these
programmes and policies were actually dispossessing people
from their land and other natural resources, paving the way
for withdrawal of the state’s role in providing essential services to the citizens of India, and privatising services and
resources in the name of ‘people’s participation’. These developments violated the constitutional rights of indigenous
communities under the Indian Constitution and the commitment of the Indian State to meet the public needs of its citizens. It was ‘people’s participation’ using the politics of
violence and exclusion.
This model of development fostered a new powerful class
within the community, as a few Adivasis became primary
stakeholders in propping up institutions such as women’s
self-help groups and forest protection committees, whose
primary goal was to ‘earn profits’ through trading in services
and commodities, e.g. biodiversity, medicinal plants, carbon
trading or eco-tourism.
As a result, the homogeneity of the Adivasi community
was rapidly replaced with stratified power structures within
it. This introduced a new dimension into the Adivasi community. ‘Participation’ of community members in development
programmes and institutions was determined by their
resource-base, private capital, and purchasing power.
Community members who did not own anything were
excluded from participating in decision-making processes.
The impact of this type of market- and consumer-driven
development and participation translated into the denial of
fundamental rights, and economic and political exclusion of
resourceless Adivasis.
Revival of the informal gathering, Gotti
As a response to this crisis, Girijana Deepika revived the Gotti
as a local informal forum. Community members meet as
equals to discuss, analyse, debate, share, celebrate, create
and collectively work on reclaiming their resources for rebuilding their livelihoods. At the same time, forum participants actively engaged in the process of de-constructing the
so-called ‘participatory development programmes’ they were
being bombarded with. Girijana Deepika activists initially
focused on recovering these traditional community systems
to organise the people, to mobilise them to rediscover their
knowledge, culture and language, and analyse the root cause
of their displacement from their land and livelihoods.
The local communicative practices, histories, songs,
sayings, dance forms, knowledge sharing, and people’s
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16Madhusudhan
100
“Their strategy of resistance was to
strengthen the community, to build on
the identity and relationship with land
and finally to strengthen the capacity to
exercise governance at village level.”
theatre were used as the pedagogy for dialogue, analysis and
action. There has been a constant focus on Adivasi identity
and its relation to land and livelihood practices.
The participation of different members of the Adivasi
community in this political process varied. At first, women
engaged much more forcefully and critically, perhaps because
of their historical role as guardians of animal and plant
genetic resources and as organisers of family and community. At the same time, women were targeted by the ongoing
poverty-alleviation programmes, where self-help groups are
regarded primarily as an agency to facilitate the entry of
global capital, corporate trade and market-driven production
systems. However, many women soon realised that self-help
groups were in fact designed as institutions for disbursing
credit and creating markets; Adivasi women began to express
a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the state-initiated and
corporation-backed forms of ‘women’s empowerment’.
Women began to pro-actively take on strong leadership
roles in the Gottis. They helped to democratise the mostly
male-dominated Gottis and to resolve unequal gender relations, which had been created and intensified through different ‘modern’ development programmes. Women became
actively involved in shaping the Gottis, deciding collective
action, pushing for membership in such forums, and finally
becoming involved in planning and managing the actions
and politics of the Gotti. This transformation of power relations happened also as a result of the continual reflection on
actions, initiated by Girijana Deepika, and sustained over
almost a decade.
Today, Gottis are membership-based forums. Women
members from the community initiate various activities to
reconstruct the organising capacity of the family and the
community at large. Adivasi women have begun to articulate a new vision of community life, based on a politics of
collectivism. This has taken shape today in the form of a
common platform for women from Gottis called Tholakari,
which means a new beginning. Women today are challenging the forces that are dismantling their relationship
with land.
Knowledge as a key element of resistance
Girijana Deepika’s initial interventions are sustained by the
Tholakari – people sustaining and nurturing their resources,
entrusted to them by their ancestors, which in turn they will
entrust to their children, and they to future generations. Their
strategy of resistance was to strengthen the community, to
build on the identity and relationship with land and finally to
strengthen the capacity to exercise governance at village
level. They enhanced their capacity to speak out against injustice and also to deepen their relationship with the land. They
made a major attempt to rediscover the guiding force of the
‘knowledge’ that helped them to survive, with knowledge
viewed as a body of family, community and kinship systems,
as well as the production systems that encompassed all other
living things. Knowledge continues to be sustained and
passed on from one generation. The strategy adopted by the
activists was to position themselves in the centre of Adivasi
knowledge and with the help of Gottis to document the
wealth of knowledge ranging from songs, sayings, stories,
histories, dance forms, healing practices, biodiversity, subsistence food farming practices, rituals and celebrations. They
reviewed and analysed the changing patterns of such practices and the political and economic implications of the newly
imposed production systems which were increasing the pace
of displacement.
These two approaches sharpened their conceptual clarity
about their own knowledge systems and re-affirmed that this
knowledge was dynamic and an important source for their
way of life. This knowledge also became an essential building block to challenge and reverse the destruction of their
lands and the destruction of biodiversity, which had occurred
in the name of ‘agricultural development’.
Their experiences with documenting and sustaining their
knowledge systems brought with it some key observations.
Knowledge exists as a network within the community.
Various groups within the community practice and innovate
in a diverse manner. Commodification of the knowledge had
encouraged the stagnation of knowledge within the community. Women were prevented from having access to certain
kinds of knowledge, for instance the traditions of animal
healing. Girijana Deepika made a conscious effort to reaffirm
that woman are knowledge creators and transmit knowledge
from generation to generation: they are seed keepers, cattle,
goat and poultry breeders, authors of songs, performers of
rituals and gatekeepers of social organisation within the
community. Women in Gottis played a key role in bringing
this knowledge together, to practice their own ideas and
knowledge towards rebuilding and restoring a healthy envi-
Girijana Deepika: challenges for a people’s organisation in Andhra Pradesh, India
16
Gotti members
undertaking a mapping
process as part of a
regular meeting.
THEME SECTION 4
ronment, and to use this knowledge to further the indigenous communities’ goal of self rule. Today women, as custodians through Gottis, are fighting against the threats from
dominant policy frameworks. They are not just documenting
the knowledge but revitalising the responsibilities for sustainable relationships with nature.
Regaining control over relationships with the Earth
Gottis made another important intervention – to localise and
reorganise the people’s capacities to enhance their relationship with the earth, biodiversity and food farming systems, as
an alternative to market-driven, corporate-controlled,
commercial cropping policies. This particular strategy
emerged in the context of the community’s growing dependency on commercial crops such as tobacco, cotton, and
tapioca, which were causing severe debt and rapid depletion
of natural resources. Changes in cropping patterns were
aggravated during economic reforms of the 1990s, when
credits and inputs were given only for cultivation of commercial crops. This transformation, from subsistence economy to
a capitalist mode of production, resulted in the dismantling
of community systems of conservation, labour and knowledge-sharing. Severe impacts on soil due to the heavy use of
chemical fertilisers and pesticides forced indebted farmers to
continue to grow commercial crops in an effort to repay loans
from traders.
Over a decade, sixty local varieties of food crops, including
cereals, vegetables, pulses and oil seeds, became almost
extinct in the region, as the biodiversity of crops, cattle,
poultry, goats, and medicinal plants came under attack.
Women who were the custodians of food crops and livestock
and poultry lost their decision-making powers at home as well
as in the public space. The festivals and cultural practices
related to agriculture and forests were replaced by dominant
‘mainstream’ commercial entertainment such as the cinema
and TV. Villagers had become passive spectators, in complete
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THEME SECTION 4
16Madhusudhan
contrast to the energetic, creative participation of traditional
festivities and celebrations. The opening-up of trade with new
markets further away introduced the different cultures of
India’s dominant religions, marginalising Adivasi spirituality.
Traditional knowledge-holders such as healers were sidelined.
Girijana Deepika had realised that control over land could
not be sustained unless people regained the strength to
reclaim their wealth of knowledge, culture and livelihood
production systems. It intervened in the crisis situation using
multiple approaches. One target was the revival of food
farming systems, strengthening the livestock and poultry
production systems, which are integral to the survival of agriculture and the well-being of the family. Just as important,
however, was celebrating the culture and knowledge which
are key to sustain the communities’ relationship with land.
Autonomy over food, seeds and other resources
‘What we eat determines our relationship to the land.’ This
is the political statement of the Tholakari. The network of
women’s Gottis at village level is collectively engaged in
making this vision a reality through their practice. Land is
conscientiously being farmed for food, first and foremost
grown to meet the food needs of the family/household. Only
then is the surplus sold to local markets. This has meant
painstakingly re-building the resource- and knowledge-base
of households, who have been – and continue to be –
systematically alienated from their land, their seeds, their livestock and their farming practices, through commercial and
corporate contract farming.
The acute scarcity of the most critical input – local seeds
for food crops – was addressed by women taking the lead in
establishing and managing community seed banks. Research
revealed how women used to be the key actors in selecting
and preserving seeds for the next year’s crop. The idea is
simple and based on a traditional system of sharing known
as naamu. If a farmer lends seeds to another farmer, he is
repaid with twice the amount of seeds after harvest. For the
community seed banks, Girijana Deepika obtained a variety
of seeds from farmers and also cultivated select food crops
specifically to multiply the seeds. These were then distributed
to interested farmers. After the harvest, those farmers
returned their share or naamu to the village seed bank. The
village women’s Gotti then stores the seeds until the next
season, when farmers can once again borrow seeds. The
community seed banks have become an invaluable resource
of more than 60 varieties of diverse seeds – millets, cereals,
pulses, oil-seeds, vegetables, greens, spices and fruits. The
seeds are preserved and sustained by women for current and
102
future generations. These crops are then farmed using traditional knowledge and practices as well as newer ecological
farming strategies. Livestock plays an essential role. Rebuilding and protecting existing animal genetic resources has been
the second strategy for rebuilding the autonomy of food
production.
Once again, women Gottis have drawn upon traditional
asset-building mechanisms to help women to rebuild their
cattle, goat and poultry resources. For cattle, women have
successfully innovated with a traditional practice where
farmers hire bullocks for a season from another farmer at an
annual fee called yeddu putti. The Gotti loans money to
farmers to purchase a pair of local bullocks and a cow.
Farmers repay the Gotti annually at a rate equivalent to the
amount they would pay to hire the bullocks as yeddu putti.
There are multiple advantages to this system. The farmer
ends up owning the animals, enabling them to cultivate land
that they would otherwise leave fallow. The cow ensures a
continuous source of replacement stock. The animals provide
manure for ecological farming. And because the animals are
bought locally, local farmers and the local agrarian economy
benefits too. Similarly, like traditional vaata practices, poultry
and goats are given to assetless women, who then return
half the offspring to the Gotti. This system adopted by the
Gottis differs from the traditional vaata system. The recipient
returns half the offspring only once, rather than for the entire
productive life of the original animal.
The community has actively reclaimed and re-integrated
their indigenous knowledge and practices of healing and
management to protect their animals, and also actively
accessed ‘modern technologies’ such as preventive vaccinations to ensure that their animals remain healthy. The
community puts pressure on the state to ensure that it delivers and provides these services, and so resists the state’s
attempt to privatise and dismantle all public services.
‘Collective farming’ traditions are being resurrected to
overcome the challenges faced by single women and families who face shortages of labour. Collective labour sharing
is being re-introduced where people support each other to
farm collectively. Members of the collective contribute different resources such as labour, land, animals and seeds, and
they share the produce equally. Finally, women’s collectives
are attempting to reach out to the local markets, by selling
their surplus there.
While the community is taking back control, they are
simultaneously challenged by the fact that corporations are
eagerly waiting to take control of organically/ecologically
produced products to meet these growing national and inter-
Girijana Deepika: challenges for a people’s organisation in Andhra Pradesh, India
Conclusion
Dominant models of development tried to integrate the
knowledge of the people but within a framework of unequal
power relations. Girijana Deepika mobilised the community
to resist the commodification of their knowledge and made
CONTACT DETAILS
Madhusudhan
Email: madhoo.n@gmail.com
the community aware of the way dominant institutes of the
state, in collaboration with corporations, exercised their
power to take control of people’s knowledge systems. The
application of traditional knowledge to reclaim autonomy
over food production and food sovereignty was a major
breakthrough made by the community. Women from the
Tholakari have been struggling for recognition of their rights
to forests and its resources. They are now involved in effective implementation of the recent legislation enacted by the
Government of India, the Forest Rights Act, 2006, that
recognises the individual and community rights of indigenous communities to forest resources, as well as their right
to protect and conserve forests.
THEME SECTION 4
national niche markets. The indigenous groups are conscious
that they will face the same set of exploitative terms and
conditions if they enter into trade in organic products under
contract farming arrangements. The Gotti is committed to
continuing the fight against future challenges in the shape of
mines, quarries and private-public partnership deals, which
are poised to further exploit the land.
16
NOTES
Madhusudhan is an activist with Yakshi, a
grassroots network of Adivasis and others
working with Girijana Deepika (GD) in the
Eastern Ghats region of Andhra Pradesh, India.
GD also works with Anthra (www.anthra.org)
on strengthening the role of livestock and
poultry in Adivasi food and farming systems.
The work on indigenous knowledge systems
by Anthra and GD made a significant
contribution in the process described here.
103
Theme article
abstracts and
online resources
104
Abstract
Last year we asked a range of participation practitioners and
analysts to contribute to this issue of PLA based on the
following logic: if participation continues to be ignored,
suppressed or domesticated, we will not only fail to live up to
the promise of participation, but will risk sacrificing some of
the democratic gains made by our predecessors.
All our contributors have written about their practice in
the belief that only by looking at the barriers to empowered
participation, with an honest and self-evaluative approach,
will practitioners be able to formulate strategies that stand a
chance of making an impact on the scale necessary to
address our various global crises.
Online resources
• The Newcastle-Durham Beacon for Public Engagement,
which has both been a funder of this special issue of PLA
and is attempting to learn from the experiences contained
within it:
http://beacon.ncl.ac.uk
• Resources related to Archon Fung, the Harvard academic
who has written extensively on the concept of empowered
participation:
www.archonfung.net
2. The people’s vision – UK and Indian
reflections on Prajateerpu
Abstract
In 2001 a group of smallholder farmers met in the Indian state
of Andhra Pradesh to take part in a modified citizens’ jury.
Known as Prajateerpu (Telegu meaning ‘people’s verdict’), the
participation process explored three broad scenarios for the
future of farming in the region. It included an assessment of
the potential of genetically modified (GM) crops. A four-day
hearing process allowed a jury of 19 – mostly Dalit or indigenous farmers – to cross-question 13 witnesses, which included
representatives of biotechnology companies, state government officials and development experts.
The jurors concluded that genetically modified crops
would have little foreseeable impact on reducing malnutrition. They expressed concerns about the impact on smallholders of a reliance on artificial fertilisers and pesticides. They
called instead for local self-sufficiency and endogenous development in farming and food.
The recommendations of the Prajateerpu jury have generated widespread interest in India and beyond, most recently
from the International Assessment of Agricultural Science
and Technology for Development. Meanwhile, Britain’s
Department for International Development made official
complaints to the UK research institutes where two of the
facilitators of Prajateerpu were based, and attempts were
made to suppress the results, censure the researchers, and
discredit the process’s methodology. We conclude with some
lessons learnt about participatory processes being undertaken on controversial topics of concern to groups who have
not traditionally had a voice in decisions.
THEME SECTION
1. Towards empowered participation:
stories and reflections
Online resources
• General resources about the process, hosted by the International Institute for Environment and Development:
www.prajateerpu.org
• Deccan Development Society – convenors of the Andhra
Pradesh Coalition in Defence of Diversity, one of the partners in Prajateerpu:
www.ddsindia.com
• DDS film about Prajateerpu:
www.ddsindia.org.in/www/videos/prajateerpu.wmv
• Vision 2020 document from the Government of Andhra
Pradesh:
www.andhrapradesh.com
• An international movement of peasants, small- and
medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers, defending the values and the basic interests of its members.
Prajateerpu’s outputs used by the movement:
www.viacampesina.org
3. Mali’s Farmers’ Jury: an attempt to
democratise policy-making on
biotechnology
Abstract
In January 2006, 45 Malian farmers gathered in Sikasso to
deliberate the role of genetically modified (GM) cotton in the
future of the country’s agriculture. The Farmers’ Jury – known
as l’ECID (Espace Citoyen d’Interpellation Democratique, the
Citizen’s Space for Democratic Deliberation) – set out to give
farmers, previously marginalised from policy-making
processes, the opportunity to share knowledge and make a
105
THEME SECTION
Theme article abstracts and online resources
series of recommendations. At the end of the jury, the
farmers agreed unanimously to reject GM crops and instead
‘proposed a package of recommendations to strengthen
traditional agricultural practice and support local farmers’.
This paper examines the jury’s impact some five months
after l’ECID took place. Key decision makers, process facilitators and farmer jurors felt that the jury had had a real impact
– not least that the introduction of GM crops has been
delayed as a direct result of l’ECID. Its considerable influence
can be traced in part to a rigorous methodological process
which ensured that at the outset the jury had gained widespread support. Also important was the economic importance of Sikasso, the region from which jurors were drawn,
and a recent history of political activism among farmers.
L’ECID stands as a powerful example of public participation
in decision-making, and an acknowledgement that everyday
people can contribute important perspectives and expertise
gained through experience. However, the pro-GM scientists
were reluctant to engage in dialogue and continued to insist
on the privileging of their expert knowledge.
demonstrated that the concept of upstream engagement
needs to be reconsidered. Public engagement focusing on
technology should start from people’s own experiences and
contexts, and so foster the development of new technologies better rooted in people’s needs.
Online resources
• Full details of the Nanojury process including commentary
from its funders and facilitators and a film featuring participants commentary:
www.nanojury.org.uk
• Democratising Technology: a report by Practical Action
(formerly the Intermediate Technology Development
Group):
www.itdg.org/?id=publicgood_paper
• Living Knowledge: the international science shop network:
www.scienceshops.org
5. Citizens’ juries in Burnley, UK: from
deliberation to intervention
Online resources
• The region of Mali where the citizens’ jury took place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikasso_Region
• Full documentation on L’ECID:
www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/ag_liv_projects/verdict.html
4. The UK Nanojury as ‘upstream’ public
engagement
Abstract
The UK Nanojury was a re-working of the citizens’ jury
approach to participation. Its most significant difference was
that it was comprised of two topics. One was framed by the
participants, who chose to focus on young people and exclusion, while the other topic, nanotechnologies, was framed
by the jury’s funders and organisers. The explicit intention of
the proposers of this second topic was to conduct public
engagement ‘upstream’ – in advance of applications of the
new technology becoming commercially available.
Yet this idea of ‘early’ public engagement with developing technologies proved problematic. It became clear that,
upstream public engagement on nanotechnology was
decontextualised from people’s everyday life experiences as
highlighted in the Nanojury. As a result, upstream engagement is at risk of becoming little more than a tool that bears
no resemblance to people’s everyday realities. The Nanojury
106
Abstract
The authors describe the experience of two community-based
citizens’ juries that took place in a northern town in England.
Jury One was the first citizens’ jury to be commissioned and
part-funded by a community organisation for the benefit of
the local community. Local residents chose the topic of most
concern, chaired the process and had input into process development. The jury met once a week for 3 months to discuss
the problem of drug-related burglaries in their neighbourhoods and made over 80 recommendations on a broad range
of topics such as housing, community safety, prevention,
transport, parenting, service provision and support options for
users. Although the process itself had great value for the
community and for the professionals who participated, the
jury’s report led to no tangible outcomes in terms of changes
in policy or practice. Despite having prior agreement from all
key agencies, they took no action because they did not have
to – from the outset the process had been set up by us as an
activist intervention in the exercise of power, but outside of
local governance processes.
Two years later, a second citizens’ jury was held in the
area, this time considering what would improve the health
and well-being of people living in the area. Local activists
working through a multi-agency steering group initiated this
jury, bringing together professionals working in key agencies
together with local residents and grassroots community
Theme article abstracts and online resources
Online resources
• Burnley Council:
www.burnley.gov.uk/site/index.php
• Institute for Public Policy Research, whose import of the citizens’ jury technique from the US in the mid-1990s led to
rapid uptake in the UK and elsewhere over the following
decade:
www.ippr.org.uk
6. Community x-change: connecting citizens and scientists to policy makers
Abstract
In a new initiative in public participation, scientists participated
in an engagement process, without being called upon to
provide expert opinions. The community x-change project
aims to strengthen links between the public, scientists and
decision makers. Using a ‘social inclusion strategy’, a diverse
group of participants met in Norwich, UK, in 2006, to discuss
and explore solutions to climate change. Through extensive
deliberations, the group concluded that climate change could
only be tackled if technical solutions were integrated with
solutions to social challenges facing the community. For
example, feelings of powerlessness and a lack of collective
meeting places especially for women and young people,
required urgent action. In this community co-inquiry model,
people’s experiences and perspectives become valuable tools
in shaping solutions.
Online resources
• Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre (PEALS):
www.ncl.ac.uk/peals
• A wikipedia page about the community x-change approach
to public engagement:
www.communityxchange.org.uk
• The UK government’s Sciencewise programme, which
provided supplementary funds to allow the project to
involve groups not normally considered by public engagement programmes:
www.sciencewise.org.uk/html/about.php
THEME SECTION
workers to develop and steer the process. Jurors met over
one week and made more than 100 recommendations on a
diverse range of topics relating to health and well-being.
Contrary to experience with the first Jury, in this instance
many of the recommendations were acted upon, in particular through the opening of an innovative healthcare centre in
the area with outreach and community work as its core
values. The success of this jury rested on many factors, but
most importantly, it may have been because there was a
match between the issue of importance to local people and
government targets for a reduction in health inequalities. As
an insider project, this jury was networked into local governance processes.
7. Hearing the real voices: exploring the
experiences of the European Citizens’
Panel
Abstract
Citizens’ panels were set up in regions of England and Ireland
to discuss the ‘future of rural areas’. However, when these
panels sent representatives to a larger panel in Brussels, made
up of 86 citizens from 10 regions of Europe, participants felt
that their recommendations were largely ignored by European bureaucrats. For the most part policy makers simply
defended their policies, missing the opportunity to engage
in a new type of dialogue. Improvements to the methodology of the European panel are possible. But an alternative
approach challenges the idea that a random sample of citizens can be ‘representative’ of wider communities, and
would instead select citizens who are able to take action and
push for implementation of recommendations, through
linkage to a relevant social movement.
Online resources
• Brussels-hosted website describing the different regions
contributions to the European Citizens’ Panel:
www.citizenspanel.eu
• Rural Community Network – one of the organisations from
which the Irish citizens’ panel grew:
www.ruralcommunitynetwork.org
• Young Cumbria – a youth and community-based organisation that partnered the English citizens’ panel:
www.youngcumbria.org.uk
• Community Involvement – the lead facilitators of the
English citizens’ panel:
www.communityinvolvement.org.uk
• British Association for the Advancement of Science (the
BA), organisers of the annual Festival of Science:
www.the-ba.net
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THEME SECTION
Theme article abstracts and online resources
8. Shorts: four brief analyses of citizens’
juries and similar participatory processes
8a Ignoring and suppressing grassroots participation in a
northern English town
• Blackburn and Darwen do-it-yourself citizens’ jury report:
www.ncl.ac.uk/peals/assets/publications/rowntreejuryfinal.pdf
• Blackburn with Darwen Council:
www.blackburn.gov.uk
8b The art of facipulation? The UK government’s nuclear
power dialogue
• Involve: a UK think-tank on participation:
www.involve.org.uk
• Greenpeace UK: part of the international environmental
group:
www.greenpeace.org.uk
• Market Research Society: UK professional body for market
researchers:
www.marketresearch.org.uk
8c Genetically modified meetings: the Food Standards
Agency’s citizens’ jury
• The People’s Report on GM Crops is available at:
www.ncl.ac.uk/peals/assets/publications/
peoples_report_on_gm.pdf
• The Chime Communications Group – this page shows
Opinion Leader as being owned by this commmunications
multinational company, whose clients include the global
fast-food chain MacDonalds, Monsanto and British Nuclear
Fuels:
www.chime.plc.uk/our-companies
• Article from the Ecologist (a campaigning environmentalist magazine) desribing the UK government’s close ties to
the global fast-food industry, which it claims are are
working against the interests of public health:
www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_
detail.asp?content_id=256
8d If we have time, motivation and resources to
participate, does that mean we gain authority and power?
• The video of Short 8d is available at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eurmFan_a-A
• Swingbridge Video – collaborators with several of the
authors in this issue and with Right 2B Heard on this video:
www.swingbridgevideo.co.uk
108
9. The watering down of participatory
budgeting and people power in Porto
Alegre, Brazil
Abstract
The Brazilian city of Porto Alegre pioneered the idea of participatory budgeting in the late 1980s. Its initial success has been
followed by a wave of attempts to set up similar schemes across
the world. With the watering down of this radical powersharing system following the loss of power by the Workers
Party in 2004, discussions about financial and political sustainability of such initiatives are now taking place under the banner
of an emerging campaign called Popular Sovereignty.
Online resources
• Website hosting the Popular Sovereignty Network, which
seeks to strengthen popular power as a strategy to give
effectiveness to the participation offers made by governmental institutions:
www.ongcidade.org
• The Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international network
of activist-scholars committed to critical analyses of the
global problems of today and tomorrow, with a view to
providing intellectual support to those movements
concerned to steer the world in a democratic, equitable
and environmentally sustainable direction:
www.tni.org
10. Participatory budgeting in the UK: a
challenge to the system?
Abstract
Participatory budgeting is a way of involving communities in
real decisions, derived from nearly 20 years’ experience of
popular mobilisation in Latin America, where the people of
Porto Alegre, Brazil, have been involved in spending the city’s
regeneration budget since 1989. In Brazil, participatory budgeting grew out of a particular social, political and ideological
context, led by a grassroots impetus for greater participation.
This article is a shortened version of a paper entitled ‘Radical
innovation or technical fix? Participatory Budgeting in the UK’,
which explores what happened when that model of participation was transplanted to the UK, where it risks being seen
as a ‘technical fix’ divorced from its original context. In one
pilot in the north of England, participatory budgeting did
inspire large turnouts at public meetings, when people under-
Theme article abstracts and online resources
Online resources
• ICW is the only international network which strives to share
with the global community the experiences, views and
contributions of 19 million incredible women worldwide,
who are also HIV-positive:
www.icw.org
12. Understanding local difference:
gender (plus) matters for NGOs
THEME SECTION
stood that their actions would make a tangible difference to
outcomes. However, national constraints, such as pre-set
government ‘targets’, conflicted with a commitment to
genuine participation, and encouraged control of the process
by official organisers. Local participation was focused on
helping to find the best way of meeting the targets, rather
than deciding what the priorities should be. This article (and
the paper from which it is drawn) considers what the potential of PB in the UK might be.
Online resources
• A Guide to Participatory Budgeting, available at:
www.internationalbudget.org/resources/library/GPB.pdf
• UK Participatory Budgeting Unit, resources and news
about PB in the UK:
www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/index.htm
• International resources and forum on PB:
www.participatorybudgeting.org
11. The Greater Involvement of People
Living with HIV/AIDS: from principle to
practice?
Abstract
The paper is based on a longer review of publications from the
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED),
London, which was produced for internal learning. The review
aimed to promote a more consistent analysis of recognised
local difference in the work IIED does as an NGO, particularly,
but not only, gender differences. In the paper, the authors illustrate why and how it is important to disaggregate populations
– that is, to separate out different subgroups for analysis –
going beyond ‘the local’ and ‘the community’. The authors use
examples of selected IIED publications, and provide a basic tool
for thinking about difference, with a focus on the management of natural resources for sustainable development.
Abstract
In 1994, at the Paris AIDS summit, 42 nations declared their
support for the principle of Greater Involvement of People Living
with or Affected by HIV and AIDS – which came known as the
GIPA principle. Although these governments acknowledged
that this principle is critical to ethical and effective national
responses to the pandemic, the views and voices of HIV-positive people still tend to be overlooked or ignored. This paper
recounts the experiences of the International Community of
Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), the only international
network of HIV-positive women. Too many national governments, NGOs and civil society groups working on HIV continue
to ignore, neglect or misrepresent the perspectives of HIV-positive women, and to fail to recognise their diversity. ICW’s aim is
to ensure that HIV-positive women are meaningfully involved in
making decisions that impact on their lives, and are working to
support and empower women as activists and parliamentarians, so that their views and voices will be heard. At the same
time, it is equally vital that those who are in positions of power
learn to engage with HIV-positive women, as equal partners, in
ways that are inclusive and respectful.
Online resources
• IIED – an international policy research institute and nongovernmental body working for more sustainable and
equitable global development:
www.iied.org
• Bridge: www.bridge.ids.ac.uk
• ELDIS: www.eldis.org/gender/index.htm
• FAO: www.fao.org/Gender/gender.htm
• Siyanda: www.siyanda.org
• UNRISD: www.unrisd.org
• World Bank: http://tinyurl.com/6flmoq
• For examples on sectoral/project-based gender checklists
see:
The Asian Development Bank:
www.adb.org/Gender/checklists.asp
SDC Gender Tool Kit – instruments for gender
mainstreaming: http://tinyurl.com/5mkowb
SIDA Analysing Gender:
http://tinyurl.com/59qm7d
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THEME SECTION
Theme article abstracts and online resources
13. The ivory tower and beyond:
Bradford University at the heart of its
communities
Abstract
To foster community engagement in their academic institution in the UK, the authors have designed a novel way of
measuring and evaluating how Bradford University could
effectively work with its communities and assess the ongoing
impact of this work. The tool is based on an assumption that
community engagement involves building partnerships and
shared objectives based on mutually recognised and valued
community and university competences. The qualitative
measurement tool is based on four principles: Reciprocity,
Externality, Access and Partnership (REAP). The authors argue
that university-community engagement should encompass
both a willingness to make academic knowledge and expertise available to the communities of Bradford and the recognition that academics can themselves benefit in their research
and teaching from the knowledge and experience of the
communities around them. By looking ‘beyond the ivory
tower’, universities can help to building a learning- and
knowledge-based society for the many, not just the few, and
so contribute to the development of more cohesive, equitable and democratic local communities.
Online resources
• International Centre for Participation Studies at Bradford
University:
www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/icps
• Bradford’s Programme for a Peaceful City – a collaboration
with Bradford University:
www.brad.ac.uk/acad/ssis/activities/ppc
14. The changing face of community
participation: the Liverpool black experience
Abstract
The city of Liverpool has the longest established black
community in Britain, concentrated in the Toxteth area, where
‘community participation’ has long been a reaction to racism
or a fight for better services. The author’s first experience of
community mobilisation came in the early 1970s, when police
failed to protect black residents on a new housing estate, and
this led to campaigns for black studies and the formation of
110
the Liverpool Black Organisation in 1976. However, after the
Toxteth riots of 1981, which were the culmination of all the
frustrations experienced by the black community, particularly
in regard to police and community relations – the face of
community participation was set to change. As government
agencies concentrated on regeneration and economic initiatives, community participation was now in the hands of civil
servants and those employed to bring about ‘consultation’.
Grassroots action was slowly eroded as the community was
broken up and dispersed, and government agencies now
direct ‘community participation’ in the city.
Online resources
• UK Black History Month: celebrating and highlighting
Caribbean and African activities:
www.black-history-month.co.uk and
www.liverpoolblackhistory.co.uk
• Liverpool Museum’s account of the city’s part in the trade
of black slaves:
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/srd/liverpool.aspx
• The Stephen Lawrence murder – the murder of a black
teenager in London in 1993 and its subsequent mishandling by the police led to an inquiry that highlighted institutionalised racism in a range British government bodies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macpherson_Inquiry#
Public_inquiries_into_the_police_investigation
15. Community participation: ‘activists’
or ‘citizens’?
Abstract
In the northeast of England, the author first became involved
in community activism to improve medical care for mothers
and young children, along with other local residents,
working with staff at a pioneering local health clinic. She saw
the potential for collective local input to influence positive
change within hierarchical institutions. Towards the end of
the 1970s she worked as an unpaid volunteer in another
local community project, in the centre of a housing estate,
which led to the launch of the first credit union in the region.
The critical principle underpinning all the work was a
commitment to collective action.
With the advent of City Challenge, and subsequent statefunded regimes, aimed at encouraging inner-city regeneration,
the emphasis shifted from working on community-led, community-identified priorities to funding-led, local and central government-themed priorities. Despite government rhetoric about
Theme article abstracts and online resources
Online resources
• A UK Government report extolling the virtues of a community development approach to addressing key issues in
society:
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/
communitydevelopment
• A brief wiki guide to citizens’ juries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens’_jury
• Extracts from ‘Teach Yourself Citizens Juries: A handbook
by the DIY Jury Steering Group’:
www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/pla_notes/documents/
plan_04914.pdf
16. Girijana Deepika: challenges for a
people’s organisation in Andhra
Pradesh, India
Abstract
Neo-liberal reforms set in motion in the 1990s have resulted in
a wholesale attack on traditional farming communities in India.
Supported by the government, corporations have begun to
control food and farming systems, turning indigenous people
into passive recipients of a development plan. In 1990 a group
of youth from the Adivasi community – the indigenous people
of the East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh – began to
organise themselves. They initiated an organisation called Girijana Deepika. The group has worked towards the creation of
a membership-based organisation under the leadership of
women, to regain control over their land, their way of life, and
their culture, and to build solidarity among the people.
Girijana Deepika adopted two strategies: the first was to
revive informal community systems of government – such as
the local forum, the Gotti – and to organise people through
these traditional forms. This strategy was designed to combat
the divisive processes created by the many institutions set up
by government development programmes within each
village. The second strategy was to regain control of the land
and farming resources – through, for instance, community
seed banks – thereby enriching people’s livelihoods and challenging the corporatisation of the resources.
THEME SECTION
partnership working, power and control remained with the
local and central government, and the effect was to divide and
rule, limit and sanitise community participation.
A new mode of ‘community engagement’ is now being
promoted. Citizens’ juries usually have a singular focus predetermined by funders, lack sustainable structures or long-term
resources, and rarely inspire direct action. Their long-term
impact, if any, is uncertain. They offer a veneer of participation
that is little more than theatrical consultation, and in practice,
may contain or even stifle genuine community participation.
Online resources
• Introduction to the mountainous area of Eastern India
where Girijana Deepika works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Godavari
• Short summary of Girijana Deepika’s original approach:
www.reflect-action.org/compower/pdfversion/cpaction/
R002.pdf
• Details of recent activities by Girijana Deepika using the
participatory Gotti:
www.anthra.org/Strengthening%20Community%
20Livelihoods/adivasi2.htm
• Jivika (livelihood) network – facilitating the interaction of
field workers, activists, action-researchers, students, teachers, scholars, managers and other practitioners concerned
with gender equity in natural-resource-based livelihoods
and anti-poverty initiatives in South Asia and beyond:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jivika
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General section
112
17
GENERAL SECTION
On the road to change:
writing the history of
technologies in Bolivia
by JEFFERY W. BENTLEY and GRAHAM THIELE
Introduction
From 2002 to 2006, the authors were part of a project in
Bolivia implemented by a consortium of research organisations called Innova. The goal of Innova was to test methods
for linking supply and demand for technology. Innova took
several technologies that consortium members had worked
on previously, and which researchers felt were nearly ready
to release. It tested whether they corresponded to what
farmers really wanted, and fine tuned those technologies
that passed this test, ready for extension to farmers.1
The project adapted many participatory methods while
trying out promising technologies with farmers (see references at the end of this article). Innova’s grassroots technical
people were the key to this process since they are in the field
most of the time and in close contact with farmers. This
article focuses on an innovative type of workshop developed
by the project, similar to a method developed independently
by Douthwaite and Ashby, J. (2005), in which grassroots
agronomists were given the opportunity to map the history
of the technologies introduced (the road to change). We
1 The UK Department for International Development (DfID) supported research
with consortium members on these technologies and continued this support
through INNOVA (Strengthening Technical Innovation Systems for Potato-Based
Agriculture in Bolivia) between 2002 and 2006.
heard how the technologies actually changed, some quite a
lot, and how some were even dropped, and we were able to
understand local reactions to the innovations. We found this
type of workshop to be a useful evaluation tool in showing
how technologies were adapted and adopted, which were
not adopted, and the role of the Innova project in this
process.
Background
Background to Bolivia
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, with
a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$1000.
Income distribution is extremely unequal and there is a big
economic divide between people of European (mainly
Spanish) extraction and indigenous people, most of whom
are Quechua or Aymara speakers. Indigenous people mostly
depend on agriculture for a living. Land reforms stemming
from the 1952 revolution placed much of the land in the
hands of indigenous farmers, giving many rural households
two to four hectares of land to farm. However, agriculture
contributes only 12.8% of national income. New technologies could help make the land much more productive, and
contribute to reducing poverty.
113
GENERAL SECTION
17Jeffery W. Bentley and Graham Thiele
Figure 1: Map of Bolivia showing project sites
Table 2: Examples of the supply of technology at the
start of Innova
Altiplano
Technology
proposed, 2001
Brief description
Improved fallow
Mixtures of purple clover (Trifolium pratense)
with grasses (Lolium perenne, Festuca
arundinaceae, Dactylis glomerata). These are
planted after harvesting oats or barley, as the
field enters fallow, to produce fodder and
manage weeds.
Grains-plus-legumes
Mixes of legumes (vetch, purple clover) with
grains (oats, barley) for fodder, to conserve soil
and water, control pests, diseases and weeds,
and stabilise yields.
New fodders
Some 14 varieties of several species of legumes
and grasses, planted in small demonstration
plots called ‘pasture gardens’.
Phalaris grass
Live barriers of phalaris grass (Phalaris
tuberoarundinacea) planted in rows for soil
conservation. The live barriers form a wall that
traps soil runoff, slowly forming a terrace. The
grass is good fodder.
Chicken manure for
nematodes
Integrated management of the nematode
Nacobbus aberrans (a major pest of potato in
Bolivia which causes heavy losses to some
farmers) by applying chicken manure to the soil.
Potato Integrated
Pest Management
(IPM)2
IPM of potato pests and diseases in the low
valleys (Santa Cruz), including: using insecticides
and plant extracts to kill insect vectors of
disease (aphids, whiteflies etc.); control of tuber
moth in the field; and fungicides for
Rhizoctonia.
Herbicide for purple
nut sedge
Trials of the herbicide glyphosate to manage the
weed Cyperus rotundus.
Improved tillage
Several ploughs had been designed, and a few
trials were needed to learn the best ploughing
dates.
Adoption of
implements
Promote adoption of animal-drawn implements.
Home remedies for
cows
Better nutrition for livestock; remedies made
from local plants to kill cattle parasites.
High valleys
Low valleys
Map courtesy of: www.appliedlanguage.com/maps_of_the_world/
map_of_bolivia.shtml
About Innova
Innova is a consortium of three partner organisations (see
Table 1) who worked together from 2002 to 2006. The
project was managed by Papa Andina, the regional partnership programme of the International Potato Centre (CIP).
Innova worked at three pilot sites, one each in the
following locations (see Figure 1):
Table 1: Innova partner organisations
114
Institution
Brief description
CIAT/Santa Cruz
The Centre for Tropical Agricultural Research, Santa
Cruz, a public agricultural research and
development institution affiliated with the
prefecture of Santa Cruz Department.
UMSS
The Public University of San Simón, Cochabamba,
which includes an agricultural college.
PROINPA
Foundation
Promoción e Investigación de Productos Andinos,
a private, non-profit institution for research on
Andean crops, which evolved out of the IBTA
(Bolivian Institute for Agriculture and Livestock
Technology) potato programme, with support from
the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC).
2
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a pest control strategy that uses an
array of complementary methods: natural predators and parasites, pestresistant varieties, cultural practices, biological controls, various physical
techniques, and pesticides as a last resort. It is an ecological approach that can
significantly reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides. Source:
www.en.wikipedia.org
On the road to change: writing the history of technologies in Bolivia
17
Taking two-minute
questionnaires at the
technology fair in the
high valleys, 2006.
Photo: Jeffery Bentley
GENERAL SECTION
• the Altiplano at about 4000 metres above sea level;
• the high Andean valleys at about 3000 metres; and
• the low valleys of Santa Cruz, at about 2000 metres.
The three sites were in different language areas: Aymara
on the Altiplano; Quechua in the high valleys; and Spanish
in the low valleys. The climate becomes warmer and more
humid as altitude decreases, so the crops are different:
• native tubers, quinoa and cereals on the Altiplano;
• potatoes, broad beans and cereals in the high valleys; and
• temperate crops in the low valleys.
The Innova project started with ten main technologies
(see Table 2), which were to be validated on-farm.
Participatory methods used
For the first two years, Innova used sondeos (Hildebrand,
1981) or rapid reconnaissance surveys, to see what technologies farmers demanded and decide if these fitted with
what researchers had been developing. Sondeos are similar
to PRAs but rely more on individual, semi-structured interviews on farmsteads, and have fewer meetings and visual
methods. Innova added a results session to the sondeo
format during which the sondeo team reported the findings
back to the community in an open meeting, and local
people corrected and confirmed the conclusions (Bentley et
al., 2004).
Innova staff also helped farmers set up local agricultural
research committees or CIALs (Ashby et al., 2000) to test
possible innovations and report back on them to their neighbours. In Innova, these were called GETS (Grupo Evaluador
de Tecnología or Technology Evaluator Group)
Innova added a community feedback session, during
which committee members gave their opinions about the
technologies in front of other community members.
Another method, the technology fair, was like a field day.
Farmers presented their field trials to up to 200 people from
neighbouring communities (in groups of 30 each). But,
unlike a field day, the technology fair included very short
(two minute) questionnaires to gather people’s impressions
of the technologies they had seen. This was done every year.
(See Bentley et al,. 2004 for more detail).
These and other participatory methods gave Innova an
idea of which technologies were being adopted, but something was missing. It was still not clear why certain technologies had changed more than others. Of course the staff
wrote reports, but they were formal and quantitative, with
the human side written out of the picture. So, near the end
115
17Jeffery W. Bentley and Graham Thiele
Photo: Jeffery Bentley
GENERAL SECTION
Javier Aguilera, Rubén Botello
and Remy Crespo (left to right,
below) design a time line for
the multiple mountain plough
(opposite page), 17 May 2005.
of the project, in May 2005, Innova held a two-day workshop with project staff to write the history of the main technologies, with an emphasis on what actually happened
rather than what was supposed to have happened.
Writing a historical timeline: Roads to Change
We called the workshop Roads to Change (Caminos al
Cambio). This was to emphasise how change happened. We
started with a few examples we had written earlier, showing
the history of changes. We divided into three groups according to where staff were located (Altiplano, high valleys or
low valleys). The people all knew one another, and were
comfortable working together. Each group had:
• Three or four grassroots technical people who knew the
technologies and the farming communities well.
• A facilitator to stimulate discussions who was an agronomist and a project member and so familiar with the work,
but slightly removed from day-to-day field activities.
• A scribe to take notes (a role the authors undertook, with
another colleague). In practice, the scribes did more than
take notes, also helping the facilitators ask questions about
the work.
116
Each group picked a few interesting technologies, and
then talked them through in the following format:
• What is the technology like now (in 2005)?
• What was it like at the start of the project (in 2002)?
• How has it changed?
• What were the critical turning points on the road to
change? (What changed? When? Where? Who was
involved? How did you know change was needed? Who
suggested the change? What were the benefits? Which
Innova events influenced the change?)
The next step was to create a table of the results as a
timeline (see Table 3).
We organised the steps this way because by this time,
each of our participatory methods (CIALs, sondeos etc.) was
associated with certain project staff. Looking at technical
change from the technology’s perspective helped us forget
a bit about the methods and avoid defensive reactions.
Nobody was forced to say, ‘What do you mean, my method
was not helpful?’
After presenting the results at the end of the meeting to
the whole project staff, the three scribes pooled their notes.
Jeffery Bentley edited the results and emailed a draft to all
On the road to change: writing the history of technologies in Bolivia
GENERAL SECTION
Table 3: Example of an innovation history
Multiple mountain plough
1979–1996
Key events
CIFEMA (a
university
project) in
Cochabamba
Develops
Changes
ploughs and
in the
technology other
equipment
1996
1997–2001
2000
2002–2003
2003–2004
2004–2005
PRA by
PROMETA (a
follow-on
university
project) in
Cochabamba
PROMETA in
Cochabamba
Municipal
government of
Umala holds an
interinstitutional
workshop
PROMETA works
on the Altiplano
for the first time
Tests with GETs
Implements
for soil
conservation
Tools to be pulled
by horses, donkeys
and oxen
Municipality
demands tillage
technology
INNOVA tests 6
ploughs with
GETs
Multiple
Sale of ploughs
mountain plough in a store in
Patacamaya
17
Ploughs
promoted with
the PITA:
Proyectos de
Innovación
Tecnológica
Aplicada
(Applied
Technological
Innovation
Projects) in
Umala
Box 1: From improved fallow to purple clover
Innova kept studying ‘improved fallow’ and in the first
technology fair presented a trial, in a farmer’s field, with three
treatments of different mixes. But at the same technology fair,
another farmer, Nelson Vallejos, showed a plot he had planted
on his own. Innova’s technology was based on the idea of
planting clover and grass seed in dry fields, after harvest (in the
dry season), so that during the several years of fallow, the plot
would grow nutritous fodder, and less weedy herbs. The
problem was that the clover and grass failed to thrive in the
dry, rocky fields. As soon as Vallejos and other farmers started
planting purple clover on their own, they changed it radically.
Instead of planting it at harvest time, they planted it at the
regular planting time, and they sowed it with oats, instead of
pasture grasses, since they knew oats better, and had the seed.
They planted purple clover in good soil, not in hillside fields.
Innova agronomists Salomón Pérez and Freddy Almendras
recommended another change, irrigation. Farmers and
agronomists realised that they should plough carefully before
planting, instead of simply broadcasting the seed. Later farmers
began manuring the clover, and they soon had a thriving field
of it. They could cut fodder every day for their cows, even
though the clover was growing in a well-tended, permanent
pasture, and not on a fallow hillside.
Nelson Vallejos, 2005, tells
other farmers about his
plot of purple clover.
Photo: Jeffery Bentley
Purple clover (Trifolium pratense) has been in Bolivia since the
1970s. DfID projects in the 1990s conducted on-farm trials of
‘improved fallow’ (mixes of grasses and legumes) for several
years in the high valleys. During the first sondeo in November
2002 in the high valleys, people said they were tired of doing
little field trials with clover. ‘We want to try big fields,’ they said.
117
Box 2. High hilling up
Photo: Jeffery Bentley
GENERAL SECTION
17Jeffery W. Bentley and Graham Thiele
Potatoes yield more, and have
fewer health problems when soil
is heaped high around the young
plants. This is called ‘aporque
alto’ or ‘high hilling up’.
In April 2001 an earlier project found the flea
beetle Epitrix damaging seed potato in one of
the CIALs in the low valleys. Innova agronomists
Ernesto Montellano, Pablo Franco and
colleagues began to manage it with a technique
they learnt from CIP (International Potato
Centre): higher aporque (hilling up, i.e. putting
118
more soil around the plants while weeding). But
it was hard to do with a wooden plough.
By 2002 people in the CIALs were using higher
hilling, which damaged the potato plants less
and gave room in the soil for the tubers to grow
better. Innova planted tillage trials in all three
pilot areas. In 2003, Innova agronomists
designed a metal plough pulled by oxen, which
made hilling up easier. In the technology fair on
the Altiplano in 2005, farmer-experimenter
Rogelio Cachaca López showed that he had
doubled his potato harvest, among other things,
by using high hilling up.
Ways forward
We are currently beginning a new project in the Andes
called the Alianza Cambio Andino (Alliance for Change in
the Andes), building on the Innova project and also funded
by DfID. We anticipate that some 20 to 30 organisations,
150 plus agronomists, and several thousand farmers will be
involved in the four countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and
Bolivia). Alianza will promote the broader use of the best
participatory methods developed by Innova.
We hope to use Roads to Change in a more systematic
way to document the outcomes and impacts of using participatory methods in agricultural research and development
17
“In our haste to show that the farmers
had ‘participated’ in adapting the
technologies, we had under-represented
the creativity of the agronomists”
GENERAL SECTION
of the participants, who responded with comments within
a week. Most of the comments were minor, but one of the
participants objected strongly to the editor’s summary. We
(Bentley and Thiele) liked the case of purple clover (Box 1),
because the technology changed so much. We thought it
showed how sensitive the technical people were to farmers,
thoughtfully incorporating farmer suggestions into the technology. But one of the agronomists said it made the staff
look bad, that they had relied too much on farmers. He
insisted that some of the changes had come from the
agronomists, not the farmers. We incorporated this
colleague’s suggestions into the history of the technology,
and we realised that he had a point. In our haste to show
that the farmers had ‘participated’ in adapting the technologies, we had under-represented the creativity of the
agronomists. Without their ideas and encouragement the
farmers would never have thought of the purple clover
innovations.
In other cases, the technology changed just a little, so
the technical people had got it mostly right the first time
(e.g. Box 2).
If there was a limitation with the ‘road to change’
method, it was that the agronomists tended to mention
only those technologies they thought were successful. They
were much less likely to discuss technologies that were
abandoned. For example, Innova taught farmers to make
home remedies for cows, from local plants, but the homebrews were abandoned when farmers failed to adopt them
because the medicine was tedious to make, and farmers
preferred store-bought medicines. Even though this shows
clearly that the agronomists were listening to farmers’ views,
they omitted this case at our workshop. It is perhaps understandable that people want to remember their successes
and forget the failures, but this means that some of the
lessons learnt are soon forgotten.
On the road to change: writing the history of technologies in Bolivia
organisations and projects. This information will be used to
understand the conditions under which a participatory
method or combination of methods is appropriate. In addition, the Alianza will use evidence of the effectiveness of
participatory approaches to promote policy change in
national agricultural innovation systems to make them more
inclusive and responsive to the needs of the poor. The histories that emerge from Roads to Change of how participatory approaches make a difference should help support this
advocacy process.
Conclusions
Technologies, methods and log frames all have to evolve.
Admitting mistakes is an important part of successful adaptations. Roads to Change examined the way a technology
changed rather than what the project did or achieved. It
provided a novel and more objective window into how the
projects’ activities influenced the twists and turns on the
road to innovation.
Sondeos gave us a picture of demand, but knowing
about demand is not always enough. Just because a technology addresses demand (and most of Innova’s did), doesn’t
mean it does so in the best way. For example, the improved
fallow described in Box 1 addressed the key shortage of
fodder, but it wasn’t functional until farmers and agronomists reworked it in the field.
Of all the methods we tried, the CIAL (or the version
which Innova called GET) was the most useful for completing a part-developed technology. The other methods all fit
inside it, like tools on a Swiss army knife. It would have been
impossible to hold technology fairs or sondeos without the
collaboration of the farmers in the CIAL. The ‘community
feedback’ method was useful for developing the mountain
plough and for changing ‘improved fallow’ to a meadow of
clover. The technology fair was perhaps best for giving some
researchers the courage to quietly set a technology aside and
go on to a more promising topic. We would not have learnt
insights like these if our discussions had kept stressing the
virtues of everyone’s favourite method. To really judge the
methods, we needed to look at change from the technologies’ perspective.
119
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17Jeffery W. Bentley and Graham Thiele
CONTACT DETAILS
Jeffery Bentley
PO Box 270-116
Lima 27
Peru
Email: Bentley@albatros.cnb.net
jefferywbentley@hotmail.com
Graham Thiele
CIP (International Potato Centre)
Apartado 1558
Lima 12
Peru
Email: g.thiele@cgiar.org
NOTE
The full text of the Road to Change paper is
available (in Spanish) online:
www.jefferybentley.com/
caminosalcambiomemorias14.pdf
120
REFERENCES
Ashby, J., Braun, A.R., García, T., Guerrero,
M.P., Hernández, L.A., Quirós, C.A. and Roa,
J.I. (2000) Investing in farmers as researchers:
experience with local Agricultural committees
in Latin America. Cali, Colombia: CIAT
Bentley, J.W., Thiele, G., Oros, R. and Velasco,
C. (2004) Cinderella’s slipper: sondeo surveys
and technology fairs for gauging demand
London: ODI Agricultural Research & Extension
Network (AgREN), Network Paper No. 138
Bentley, J.W., Velasco, C., Rodríguez, F., Oros,
R., Botello, R., Webb, M., Devaux, A., and
Thiele, G. (in press) ‘Unspoken demands for
farm technology.’ Submitted to International
Journal of Agricultural Sustainability
Douthwaite, B. and Ashby, J. (2005)
‘Innovation Histories: A Method for Learning
from Experience.’ ILAC Brief 5:1-4
Hildebrand, P.E. (1981) Combining disciplines
in rapid appraisal: the sondeo approach
Agricultural Administration 8, 423-32
Van Mele, P. and Braun, A. (2005)
‘Methodological diversity and creativity in
agricultural innovation systems.’ In:
Participatory Learning and Action 53
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This publication is an output from research
projects funded by the United Kingdom
Department for International Development
(DfID) through its RNRRS (Renewable Natural
Resources Research Strategy) for the benefit of
developing countries, and through the CPP
(Crop Protection Research Programme), LPP
(Livestock Production Programme) and CPHP
(Crop Post-Harvest Research Programme). The
views expressed are not necessarily those of
DfID.
The authors are grateful for the support of the
SDC; André Devaux, Claudio Velasco and
Antonio Gandarillas; the participants on the
Roads to Change workshop: Salomón Perez,
Fredy Almendras, Remy Crespo, Vladimir Plata,
Carola Chambilla, Javier Aguilera, Ernesto
Montellano, Vladimir Lino, Guillermo Beltman;
and to the facilitators; Rolando Oros, Rubén
Botello and Félix Rodríguez; and to scribe,
Patty Meneces.
18
by PRESLAVA NENOVA
GENERAL SECTION
Roses and people: exploring
sustainable livelihoods in the
Rose valley, Bulgaria
Figure 1: Map of Bulgaria
Background
I lived in Turnichene, in central Bulgaria, for over a month from
May to July 2006. I carried out field research on the social
dynamics and processes integral to rose growing-dependent
livelihoods in the region.1 I chose this subject because there
has been no significant socio-anthropological research into
how social, economic and cultural developments have
affected rose growing in the Rose valley since the transition
from state socialism.2
The timing was good as it coincided with the rose harvest. I
chose Turnichene because it is inhabited by a range of rose
producers – those working small family plots and large-scale
producers with up to 30 hectares. It is also home to the majority of seasonal labourers who provide vital manual labour. A large
part of the population lives in extreme poverty, at least seasonally, despite participating in the annual production of rose oil, a
high-value international commodity. Turnichene presented an
opportunity to research the co-habitation of the three major
ethnic groups in Bulgaria, with a population made up of 12%
Turkish, 25% Roma and 63% Bulgarian residents (Ahmed Hodja,
1 I designed the project as part of my MSc in Anthropology and Ecology of
Development at University College London, UK.
2 For the most recent ethnographic and historical account (up to 1989), see Zarev
(1996).
121
GENERAL SECTION
18Preslava Nenova
Mayor of Turnichene, interview).
I gathered comprehensive data from nearly all those
whose livelihoods involve the rose crop, and focused on
understanding the role of the crop in the lives of those who
depend on it most. Working alongside harvesters and smallscale growers was an excellent starting point for my research
and gave me a detailed insight into the relationships between
the various stakeholders as well as the production process.
The study had a variety of aims and results, but in this
article I will focus on describing how, by involving a large
sample of the village and through participatory exercises, the
project encouraged this ethnically diverse community to articulate their concerns, opinions and knowledge. I used my findings to raise local awareness of the potential usefulness of
discussion for clarifying common goals and the possibilities of
such discussion at all levels – including amongst the non-literate and those who do not speak the language of contracts
and high-level politics.
The adults of Turnichene had been brought up without basic
rights and freedom of expression, and many had even been
dispossessed of their birth names forcibly by the communist
regime. This totalitarian state was superseded by a chaotic restitution and murky processes of transition to a market economy
and democracy. Programmes for reducing rural unemployment,
introduced by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy with a
degree of coercion, as well as the rife corruption which I
witnessed and the illiteracy of many in Turnichene contribute to
the stifling of the voices of small-scale and family farmers and
poor seasonal labourers.3 They are nonetheless active actors in
the dynamic network of power relationships in Turnichene and
beyond. The article looks at how I fitted into this and the implications for further research.
Methods
My methods evolved depending on insights I received, relationships I developed and opportunities that arose. I
combined planning with a constant rethinking of my
approach and integrated myself in the community by living
in a Bulgarian household, working on the subsistence plots
of a large sample of households as well as alongside
harvesters. I also cycled around the village daily, introducing
myself and my research objectives to all who were socialising in the square and on their front porches. Many regarded
me with curiosity, as my participatory behaviour as a lone
stranger was unprecedented. I carefully explained the goals
3
For more information on these government policies and their effects, as well as
more information on all issues in this article, see Nenova (2006).
122
of my study, a personal project, on behalf of a UK University.
Seeing me in a neutral light, many were keen to let me know
their side of the story. I encountered some initial scepticism
when approaching large-scale growers, but they too gladly
gave me interviews, giving me their perspectives, presented
with fluency and confidence, often during their supervision
of the harvest, so that their employees could witness their
contact with me.
Semi-structured interviews
I conducted around 100 semi-structured interviews with individuals and focus groups in Turnichene. Bulgarian was
spoken well by all in the village and was the dominant
language. It is also my first language and I am able to speak
village slang or ‘folk’ Bulgarian, which implied an experience
of living in the countryside. Speaking in this familiar way was
key in facilitating communication which was spontaneous
and relevant to on-going activities. I ensured that I matched
my conceptual framework carefully to that of the Turnichene
people, for example, by identifying the closest and most
easily related to word for ‘livelihood’ – pominuk.4 I conducted
interviews in an informal and dynamic manner. For example,
by tentatively raising a general subject I could judge by the
response whether a person had an interest in expanding it.
Using open questions helped me see what issues informants
wanted to focus on. All interviews took place in the active
context of what was being discussed and many were like a
prompted running commentary whilst interviewees were
working. This meant I was better able to avoid being intrusive and was sensitive to interviewees’ time availability and
practical limitations to being interviewed.
My first step was to join harvesters at the rose plantations
early in the mornings, and to help by picking the flowers
alongside them. This not only meant learning through doing
and tackling issues as they arose, but also the help I provided
went some way towards repaying the interviewees for their
assistance with the research, and practically demonstrated
an interest in forging a bond of solidarity. At this stage I met
key informants and experienced working conditions at the
small and large plantations. One day, I witnessed a workers’
rebellion in which a large group of Roma employees left the
field at midday, costing the large-scale rose grower a significant loss of harvest. This spurred informative discussions and
commentary in the village in the ensuing days.
4 This word has interesting connotations. One Bulgarian interviewee commented
that before the regime change the word had become redundant because the
state provided for all and forced people into work, and no one had to worry
about day-to-day survival and livelihood security.
Roses and people: exploring sustainable livelihoods in the Rose valley, Bulgaria
18
Participatory
mapping of sources
of annual livelihood
security with Roma
informants.
Photos: Preslava Nenova
GENERAL SECTION
123
18Preslava Nenova
GENERAL SECTION
Participatory
mapping by Turkish
and Bulgarian
informants.
Photo: Preslava Nenova
Figure 1: Map of Turnichene made by a group of four
Romany in the village centre (one of whom was literate)
I visited all rose producers in the village. The small-scale
growers were ones with 15dc (decares) or less. This group of
producers use their own family labour, and the area of 15dc
is small enough to make viable ways of working the land
which are not adequate for larger areas.5
I also created detailed family portraits, following
Cochrane (2005) for six families. Three of these worked with
roses only as paid labourers, and three were small-scale rose
growers. Each category included one family from the Roma,
Turkish and Bulgarian ethnic groups.
Participatory mapping
The second major step in my methodology was asking focus
groups to take part in participatory village mapping and other
mapping exercises. There was no official map of Turnichene
at the mayor’s office or in the municipal administrative offices
and so the maps produced served a very immediate purpose
(Figures 1 and 2). Equipped with these I carried out focused
participant observation as well as transect walks to look out
for poverty indicators, which had been brought out by focus
group discussions. During the drawing of the map in Figure
1 the participants gave their perspectives on the significance
of the distribution of water resources. The detailed account
raised further questions for the research, which has been
documented in my thesis.
Eight adults from five Roma families from the poorest quarter
created the seasonal map shown in Table 1. (I filled in the
writing.) It captures the importance of various non-timber forest
products and the dire situation in the winter months when there
5 1 decare (dc) = 0.1 hectare = 1000 m2. For the purpose of the discussion dc will
be used since this is what is used by the respondents.
124
Figure 2: Map of Turnichene made by a group of Bulgarian
and Turkish informants (rose pickers)
Roses and people: exploring sustainable livelihoods in the Rose valley, Bulgaria
Spring
April
More hoeing employment
May
Only rose harvesting
June
Rose harvesting;
Second half of the month –
cherry picking
August
Raspberry picking
September
Raspberry picking
Walnut gathering and selling
October
Walnut gathering
December
Same as November and we
‘write in the shop’s book’
(shopping on credit from the few
local shops)
January
Same as November and
December
February
We dig up wild ‘grumotrun’
(Ononis campestris) Spiny
Restharrow roots from the
forest to sell
March
The [seasonal farm labour] contracts
start (hoeing the roses)
July
Lavender harvesting (but now there
Summer
will be much less income from this
because of new harvester machines)
Winter
November
We steal wood.1 We collect scrap
metal; Survive on what we have
accumulated from the summer.2
GENERAL SECTION
Table 1: Seasonal mapping exercise
18
1 This refers to the illegal felling of trees from the nearby mountain forests for the purpose of heating of homes and cooking. Most rely on firewood for cooking.
2 Not just money but also conserves, which Roma households prepare when a particular vegetable or fruit is abundant, although to a lesser degree than the Bulgarians
and the Turkish.
Table 2: Participatory map showing proportional importance of sources of annual livelihood security
Importance
This Year (2006)
Importance
5 Years Ago (2001)
This Year
(2006)
5 Years Ago
(2001)
Rose picking
Medium
Medium
Subsistence farming
High
High
Paid Work
Medium
Low
Livestock
High
Medium
Harvesting forest products
Low
Low
Jobseeker’s allowance
Low
High
125
GENERAL SECTION
18Preslava Nenova
“..the project encouraged this ethnically
diverse community to articulate their
concerns, opinions and knowledge.”
is no employment or income.6 For May ‘only rose harvesting’
was mentioned. There are no crops fruiting as early as May and
no other major agricultural tasks occur.
In Table 2, two cups of equal number of beans were used for
the two columns, to reflect on the relative significance of
incomes, with each cup representing a year of livelihood. Beans
are a very important part of the diet and so are useful symbols.
The participants in this exercise were all non-literate.
Social dynamics and lessons learnt
Living in Turnichene, I entered a dynamic social landscape, in
which I had to remain neutral. I had no problem getting
accepted by people and with them opening up about
poverty, indigenous technical knowledge, criminality and
many other sensitive issues. Employees even spoke to me
openly about their employers, small-scale growers about
large-scale neighbours etc. This was because most trusted
me to a degree to which they were confident that I would
not publicly disclose information which would jeopardise
their relationships or livelihoods. This enabled them to raise
issues which they even wanted me to convey to other
parties, while keeping the source anonymous. In the case
where an employer openly spoke of his key role in environmentally and socially detrimental large-scale corruption, his
lack of concern was based on having security independent of
my knowledge, as well as the fact that most in the village
were aware of this and complicit themselves.
However, the same closeness which allowed me to create
family portraits and study livelihood strategies in detail was
also a constraint in the long term, as with time my presence
in various households on an equal basis became unacceptable to informants who had expected me to base my
research on a distinct group, rather than sustaining the same
interest in all.7 When I spent time with key informants, partic6 I suspect unemployment benefits were not mentioned because the participants
got the impression I wanted to know about their particular income-generating
activities and because the seasonality of benefits was ambiguous. This map also
omits some of the variety within the group livelihoods because the participants
were aiming to say things which were common to all of them, therefore using ’we’.
7 Discourse as an ongoing argument between conflicting sides can be an
organising element in a rural community. This is what the researcher needs to
interpret: ‘what is common in a community is not shared values or common
understanding so much as the fact that members of a community are engaged in
the same argument, the same raisonnement, the same Rede, the same discourse,
in which alternative strategies, misunderstanding, conflicting goals and values are
thrashed out.’ (Sabean, 1984 in Nuijten, 1992, p 205).
126
ularly ones who were from the Roma community, this was
seen by the Bulgarian and Turkish community as encouraging the antisocial behaviour of the Roma in the village.
Furthermore, other Roma saw this as favouritism which I
practised towards some Roma families as opposed to others.
In effect, my activity affected village power dynamics, in
some cases exacerbating hostilities, and in others forging a
sense of communal solidarity. I believe the latter occurred
whenever I successfully organised and carried out group
mapping or interviews. However, this required an existing
good relationship between participants. Outside of their
family circles Bulgarian and Turkish villagers did not demonstrate the willingness and availability to spend the dedicated
time that a mapping or group interview requires.
In contrast to the Roma, who would engage daily in
social interaction in the village square, the Bulgarian and
Turkish villagers would not be seen spending leisure time in
the street. However, the street is the classic setting for participatory mapping exercises as it is a communal area, supposedly representing free access for all to participate and
ensuring the transparency of the exercise. Indeed with the
Roma this was possible, and with the exception of the
Seasonal Poverty Mapping, I facilitated all Roma group
mapping exercises in the central square. There was only one
opportunity to carry out a mapping exercise with a mixture
of Turkish, Bulgarian and one Roma woman. This was possible because of a celebration of the end of the harvest where
a group of about eight employees had gathered around the
outdoor table of their rose harvest employer’s cafe. I used
this opportunity to carry out the participatory landscape
mapping and a group semi-structured interview.
The majority of seasonal labourers, including all Roma,
felt vulnerable due to their illiteracy. They also felt isolated
because of their particular accents and language. Insecurity
showed in all transactions with the job centre, money-lenders
and employers. Therefore all such dealings were consciously
or otherwise kept to a minimum, and informal relationships
such as patron-client ones were welcomed and sought.
These, however, did not help with breaking cycles of impoverishment, illiteracy and a general feeling of being at odds
with darjavata (the state).8 This was why many found the way
in which they were induced to enter employment contracts
arranged between the job centre and large-scale employers
disconcerting. Mistrust of the objectives and assumptions
8 There was a shared view among the poorest that the state must be held
responsible for supporting them and that it is the state that had failed them. This
recurring concept of the state harks back to the totalitarian state of the
communists, centralised power and bureaucracy.
Roses and people: exploring sustainable livelihoods in the Rose valley, Bulgaria
CONTACT DETAILS
Preslava Nenova
80 Mousehold Avenue
Norwich, NR3 4RS
UK
Email: preslavanenova@gmail.com
“This heightened communication, with
me as a mediator, seemed to be a
positive factor.”
Conclusion
I shared my findings with the Turnichene people as they
arose and issues were raised within the community without
having to be associated with a particular person or family.
This heightened communication, with me as a mediator,
seemed to be a positive factor, despite the fact that I facilitated limited direct discussion between different groups of
stakeholders. In the context of a disunited and disheartened
community I observed the potential to build on the latent
capacity of seasonal labourers and small-scale farmers to use
their grassroots power to safeguard their rights. Although
the exercises I conducted had an empowering effect on
certain groups, they did little to disturb existing power relationships, although at times my activity seemed to reinforce
existing trends of hostility or group solidarity. Throughout
Bulgaria civil society is young and I believe my work gave
many in Turnichene a stronger sense that they were not
alone and must endeavour to determine their own environment and livelihoods.
GENERAL SECTION
behind the government programme for employment was
clear. Many were confused by the paperwork passed between
the employers, the job centre and themselves.
In this context I believe that my participatory study served
the very useful purpose of stimulating a desire and confidence for expression. Another clear outcome was the clarification of common priorities and obstacles for the various
stakeholders. Because people were talking to me as an
outsider and re-telling their stories and plights anew, issues
had the chance to re-emerge which had otherwise been
taken for granted as a fact of life in Turnichene. I believe that
the suspicion aroused during my focus on certain groups and
families in the village could have been avoided to a significant
extent if I had been accompanied by a second researcher.
This would have helped dissociate the research from any one
individual researcher’s personal motives and interests in the
eyes of participants. With a number of people working with
different groups, hostility could be avoided and, having
gained the trust of respective groups, researchers could have
brought them together more easily for exercises. A more
outcome-driven project, designed to deliver tangible benefits
to the community, rather than personal research, may have
a better chance of getting Bulgarian and Turkish residents to
participate in group interviews and mapping.
18
REFERENCES
Cochrane, K. (2005) Family portraits. Power
tools series. Oxford:
SOS-Sahel International & London:
International Institute for Environment and
Development
Nenova, P. (2006) ‘Turnichene in the Rose
Valley: the livelihoods of small-scale cultivators
and seasonal agricultural labourers in rural
post-socialist Bulgaria.’ Unpublished MSc
thesis. Available on request from the
Anthropology Department, University College
London
Nuijten, M. (1992) ‘Local organization as
organizing practices.’ In:
Battlefields of knowledge, N.E. Long, A. Long
(eds.). London: Routledge.
Zarev, K. P. (1996) стория на българското
розопроизводство (History of Bulgarian Rose
Growing), Plovdiv: Vion
127
GENERAL SECTION
19
Phila Impilo! Live Life! Ways to
healing for children in long-term
hospital care
by LOUISE CHAWLA and JILL KRUGER
Making children partners in healthcare
To understand the longest reach of HIV infection in subSaharan Africa, it is necessary to consider the children who
carry the disease and related illnesses like tuberculosis, or who
have lost a parent or other family members to this epidemic.
In addition to physical effects, children carry the emotional
wounds of loss, fear, or social stigma, and they need
emotional support as much as physical healing. An essential
component of this support is to enable children to feel that
they are agents who have some control over their lives, who
can contribute to their own health and the well-being of
others. Like all people, children need this sense of self worth
and creative agency. South Africa is a country where the need
to attend to HIV-affected children is especially acute. Almost
one in five adults is HIV infected, more than a quarter of a
million children below the age of 15 are living with HIV, and
more than a million children in South Africa have been
orphaned by AIDS. A related epidemic is tuberculosis, which
was identified by the World Health Organisation Regional
Committee for Africa as a leading cause of death among
people who are HIV-positive and was declared an emergency
in the African region.
These are mind-numbing numbers, and in the face of
these statistics it is natural to try to attack the problem with
128
“An essential component of this support
is to enable children to feel that they
are agents who have some control over
their lives, who can contribute to their
own health and the well-being of
others.”
a counter-barrage of numbers: how many children have been
supplied with paediatric antiretroviral drugs or with treatment for tuberculosis, how many additional beds have been
added to paediatric wards, how many programmes have
been established to support the extended family networks
and foster families that care for orphans. These are necessary steps to address the problem, but by themselves they
can obscure the children behind the numbers who are very
much alive. By themselves, these approaches also risk
neglecting essential provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on
the Rights and Welfare of the Child, to which South Africa
as a nation is committed, and which acknowledge children’s
Phila Impilo! Live Life! Ways to healing for children in long-term hospital care
19
Through the medium of her
sock puppet, a girl has a
conversation with artistfacilitator S’bu Sithebe.
Photo: Julie Manegold
GENERAL SECTION
rights to the free expression of their views on matters that
affect them, including the right to be informed and involved
in their own healthcare.
Phila Impilo! Live Life! Ways to Healing is a DVD and a
book, which shows healthcare workers and parents how to
engage the real children behind the numbers and enlist them
as insightful partners in processes of healing. Who understands better than the children in hospitals and clinics how to
make these places as comfortable, humane and health
promoting as possible, in ways that touch the emotions and
spirit as well as the body? The DVD brings together the voices
of 23 children, six to 13 years old, in the paediatric ward at
King George V Hospital in Durban, along with family
members, healthcare providers, a child psychologist, and an
artist, using a combination of English and isi-Zulu with English
subtitles. Running time is 26 minutes. The 64-page book
contains further insights by the children on holistic hospital
care.
Dr. Sheila Bamber, Medical Officer for the ward, explains
for both parents and healthcare providers how children’s
symptoms are sometimes similar and sometimes different
than symptoms in adults, and the need for the quickest possible preventive care, especially in the case of children’s TB,
which can be cured. She also emphasises the emotional
dimension of healing, such as the importance of greeting
each child by name, with a gentle and respectful touch. Most
inspiring is not the information that the DVD and book
impart but the quality of care that they illustrate.
Methods for children’s participation in improving the
conditions of their care
In the King George V Hospital in Durban, Phila Impilo! introduced a set of participatory methods during a series of workshops over a period of two weeks. Although the
programme’s focus is children affected by TB and related
illnesses such as HIV infection, the following methods could
129
19Louise Chawla and Jill Kruger
Drawing to the
theme, ‘The very best
person in my life.
GENERAL SECTION
that travelled from person to person. It was always possible
to see from the light on children’s faces exactly where the
‘strength’ had reached in the circle. Once or twice, if a child
pressed the hand of another too hard, the group protested
and the process restarted. These rituals gathered everyone
together and affirmed the group’s identity – especially important to do in a hospital setting because children had different treatments at different times and sometimes had to leave
in the middle of activities, turning up again at a later stage in
the day.
Photo: Julie Manegold
Thematic drawings
be applied in paedriatric wards and clinics of all kinds:
• Daily rituals
• Thematic drawings
• A Tree of Life mural
• Collages
• Identity drawings
• Sock puppets
• Umoya letters (umoya is isi-Zulu for ‘wind’ and ‘soul’)
• Composite fabric painting.
Daily rituals
The start and end ‘rituals’ for each day were designed spontaneously during the first workshop, in response to songs and
games which the children brought with them. The morning
ritual, led by the facilitator Maria Makgamathe, brought all
children and facilitators together in a circle. Paired couples
stood side by side and greeted each other by hand, the first
person with the right, the next with the left. Partners then
wove around the circle, sharing this greeting with everyone
while singing ‘Sawubona (isi-Zulu: I see you) to you’ to the
tune of ‘Happy Birthday.’ The end-of-the-day ritual, led by
facilitator-artist S’bu Sithebe, consisted of ‘passing strength’
around the circle. Children and facilitators stood in a circle
again, passing strength through a gentle squeeze of the hand
130
Art is an essential element of the Phila Impilo! programme.
Some of the drawing topics included:
• ‘The happiest day of my life’ (an interesting range of
responses, showing areas of personal affirmation important to children, including a strong emphasis on birthday
parties);
• ‘The very best person in my life’ (a number of children drew
loved persons who had passed on; some asked first if they
could do so);
• ‘Things I’m sad about in the hospital’ (these comprised
mostly drawings that facilitators thought would have been
generated by the question about what frightened them in
the hospital, such as injections); and
• ‘Things I’m scared of in the hospital’ (here animals made a
surprising appearance, as well as insects such as flies and
mosquitoes: yet for anyone who is ill and weak and has a
fever, it is difficult to face and ward off intrusive animals
and insects).
Many scenes in the DVD focus on the children’s vibrant
drawings and paintings: images of what is painful, such as
injections and crying families, but also images of sources of
strength and happiness, such as friends, play, and family
visits.
Tree of Life mural
The children made leaves and pieces of bark, which they
assembled into a large tree that covered a wall in their ward.1
Each piece of bark that formed the trunk carried the name of
an illness identified by one of the groups of children along
with the symptoms that they knew. The flourishing crown of
green leaves carried the children’s suggestions about what
would make their treatment as comfortable and effective as
possible. On the leaves the children wrote many sound and
1 The ‘Tree of Life’ method in Phila Impilo! was adapted from a similar method
used by the Boston Institute of Arts, developed after September 11. Vivien
Marcow-Speiser from Lesley University introduced the concept to Jill Kruger.
Phila Impilo! Live Life! Ways to healing for children in long-term hospital care
feasible ideas, including play, nutritious meals, family visits,
cards and letters, birthday celebrations, having an ‘auntie’
(nurse) to attend them at night so that someone would be
there if they woke up frightened or in pain, and opportunities to go outside. As one child simply said, ‘Walk them to
the sun.’ Possibly the most poignant message is, ‘Have adults
listen to us when we ask for help.’
Collages
On flexible cardboard (A3 size), children were asked to make
collages ‘to show the beauty that lies in my heart and in my
soul.’ Some children chose items for their collage simply
because they found them beautiful (for example, a girl said
that this was why she chose a piece of red lace). Many,
however, cut out magazine images that reminded them of
their homes: such as a car ‘because we normally use a car, my
father’s, when we go to town,’ or a bed because ‘there is a
bed like this at home.’ A girl who cut out an image of a
mother and child explained, ‘This mother and child are
looking out for each other. They resemble the relationship I
have with my mother.’
Identity drawings
Like the collages, the purpose of this activity is to help children in situations of vulnerability confirm their sense of being,
belonging and self-worth in the world. The children sat in a
circle with their eyes closed, waiting for mystery gifts to be
placed in their hands. The gift turned out to be a small mirror
for each child. They pasted their mirrors on flexible A3 cardboard, and the facilitators then proposed that they write or
draw their best personal characteristics around the mirror.
Instead, the children spontaneously drew images of things of
deep personal importance: people, houses, fish, flowers,
trees. Their joy in reaching into a remembered outside world
and recreating strong icons around their mirror was almost
tangible as they worked.
Sock puppets
Since many children struggle to sew, they were given the
simplest materials: patterned socks, buttons, and ‘eyes’ from
a stationery shop. The materials were set on a table for the
children to choose the sock, buttons, and eyes that they
preferred, and facilitators then sewed on the buttons and
covered them with the adhesive eyes. The children were
asked if they would like to name their puppets. This naming
activity was the first indication of how strongly the children
felt about their puppets. Discussion and deliberation during
the process of choosing names lasted an hour instead of the
expected ten minutes.2 The puppets enabled even the shyest
children to speak confidently during one-on-one conversations, group discussions, and mini-plays that the children
spontaneously created.
GENERAL SECTION
“Their joy in reaching into a remembered
outside world and recreating strong
icons around their mirror was almost
tangible as they worked.”
19
Umoya letters
Children who had lost a mother or other family member
painted messages of love and then hung their messages in
a row, to be carried to the world of the spirit by the breeze.
In one of the most poignant scenes in the DVD, the children
stand in a group, some with their arms around each other,
quietly watching the wind deliver their messages to their
loved one.
Composite fabric painting
After the workshops ended, facilitators returned to the
hospital to capture the children’s descriptions of their drawings and collages. At this time, some of the eldest children
were asked to draw examples of the children’s best and
worst hospital experiences on a fabric banner that expressed
the group’s ideas.
Although it was not a ‘method’ by itself, each child’s
artwork was collated in an ‘art book’ with their collage on
the front cover and their identity drawing on the back cover.
In this way, loose pages were transformed into artefacts that
children and their families could preserve and value.
The Phila Impilo! DVD was launched at a public showing
in Durban in January 2008, where the children were given
certificates of appreciation for their participation. Many
parents were in tears at the launch, but the children were
beaming. Two parents whose children had died came so that
they could keep the DVD and certificate as mementos. Dr
Neil McKerrow, Chief Specialist and Head of Paediatrics and
Child Health at the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health,
plans to collaborate with Young Insights in Planning, the
2 The four youngest children named their puppets for favourite colours; five children
chose animals, many chose celebrity names or typical children’s names, and four
chose characters from the Takalani Sesame television and radio programme, which
explores tough issues that children face, including HIV infection. This programme is
presented in South Africa’s 11 official languages and models non-discriminatory
behaviour among children. For more information, see Welch (2002).
131
19Louise Chawla and Jill Kruger
Photo: Julie Manegold
GENERAL SECTION
A boy made this
drawing of ‘the happiest
day of my life’ – when
his father visited him in
the hospital.
non-profit organisation that helped create the programme,
in order to pilot the film and publication with medical and
nursing professionals in hospitals, clinics and mobile clinics
in two KwaZulu Health Districts, exploring how the
programme’s materials can be most effectively used to
spread its example of respectful and creative partnership
with children. Screenings will also educate lay people and
selected NGOs about the issues that the children raise.
Reflections on the process
Studies by anthropologists have shown that children
frequently have little personal space to call their own.3 This
is especially true in hospitals, where children are likely to be
even more restricted than at home. Phila Impilo! shows how
to transform institutional spaces in a large urban hospital
into places that express the unique identities of the children
who inhabit them, and how to introduce children’s insights
into processes of healing.
3
132
Jones (1993); Malone (2007); Ramphele (1993); Swart-Kruger (2001).
Under most conditions, it is a challenge to enable children to ‘speak’ in authentic voices, verbally or nonverbally.
This challenge was intensified by the timeframe of the
programme, which was limited to two weeks of workshops,
with follow-up interviews. This is a short time in which to
create trust and garner children’s earnest perspectives,
particularly when children have been schooled in cultural
traditions that emphasise reserve in the presence of adults.
Traditional Zulu cultural precepts that inform children’s
behaviour towards adults and older children, including older
siblings, are encapsulated in the terms ukuhlonipha (to show
respect) and amahloni (modesty).
All of the methods in the Phila Impilo! programme
helped the children find and express their personal voice,
but the use of the sock puppets deserves special mention.
The puppets were initially intended as a simple element of
fun and an alternative voice for children who might want to
say things that they feared adults might find inappropriate.
But from the first, facilitators commented on the way that
children’s whole beings ‘lit up’ when the puppets were introduced. A boy of eleven years who had been quiet and withdrawn, for example, became enthusiastic and took part with
others once he was wearing his puppet. Children not only
pranced about, creating scenarios in which their puppets
spoke, but they treated their puppets almost like pets,
patting and stroking them and putting them to bed under
their pillows or into envelope beds in their art books. The
sock puppets changed magically from moment to moment.
They were toys yet alter egos, children’s close friends,
supporters and confidantes yet also their taskmasters. Sock
puppets were treated as if they had feelings for their owners
too.
The following words that a 13-year-old boy attributed to
his puppet Unogwaja are representative:
I look after my friend. When he is sick I help him to take
his pills. When I am sick as well he looks after me. I sleep
during the day. When it is time for meals, I wake him up.
I love my owner very much. When I have a headache he
knows how to help me.
A 10-year-old boy shared similar feelings about his
puppet Zikwe:
The puppet was my friend. It let me express what I felt
but could not say. Like my dog, I could play with it. . . .
He then pretended to be the puppet, which said in response:
Phila Impilo! Live Life! Ways to healing for children in long-term hospital care
I love playing with my friend. He looks after me in the
evening. He helps me with my blanket when I feel cold.
I love him because I play with him during the day.
The puppets seemed to help the children develop their
personal identities in a setting where they lacked core relationships that they might have in the outside world, like
trusted friends and family members. This was especially
important in a setting where a number of the children had
very few visitors, and some had none at all or saw outsiders
intermittently over many months of hospitalisation. A
report on medical social work play therapy programmes
also found that children favour puppets over other media
for exploring illness and treatment, and that they use
puppets to personify characters in the hospital setting and
CONTACT DETAILS
Louise Chawla
College of Architecture and Planning
University of Colorado
Campus Box 314
Boulder, CO 80309-0314
USA
Email: louise.chawla@colorado.edu
Jill Kruger
Young Insights for Planning
NPO 54-005
PO Box 70990
Overport 4067
Durban
South Africa
Email: jmkrug@wirelessza.co.za
to carry out treatment procedures (Helton and Smith,
2004). Other play therapists have noticed that children
appear to feel released from anxiety and guilt when they
can have puppets express what they want to say (Timberlake and Cutler, 2001).
The Phila Impilo! programme is a reminder of the
humanity behind the tuberculosis and AIDS crises, and that
this humanity is the channel for the most effective ‘ways to
healing.’ It presents the resilient humanity of the children,
family members, and healthcare providers. As Diane Melvin,
a clinical child psychologist from Great Ormond Street
Hospital in London, which partnered with the project,
observes, ‘Chronically ill children have interests, needs and
rights.’ Over and over again, the children in the film voice
their conviction that, ‘It is better for parents to tell children
what diseases they have.’ Hard as the revelation may be, it
enables children to move beyond confusion and inarticulate
fear to places of strength where they can be participants in
creating healing environments for themselves and others.
Some of the most potent ‘medicines’ available, the
programme shows, are participatory methods that use the
medium of the arts to lower the walls of isolation where
children may be trapped by their pain and loss, building in
their place communities of sharing and support.
NOTES
The Phila Impilo! Live Life! DVD and book were
created by Jill Kruger, a team of African
mother-tongue facilitators, and staff of the
NGO Young Insights for Planning. They were
sponsored mainly by the Joint Oxfam HIV and
AIDS Program (South Africa). To inquire about
obtaining copies of the DVD, contact Young
Insights for Planning at yipsa75@yahoo.com
The book can be downloaded from:
www.act.org.uk/content/view/162/35 or
www.icpcn.org.uk
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This article is an expanded version of an article
by the same name by the first author, which
was published in the South African magazine
ChildrenFIRST, Vol 12, No 66, May 2008. Parts
of this article are reproduced with the
permission of the Board and Management of
ChildrenFIRST.
GENERAL SECTION
“Some of the most potent ‘medicines’
available… are participatory methods
that use the medium of the arts to lower
the walls of isolation where children
may be trapped by their pain and loss.”
19
REFERENCES
Helton, L. R. and Smith, M. K. (2004) Mental
Health Practice with Children and Youth: a
strengths and well-being model. New York:
The Haworth Social Work Press
Jones, S. (1993) Assaulting Childhood:
Children’s experiences of migrancy and hostel
life in South Africa. Johannesburg:
Witwatersrand University Press.
Malone, K. (ed.) (2007) Child Space: an
anthropological exploration of young people’s
use of space. New Delhi: Concept Publishing
Company
Ramphele, M. (1993) A Bed Called Home.
Cape Town: David Philip
Swart-Kruger, J. (2001) ‘Isikathi Sokulala: How
boys and girls in a South African squatter
camp experience bedtime.’ International
Journal of Anthropology 16 (2-3)
Timberlake, E. M. and Cutler, M, M. (2001).
Developmental Play Therapy in Clinical Social
Work. London: Allan and Bacon.
Welch, B. (2002) ‘Opening Sesame: TV that
inspires learning around the world.’ Ed
Magazine, November 15 (Harvard Graduate
School of Education). Online: www.gse.harvard.
edu/news/features/sesamestreet11152002.html
133
TIPS FOR TRAINERS
Tips for trainers
Democracy walls
by GIACOMO RAMBALDI
Introduction
Facilitators like monitoring the pulse
of the events they have been
organising and at the same time
offering participants a medium where
they can share their thoughts,
creating opportunities for
participatory reflections. This adjusts
the flow of action and provides a
paper sheets. Typically a democracy
wall consists of five large sheets of
craft paper (1.2 m x 1.8 m) each one
featuring one of the following
introductions to open-ended
statements:
• I discovered that ...
• I noticed that…
• I felt that…
• I learnt that …
• I would like to suggest…
Purpose
• To provide a medium for individual
participants to express themselves in a
free, focused and concise manner;
• To generate a written, shared pool
of reflections which can be used for
further participatory analysis; and
• To obtain on-the-spot feedback
during an event and be in the
position to rapidly adjust facilitation
to emerging realities and changing
circumstances.
Materials needed
• 5 large sheets of craft paper (1.2m x 1.8m)
• Drawing pins
• Masking tape (2 inches wide)
• Scissors
• Marker pens
• A5 paper sheets or metacards (at least 15
per participant)
• The five ‘introductions’ written or printed
separately on A4 sheets of paper in large
letters
• Glue stick
space to take stock of lessons learnt.
In addition, sound practice calls for
equal opportunities for all participants
to express themselves. Creating
spaces which favour focused and free
expression of ideas while a process
enfolds, is one way to go about it.
The idea of establishing physical
open spaces where people could
express themselves in a focused,
structured and concise manner came
to me while looking at a drawing
found in A Trainers’ Guide for
Participatory Learning and Action
(Jules Pretty et al., 1995).
Democracy walls
A democracy wall is a structured open
space where people can post their
ideas and opinions (Figure 1) using A5
134
Photo: Jeroen Verplanke, ITC
Figure 1. Democracy wall at work at a
training at ITC, Enschede Netherlands.
Tips for trainers
Figure 2. Multilingual
democracy wall
deployed at the 2007
Web2forDev Conference
in Rome, Italy.
TIPS FOR TRAINERS
When working in a multilingual
environment introductions should be
written in the different languages
(Figure 2).
layout, the easier the process is. If
colour coding is adopted, I
recommend using pastel colours and
avoid strongly contrasting hues like
red, blue, green, yellow, or black as
these may impact behaviour
depending on how colours are
associated to meanings in different
cultures.
Masking tape snippets (see
picture) are prepared for use together
with marker pens in numbers
sufficient to allow participants to
freely contribute (to avoid participants
having to queue to get a marker pen
or tape to stick their card on the
democracy walls with).
At the beginning of the event,
participants are briefed on the
purpose of the democracy wall and
invited – at scheduled intervals – to
enter statements on the five elements
of the wall using the metacards.
It is important to specify that
metacards should accommodate only
one concise statement written in
capital letters. Being able to read the
card from a distance of 3-5 metres is
extremely important. Statements
Photo: Nynke Kruiderink, IICD
A number of elements of the
democracy wall have to be prepared
ahead of the event.
The five statements ‘I discovered
that ...’; ‘I noticed that…’; ‘I felt
that…’; ‘I learnt that …’ and ‘I would
like to suggest…’ are printed on A4
paper and glued at the top left corner
of the sheets of craft paper.
Use masking tape or drawing pins
to fix the craft papers onto a wall. The
wall has to be large enough to
accommodate all five or them (Figure
3). Each sheet should hang
distinctively (ensure that there are 1015 cm between each sheet).
Sequencing (left to right) is important
and has to be well thought out
depending on the context in which
the democracy wall is deployed.
If an event includes parallel
sessions occurring in different rooms,
democracy walls can be set up in
each of the rooms. The facilitators
may decide to harvest statements
made at the end of the sessions or at
the end of the day, or to leave them
in place for the duration of the event.
The intervals of harvest depend on
how the organisers plan to make use
of the feedback gathered on the walls
in the facilitation process.
Metacards (A5 sheets of paper)
are prepared together with maker
pens and snippets of masking tape.
Metacards are typically white but
could be in different colours,
depending on whether the facilitator
would like to later disaggregate
entries (e.g. by gender, by type of
participants, or other). But in my
personal experience, the simpler the
Photo: Anja Barth, CTA
The process
Figure 3. Facilitator preparing the democracy
wall during the Web2forDev pre-conference
workshop, Rome, Italy, 2007.
should be formulated as a
continuation of the introduction e.g.
‘I learnt that…’ and followed by the
statement on metacard.
If some workshop participants are
illiterate or cannot write because of
physical or visual impairment,
facilitators should ensure that full
135
Tips for trainers
Figure 4. An Ogiek elder contributes his
thoughts (written with the assistance of a
student) to a democracy wall during a
participatory mapping exercise. Nessuit,
Kenya, 2006.
Photo: Giacomo Rambaldi, CTA
TIPS FOR TRAINERS
perspective the gathered statements
are important testimonies and onthe spot snapshots of perceptions.
• Democracy walls offer participants
the opportunity to share their views
and opinions privately, without the
need to speak out in public.
• Statements displayed on the walls
allow facilitators to get the pulse of
an event and adjust accordingly.
• After grouping (optional),
statements featured on the
democracy walls can be presented at
the closing session of the event and
offer further food for thoughts,
reactions and comments on future
directions.
Reading the walls
assistance is provided. Those assisting
should be known and trusted by the
impaired. If communication occurs in
a language unknown to some of the
participants or facilitators, a
translation may be written at the
bottom of the metacard.
Depending on whether the
participants are used to publicly
expressing themselves in writing,
facilitators may have to start the
process by proactively distributing
metacards and marker pens to
participants or offer them the
opportunity to fill in the cards in
private (e.g. during a coffee break).
Usually the process is self-propelling
and once the first cards are stuck on
the walls others are increasingly
eager to contribute with their ideas
(Figure 4).
Depending on the purpose of the
exercise, the facilitator may group
and eventually rank the entries and
facilitate a discussion around
emerging reflections. The outcome of
the discussions may feed back into
the process or serve as guidance for
136
future activities or improvements of
the process itself (‘I would like to
suggest …’)
Advantages
• The tool offers equal opportunities
of expression for all participants –
the outspoken and the shy, the
literate and illiterate.
• It establishes well-defined spaces,
which favour focused and free
expression of observations, reactions,
ideas, emotions, suggestions or
complaints while the event enfolds.
• Statements displayed on the
democracy walls may induce
coalescing (‘Hi, others share my
opinion and sentiments’), and
encourage people to contribute
opinions and stimulate reflections.
• From a process management
perspective gathered statements are
easy to compile (e.g. in a PowerPoint
presentation) and emerging issues
can be fed back into the debate to
enhance reflection and improve
analysis.
• From a process documentation
Selected statements made by elders
during a participatory mapping
workshop held on Ovalau Island in
Fiji (2005):
I learnt new things about my village.
I learnt names of places, names we
do not use anymore, names that
our elders used and I am so glad
that I and future generations have
learnt and will use them again.
I discovered that if we look after our
environment and our ‘Vanua’, our
source of wealth, we will be able to
combat poverty.
I felt this workshop has been useful
for all the people of Ovalau – young
and old, even our children have
learnt new things. It is a big step
forward for them and for all of us.
We now have a better
understanding of the whole Ovalau
landscape and this will be very
useful for development planning
and resource management.
Tips for trainers
I would like to suggest that
participatory 3-D models be done on
other hunter-gatherers land (Yiaku
and Sengwer).
I learnt that there is hidden truth
that can be processed by the
community in mapping.
I would like to suggest to include in
the plan of activities internal meetings
(e.g. in the evening of each day) for
discussing about the day and clarifying
the activities of the day after. Keeping
all updated of what is going on.
I felt I never thought we could
make it …. The tracing, cutting,
gluing etc. but after finishing the
blank model, I felt we were there. It
was a turning point to the whole
project.
I noticed that you don’t get bored
when working with people from
different professional backgrounds.
I noticed that people must work
together to achieve their goal.
Selected statements made by
participants at the Web2forDev
conference in Rome, Italy (2007) :
I felt that blogging feels very lonely
when everybody else is talking
I learnt ... how to blog, ...how to tag;
... what a wiki is ... and what I can use
it for ...
I noticed that we have to come up
with a description of what is
understood by web2fordev
I discovered that Uganda is really
mashing it up ...The UK can learn a
lot from what happens there
I would like to suggest allocating
more time between sessions
TIPS FOR TRAINERS
Selected statements made by
trainees during a participatory
mapping workshop held In Nessuit,
Kenya (2006):
I would like to suggest creating an
Africa working group on Web 2.0
CONTACT DETAILS
Giacomo Rambaldi
Senior Programme Coordinator
Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural
Cooperation (CTA)
Wageningen
The Netherlands
Website: www.cta.int
Email: rambaldi@cta.int
137
in touch
IN TOUCH
Book reviews
Citizens at the Centre: Deliberative
participation in healthcare decisions
● Celia Davies, Margaret Wetherell and
Elizabeth Barnett.
Policy Press, London, 2006
ISBN 1861348029 £24.
Welcome to the In Touch section of
Participatory Learning and Action.
Through these pages we hope to
create a more participatory resource
for the Participatory Learning and
Action audience, to put you, as a
reader, in touch with other readers.
We want this section to be a key
source of up-to-date information on
training, publications, and networks.
Your help is vital in keeping us all in
touch about:
• Networks. Do you have links with
recognised local, national or
international networks for
practitioners of participatory
learning? If so, what does this
network provide – training?
newsletters? resource
material/library? a forum for sharing
experiences? Please tell us about the
network and provide contact details
for other readers.
• Training. Do you know of any
forthcoming training events or
courses in participatory
138
methodologies? Are you a trainer
yourself? Are you aware of any key
training materials that you would
like to share with other trainers?
• Publications. Do you know of any
key publications on participatory
methodologies and their use? Have
you (or has your organisation)
produced any books, reports, or
videos that you would like other
readers to know about?
• Electronic information. Do you
know of any electronic conferences
or pages on the Internet which
exchange or provide information on
participatory methodologies?
• Other information. Perhaps you have
ideas about other types of
information that would be useful for
this section. If so, please let us know.
Please send your responses to:
Participatory Learning and Action,
IIED, 3 Endsleigh Street, London
WC1H ODD, UK.
Fax: + 44 20 7388 2826;
Email: pla.notes@iied.org
Citizens at the Centre is the outcome
of three years of intensive research
and analysis.
The authors conducted an
exhaustive process of observation of
participation and interviews with all
those involved, from the funders and
facilitators to the thirty members of a
Citizens Council, charged with
helping shape policy-making around
the National Institute of Clinical
Excellence, one of the UK
government’s key health regulatory
bodies.
Anyone interested in the issues
raised in this special issue will
appreciate the valuable and timely
nature of the analysis here. They bring
particular clarity to the dilemmas
facing bureaucrats, commercial
facilitators and everyday citizens when
they attempt to walk the tightrope
between participatory ideals and the
reluctance of those in power to credit
knowledge and democratic rights to
others.
They also shed light on the
challenge of dealing with demands
for representative processes, when
this can lead to the tokenistic
involvement of groups in society who
are either in a numerical minority or
are not normally involved in policy
debates.
Davies, Wetherell and Barnett also
discuss the risk that even the most
exhaustive and expensive processes,
carried out in good faith by wellmeaning people, can create new
Book reviews
Reviewed by Tom Wakeford
The Suitcase Stories: Refugee
children reclaim their identities
● Glynis Clacherty with the suitcase story
tellers and Diane Welvering
Double Storey Books, Juta & Co. Ltd, 2006
ISBN-10: 1 919930 99 X
Paperback, 184 pages
Readers will
remember the
article by Glynis
Clacherty in the
general section
of PLA 54,
outlining the
Suitcase Project.
A book written
by the initial group of children
involved with the project has since
been published and we are pleased to
include a review of the book with a
brief background to the project here.
In 2001 Glynis Clacherty initiated a
‘psychosocial support through art
therapy’ project for refugee children in
Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2002,
Dianne Welvering brought her skills to
the project as an art teacher, and
together with Glynis developed the
work presented in the book.
Unlike many other African
countries, South Africa has no formal
refugee camps catering to the more
than 150,000 refugees and asylum
seekers from war torn countries like
Rwanda and the Democractic
Republic of Congo. Instead, South
Africa’s rights-based approach sees
refugees making their own way as
they can, finding work and accessing
social services where possible. There
can be significant difficulty in
accessing these rights in practice.
Navigating the physical and social
realities of a foreign, often hostile land
can be daunting, especially as an
unaccompanied child.
The Suitcase Stories is a small but
powerful glimpse into the human
realities behind the statistics. Firsthand accounts of the refugee
experience are strikingly illustrated
with colourful visual imagery taken
from the second-hand suitcases that
the children used for their multi-media
art therapy expressions. The stories are
punctuated by concise contextual
information, and sandwiched in adult
commentary about the therapeutic
storytelling process – giving some
useful critical insights into the process
of art therapy and trauma debriefing
that will be invaluable to others
working with children from refugee
and other backgrounds involving
personal distress.
What you won’t find in this book
are sensationalised horror stories grim
with gripping detail. These are firsthand accounts told by real children in
their own way, not as responses to
interrogative interviewing techniques
that search out details readers may
want to pore over rather than the
experiences that the storytellers feel
appropriate to share. Much of what
the children have experienced is
poignantly illustrated ‘between the
lines’ in a way that leaves their privacy
and personal dignity intact.
Too often even in the field of
participation one finds stories ‘taken’
from children by researchers and
writers who use them as if it is only
the adult academic or commercial
product that matters. It is refreshing to
discover a book that is truly a
participatory collaboration between
those who actually own the stories
and those who are facilitating the
storytelling.
Every story in this book is told
voluntarily by a child who has actively
chosen what to tell (and not to tell),
what to publish and what to remove,
and what to change in order to
protect their own identity and privacy.
The book itself is the result of a
request by one of the children in the
group to ‘Help me make a book about
my story. People need to know why
we are here. We don’t choose to
come here. They need to know.’ What
is also striking about the book is the
IN TOUCH
forms of oppression. It carries a tacit
warning that even hugely expensive
processes aimed at ‘giving people a
voice’ can actually weaken the voice
of groups who already have the least
say in decisions.
Along with these key themes, the
authors also set the citizens’ council in
the context of other similar attempts
at deliberative democracy, such as the
citizens’ jury movement in general
(see Kashefi and Keene, article 5, this
issue; Haq, article 15, this issue) and
the 2005 Nanojury in particular (see
Singh, article 4, this issue).
This book should be read by
anyone who is involved in
participatory projects, particularly
those initiatives that are funded by
single powerful organisations, which,
at least in the UK, form the majority.
Citizens at the Centre is especially
relevant to potential commissioners of
such processes, who face the
challenge of adapting their institutions
and shaping the organisational
structures that surround them, in
order to create more empowering
models of participation.
For those who find it easier than
ordering the actual book, some of its
main findings are usefully summarised
in a paper by the same authors which
is available at: http://alba.jrc.it/blog
/accent//wp-content/uploads/
Citizens_council_Mar05.pdf
The Citizens’ Council’s official
page on a UK government agency
website: http://tinyurl.com/63qpqc
139
IN TOUCH
Book reviews
sense of healing and empowerment
expressed by the participants during
the suitcase decorating process. This
leads one to speculate on the further
empowerment and healing that may
have come from being able to share
their stories with the world in this
further way.
■ Available from Double Storey Books
Website: www.doublestorey.com
Reviewed by Je’anna Clements
(Young Insights for Planning, South
Africa)
Affirming Life and
Diversity: Rural
images and voices
on food sovereignty
in South India
140
are regenerating sustainable and
citizen controlled food systems – for
the well-being of their communities
and the land. The rural images and
voices offer powerful arguments in
favour of an alternative paradigm for
food and agriculture – one that
resonates with the concepts of `food
sovereignty’ and active citizenship.
■ For more information and to order a copy
visit: www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?
o=14556IIED
A Community
Guide to
Environmental
Health
● Community Media
Trust, PV Satheesh and
Michel Pimbert, 2008.
ISBN: 978 1 84369 674 2
● Jeff Conant and
Pam Fadem, 2008
Paperback, 600
pages, illustrated,
US$28
ISBN: 978 0 942364 56 9
This DVD set contains four DVDs and
a book and is part of the Affirming
Life and Diversity film series. The
book describes how co-inquirers
worked together in the drylands of
Andhra Pradesh to produce social and
ecological knowledge for
sustainability, autonomy and equity.
Their collective and empowering
experience is vividly captured in the
accompanying videos which show the
outcomes of participatory action
research facilitated by the Deccan
Development Society (DDS) and IIED
on Sustaining Local Food Systems,
Agricultural Biodiversity and
Livelihoods. The videos were
produced by women farmers who are
also village-level film makers with the
Community Media Trust of the DDS.
These films show how local
organisations of marginalised women
farmers and urban food consumers
This illustrated guide helps health
promoters, development workers,
environmental activists, and
community leaders in small villages as
well as large cities take charge of their
environmental health.
This book contains activities to
stimulate critical thinking and
discussion, inspirational stories, and
instructions for simple health
technologies such as water
purification methods, safe toilets, and
non-toxic cleaning products. Created
by Hesperian in collaboration with
120 communities from over 33
countries, the guide is full of
explanations and actions that
individuals, families, and communities
can take to address both the
symptoms and root causes of today’s
pressing environmental problems.
■ Book and CD available from Hesperian
Books, 1919 Addison Street, Suite 304,
Berkeley, CA 94704, USA.
Email: hesperian@hesperian.org
Website www.hesperian.org
Free to download at www.hesperian.org/
publications_download_EHB.php
Enticing the
Learning: Trainers
in development
● John Staley, 2008
Paperback, 482
pages
ISBN: 0 704426 072
and 9780704426078
This book is for those who work
professionally with communities in
development work, social action,
community organisation, awareness
raising and voluntary aid
programmes.
More than 100 exercises, group
events, conceptual inputs and
methods are presented in detail, with
timing and practicalities; and more
than 50 handouts – guidelines, case
studies, questionnaires, etc – are
included. The text tells the trainer what
to do at every stage, and why and
how, in order to `entice the learning’.
The material is drawn from the
Development Studies Course
conducted at Selly Oak Colleges in
the UK, and has been tried and tested
in NGOs worldwide. The text is
enlivened by the comments, insights
and humour of those who have taken
part in the training and contains
many photographs and line drawings.
This book is an invaluable resource
for the established trainer and the
would-be trainer.
■ Available from The Institute of Applied
Social Studies, The University of Edgbaston,
Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. Email:
w.banner@bham.ac.uk
Price £18 plus postage.
Events & Training
Third Global Congress of Women in
Politics and Governance
change. Registration fees from
US$1,550 per person.
■ For more information visit:
www.capwip.org/3rdglobalcongress.htm;
Email: globalcongress2008@gmail.com.
● 19th–22nd October 2008, Philippines
MA Programme Links: Science,
Society and Development
The Center for Asia-Pacific Women in
Politics (CAPWIP) and the United
Nations International Strategy for
Disaster Risk Reduction (UN/ISDR) are
hosting the Third Global Congress of
Women in Politics and Governance in
Makati City, Metro Manila. The
congress theme is Gender in Climate
Change and Disaster Risk Reduction.
Women and environment experts
have raised concern over the absence
of women in the discourse and debate
on climate change and disaster risk
reduction, both of which are major
global mainstream issues. The
involvement of women in areas of
environmental management and is of
considerable importance in the
promotion of environmental ethics.
The overall purpose is to provide a
forum for legislators and decisionmakers in national governments and
leaders at all levels in formulating
gender-responsive legislation and
programmes related to gender in
climate change and disaster risk
reduction.
The discussions will be organised
around identifying the challenges,
defining the appropriate responses and
defining and elaborating actions to
cope with climate change and its
impacts and preparedness and disaster
risk reduction. Special attention will be
given to defining how women and
gender could be mainstreamed. The
Congress should define how women
can be given the social space to
participate, influence, and benefit from
global and local responses to climate
● October 2008, Institute of Development
Studies, UK
The study of science and society is
among the liveliest fields in higher
education and one of the fastest
growing research areas worldwide.
The MA in Science, Society and
Development focuses on the most
vital health, environment and
agricultural concerns of today. But it
also asks: how can science and
technology best contribute to poverty
reduction, social justice and
environmental sustainability in the
developing world? The MA focuses on
practical and policy questions and
combines a solid grounding in
development theories with an
understanding of the politics and
governance of scientific knowledge
and policy. Based in the Knowledge,
Technology and Society Team (KNOTS)
at IDS, the course is linked to major
new global research hub, the Social,
Technological and Environmental
Pathways to Sustainability Centre
(STEPS). Two full scholarships are
available in 2008 for African Students.
■ For more information visit:
www.ids.ac.uk/ids/teach/mascience.html or
contact: Julia Brown, MA Programme
Administrator, Tel: +44 1273 678869; +44
1273 915643; Email: teaching@ids.ac.uk
Advanced Training of Trainers:
Visualisation in Participatory
Programmes (VIPP)
10–14th November 2008
St. Ulrich, Black Forest, Germany
This Training of Trainers is a specialised
workshop for experienced trainers in
the development sector from Asia,
Africa, the Americas, Australia and
Europe, who beyond the basics of VIPP
want to improve their trainer skills
developing and designing their own
training project.
This VIPP Training of Trainers
emphasises:
• Advanced facilitation and
presentation skills, which will enhance
group qualities, synergy and output,
including attitudes, behaviours and
values of the facilitator.
• Repertoire of VIPP methods and tools
used in training. Reflection about the
intercultural dimensions of group
events.
• Visualisation skills using various
media, including cards and charts,
drawings and diagrammatic
representations.
• The logic and processes involved in
training events.
This training combines short
visualised inputs, individual tasks,
group work, team cooperation,
learning by doing and constructive
feedback. Key concepts, quality
standards and training formats are
generated by all participants, a
cooperative working style is
encouraged and good group dynamics
are essential parts of learning and
practicing.
■ For more information visit:
www.southbound.com.my/vipp/index.html
and http://vipp.wordpress.com/about
Registration fee 850 Euro or equivalent in
US$ for training fee, lodging (5 nights), full
board, VIPP Manual, CD with base material.
Send registration to: Timmi Tillmann,
Gomaringerstr. 6, D-72810 Gomaringen, SWGermany. Tel: +49 7072 505656
Email: Tillmann2003@gmx.net
Deadline for registration is 20 September
2008.
IN TOUCH
Events and
training
141
IN TOUCH
Events & Training
Events and training listed on
www.comminit.com
The following are a selection of
forthcoming events. For more
information on the full range of
events and training, visit
www.comminit.com
Peacebuilding: Strengthening policy
and practice
● 17th–21st November 2008, Birmingham,
UK
This five-day course is run by
Responding to Conflict (RTC). The
course is designed to assist
participants to identify constructive
ways of engaging with the
unpredictable and rapidly changing
circumstances within which many
relief and development agencies
work. It focuses on the relationship
between policy and practice in
complex situations.
The course will enable participants
to develop constructive ways to
develop policies for appropriate
responses in complex political
situations. It will draw on the
experience of participants and tutors
to examine the key issues that are
emerging from the field.
This course is for staff of
international and national agencies
and those with advisory and
management responsibility for relief,
development, rights and
peacebuilding programmes. It is
particularly relevant for those
engaged in the planning and
implementation of aid and
development programmes and those
concerned with developing policies
for appropriate responses in complex,
political emergencies.
■ For more information visit:
www.respond.org/PSPP.htm or contact:
1046 Bristol Road Birmingham, B29 6LJ. Tel:
142
+44 121 415 5641; Fax +44 121 415
4119; Email: enquiries@respond.org. Course
fee: £970.
Management information systems
for monitoring and evaluation (M&E)
● 1st–2nd Sept 2008, Norwich, UK
This module is offered by the
Overseas Development Group. It
provides professional managers with
the opportunity to develop an
Information Technology (IT) Based
Management Information System
(MIS) in a two-week period.
In week one, the underlying
structure for each participant’s MIS is
designed. Week two takes the design
further and using available software
packages (database, spreadsheet and
World Wide Web software), develops
the MIS software. Participants will
take home a workable system, which
can be field tested with live data.
Participants should possess basic
competency in commonly available
software packages.
Course fee: £2,800 per person
(including accommodation).
■ For more information visit:
www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/home/schools/ssf/dev/o
dg/prodev/MIS or contact: Overseas
Development Group (ODG), University of
East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United
Kingdom. Tel: +44 1603 592340; Fax: +44
1603 591170; Email: odg.train@uea.ac.uk
Rural women the world over play
a major role in ensuring food security
and in the development and stability
of the rural areas. Yet, with little or no
status, they frequently lack the power
to secure land rights or to access vital
services such as credit, inputs,
extension, training and education.
Their vital contribution to society goes
largely unnoticed. World Rural
Women’s Day intends to change this
by bringing rural women out of
obscurity at least once a year – to
remind society how much they owe
to rural women and to give value and
credit to their work.
Activities can be organised
independently in different ways
according to specific local priorities
and traditions. It is important,
however, that any activities or events
be concrete and visible to raise the
profile of rural women in the public
eye. It is up to individual
organisations, groups, or committees
to make this day meaningful
according to their own circumstances.
■ For more information visit:
www.woman.ch/women/2-introduction.php
or contact: Women’s World Summit
Foundation (WWSF), 11 Avenue de la Paix,
CH-1202 Geneva, PO Box 143, Geneva,
Switzerland. Tel: +41 0 22 738 66 19; Fax:
+41 0 22 738 82 48; Email:
wdpca@wwsf.ch or wwsf@wwsf.ch
Community based rehabilitation
World Rural Women’s Day
● 15th October 2008, globally
● 15th September–10th October 2008,
Netherlands
Since 1997, the Women’s World
Summit Foundation (WWSF) has
organised an annual worldwide
empowerment and educational
campaign, World Rural Women’s Day.
Celebrations and events take place in
more than 100 countries around the
world.
In September 2008, Enablement will
offer a four-week international course
in management of disability and
rehabilitation in the Netherlands.
Increasingly, rehabilitation and
prevention of disability takes place in
the community with the active
involvement and participation of the
Events & Training
Public Participation and Corporate
Social Responsibility: from
why to how
● 2008 International Conference, University
of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
27th–29th August 2008
This is the major annual event for the
International Association for Public
Participation and the first time the
international conference has been
held beyond the shores of North
America.
The conference is a unique
opportunity that provides a forum for
communities, industry, governments,
NGOs, academic institutions, and key
thinkers from around the world.
Keynote speakers include:
• Alan Young: Scottish and Southern
Energy: CSR as a permeated
business concept
• Professor Doreen McBarnett: Oxford
University: International law,
participation and CSR
• Martin Neureiter: ISO 26000: Public
participation as a international
standard
• Richard Douthwaite: Oil peak and
risk to community well-being
Public participation and CSR is a
new arena: a new politics of
responsibility in business towards
communities and to citizens. The
response from participants wanting to
present has been astonishing with
over 70 abstracts accepted to present.
These include:
• Guiding principles in community
engagement
• The relationship of local people to
government in seventeen countries
• Good neighbour agreements in
water management
• Light rail development in Phoenix
• Stakeholders driving business
decisions
• CSR and sustainable development
• Citizens inside public health policy
• The Australian citizens parliament
• A framework for the evaluation of
the UN Brisbane Declaration
• Concept of Zakat: Islamic charity as
a tool for CSR
Registration is now open – visit
www.cadispa.org then select
‘conference’ and ‘registration’.
■ For more information contact: Diane Coyle
at diane.coyle@strath.ac.uk or Tel: +44 141
950 3062.
IN TOUCH
community. Appropriate technology
is advocated, self-help groups are
formed, microfinance business
training is started etc. Everything is
geared towards the empowerment of
people with disability and the
communities in which they live. This
course is offered to rehabilitation
professionals and disability and
development workers and activists.
Please apply well in advance.
■ For more information visit:
www.enablement.nl or contact Enablement,
Langenhorst 36, 2402 PX Alphen aan de
Rijn, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 172 436953;
Fax: +31 172 244976; Email:
h.cornielje@enablement.nl
143
IN TOUCH
e-participation
www.managing4impact.com
The Electronic Resource Information &
Learning Center (ERIL) website is
hosted by the Regional Programme on
Strengthening Management for Impact
(SMIP) in eastern and southern Africa.
ERIL aims to facilitate and promote
a culture amongst stakeholders of propoor initiatives of sharing and utilising
information and knowledge in order to
better manage towards impact.
The Regional Programme on
Strengthening Managing for Impact
(SMIP) aims to strengthen the capacity
of stakeholders and actors involved in
pro-poor interventions to effectively
manage for impact.
The website includes links to
forthcoming training events, related
online resources, and information on
how to subscribe to the Managing for
Impact email newsletter. A number of
resources on ERIL are accessible only to
registered users.
Economic and Social Research Council.
It aims to develop a new approach to
understanding, action and
communication on sustainability and
development. STEPS is based at the
Institute of Development Studies and
SPRU Science and Technology Policy
Research in the UK, with partners in
China, India, Kenya and Argentina. The
website includes news features and
information on ongoing research and
projects at the STEPS Centre. These are
categorised by STEPS Domains –
agriculture, water, and health – and
Themes – dynamics, governance, and
designs. There are working papers,
policy briefs and links to other relevant
publications, as well as The Crossing,
the STEPS Centre blog. In addition, you
can sign up to STEPS Direct, and receive
media, research and policy briefings,
news and notification when new CDs
containing STEPS news and
information are available, providing
accessible information for those with
poor Internet connections.
www.rcpla.org
http://opentraining.unesco-ci.org
Resource Centres for Participatory
Learning and Action
The Open Training Platform
Strengthening Management for
Impact
RCPLA is a global network established
in 1997. Its aim is to bring together a
diverse, international network of
development practitioners to strengthen
impact on processes of social change.
The RCPLA website was relaunched in
2008, and includes recent case studies
about participatory development
processes in practice from network
members. It also includes a new eforum, as well as some free-todownload online publications.
www.steps-centre.org
The STEPS Centre
The STEPS Centre is a new
interdisciplinary global research and
policy engagement hub, funded by the
144
The Open Training Platform (OTP) is a
UNESCO initiative to facilitate access
to training materials and resources
developed by development
stakeholders at a global level. The
objective is to make training and
capacity building resources openly
available to local communities and
development stakeholders at
grassroots level in order to foster local
development. It includes over 2700
training resources in more than 280
categories, such as adult literacy,
gender issues, media and
communication, environment, legal
issues, and development aid.
This website is aimed at trainers,
educators (teachers, students, and
researchers), decision makers and
policy makers, entrepreneurs, farmers,
scientists, media people, librarians,
archivists and information specialists,
cultural actors, health specialists,
environmental specialists, development
and social workers, and civil servants.
Training resources have been
contributed by a wide network
including UN agencies and partners,
development practitioners,
development agencies, NGOs and
CBOs, and others.
To contribute, users need to
register before submitting material.
You can also register for an alert
system for new material and provide
critical comments and ideas for the
improvement of the platform. There
are also plans for an interest-based
forum. Users can also request training
resources on CD-ROM, which are
distributed locally.
www.project.empowers.info
EMPOWERS: Euro-Med Participatory
Water Resources Scenarios
EMPOWERS is a regional partnership
of fifteen organisations allied together
to improve long-term access to water
by local communities. It aims to do so
by advocating stakeholder-led activities
to empower local people in integrated
water resources management and
development. The EMPOWERS project
(2003–2007) was mainly funded
through the European Union’s
Regional MEDA Water Programme for
Local Water Management and was
implemented in Egypt, Jordan, and
Palestine. The website includes a host
of online resources, including
guidelines to water governance; a
guide to process documentation;
storybook case studies; principles and
recommendations; a training manual;
working and conference papers;
progress reports; and information
about participatory approaches.
RCPLA Network
News from the RCPLA Network
Coordinator
Deepening Participation for Social
Change was selected as the RCPLA
theme for 2008–2009. The most
recent RCPLA workshop was held in
Cairo from 4th–6th March 2008. It
reaffirmed the network’s focus on
helping organisations adopt
participatory approaches, and
improving and deepening
understanding and implementation of
participation. This workshop was also
an opportunity for network members
to gather together from around the
globe. We gave particular attention to
building group cohesion and
‘bridging the gap’ between old and
new members, allowing old and new
to interconnect, share information
and lessons learnt, and benefit from
each others’ experiences and
Tel/Fax: +94 1 587361; Email: ipidc@panlanka.net
West Africa Region: Awa Faly Ba Mbow, IED-Afrique, BP
5579 Dakar Fann, Senegal. Tel: +221 33 867 10 58;
Fax: +221 33 867 10 59; Email: awafba@iedafrique.org
Website: www.iedafrique.org
European Region: Jane Stevens, Participation, Power and
Social Change Group, Institute of Development Studies
(IDS), University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RE, UK.
Tel: + 44 1273 678690; Fax: + 44 1273 21202;
Email: participation@ids.ac.uk; Website:
www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip
Participatory Learning and Action Editorial Team,
International Institute for Environment and Development
(IIED), 3 Endsleigh Street, London WC1H 0DD, UK. Tel: +44
207 388 2117; Fax: +44 207 388 2826; Email:
planotes@iied.org; Website: www.planotes.org
Latin America Region: Jordi Surkin Beneria,
Grupo Nacional de Trabajo para la Participacion. Tel : +591
3 3519845; Email: jsurkin@gntp.org; skype: jsurkin
Eastern Africa Region: Eliud Wakwabubi, Participatory
Methodologies Forum of Kenya (PAMFORK), Jabavu Road,
PCEA Jitegemea Flats, Flat No. D3, PO Box 2645, KNH Post
Office, Nairobi, Kenya. Tel/Fax: +254 2 716609; Email:
pamfork@nbnet.co.ke
capabilities. The momentum created
on the first day helped members to
discuss the future of the network and
work closely to develop a focused
network plan for the coming years.
For more details about the Cairo
workshop, and to learn more about
RCPLA news and activities, please visit
the newly redesigned website at
www.rcpla.org. To join the RCPLA
network please contact Ms Passinte
Isaak, email: pisaak@nefdev.org
News from the Asian Regional
Coordinator
Praxis – the Institute for Participatory
Practices – is currently organising
TheWorkshop’08, an annual
commune on participatory
development. Based in New Delhi,
with branches in Chennai, Patna and
London, Praxis works to promote
RCPLA NETWORK
In this section, we update readers on activities of the
Resource Centres for Participatory Learning and Action
Network (RCPLA) Network (www.rcpla.org) and its
members. RCPLA is a diverse, international network of
national-level organisations, which brings together
development practitioners from around the globe. It was
formally established in 1997 to promote the use of
participatory approaches to development. The network is
dedicated to capturing and disseminating development
perspectives from the South. For more information please
contact the RCPLA Network Steering Group:
RCPLA Coordination and North Africa & Middle East Region:
Ali Mokhtar, Near East Foundation – Middle East Region,
Center for Development Services (CDS), 4 Ahmed Pasha
Street, 10th Floor, Garden City, Cairo, Egypt. Tel: +20 2 795
7558; Fax: +20 2 794 7278; Email: cds.prog@neareast.org;
amokhtar@nefdev.org; Website:
www.neareast.org/main/cds/default.aspx
Asia Region: Tom Thomas, Director, Institute for
Participatory Practices (Praxis), S-75 South Extension, Part II,
New Delhi, India 110 049. Tel/Fax: +91 11 5164 2348 to 51;
Email: tomt@praxisindia.org; www.praxisindia.org
Jayatissa Samaranayake, Institute for Participatory
Interaction in Development (IPID), 591 Havelock Road,
Colombo 06, Sri Lanka. Tel: +94 1 555521;
participatory practices in all spheres of
human development. Praxis carries
out consultancies, and also engages
in several self-funded initiatives to
further the cause of participatory
development. TheWorkshop is one
such initiative.
Now in its twelfth year, this event
provides development workers, policy
makers and proactive individuals with
a forum for reflection as well as
learning. Participants can learn about
the latest tools, techniques and trends
in participatory development from
experienced workers in the field.
Over the years, this event has
drawn an enthusiastic response from
the sector. More than 1100
participants from 33 different
countries and organisations have
attended to date. Among these are
participants from the Asian
145
RCPLA Network
Photo: Praxis
RCPLA NETWORK
Dr Robert Chambers
facilitating a session
at TheWorkshop’07.
Development Bank (ADB), World
Bank, UNDP, UNOPS, ActionAid, Care,
CARITAS, NIPRANET, British Red
Cross, Danish Red Cross, JICA, Oxfam
and Brooke Hospital, as well as other
bilateral and multilateral
organisations, national and
international NGOs and various
government departments.
This year, TheWorkshop’08 will be
held from 19th–28th August 2008, in
Thrissur (Kerala), India. Registration
has now closed for 2008, but please
look out for this event next year! For
more information, visit
www.theworkshop.in
News from the eastern Africa
Regional Coordinator
How can practitioners stand up and
be counted in the development of the
National Social Protection Strategies?
Lessons from Kenya
Following up on its recent hunger
survey, during 2007–2008
Participatory Methodologies Forum of
Kenya (PAMFORK) has collaborated
with Bread for the World (BftW) to do
146
a survey on basic social security as part
of social protection in Kenya. The
survey covered the work of BftW
partners and other independent
actors. It was part of a wider
international study in Bangladesh,
Brazil, India, Kenya, Namibia, South
Africa and Zambia.
The findings helped to shed more
light on social security systems and
provided a solid contribution in terms
of policy recommendations based on
the knowledge gathered from the
study. The study findings are expected
to direct attention to how
communities can sustain social
security systems and complement the
work of BftW partners by analysing
what inhibits people’s access to social
security and how to design
appropriate corrective measures. The
findings will be useful to all the BftW
partners and national agencies
responsible for social protection
systems or implementing basic security
systems. This will allow them to better
understand social protection systems
that can work for the vulnerable and
extremely poor sections of society.
Following the study, PAMFORK is
hoping to play a lead role in
developing the Kenya National Social
Protection Strategy for the country.
The exercise is spearheaded by the
Ministry of Gender, Sports, Culture
and Social Services with support from
UNICEF and UNDP.
Poverty and vulnerability are the
greatest challenges facing Kenya with
46% of the population living below
the national poverty line while 19%
live in hardcore poverty unable to
meet their basic food requirements.
Many are vulnerable to poverty
because of a wide range of factors,
including natural disasters such as
floods and drought, environmental
degradation, the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
a lack of income following retirement
and a breakdown of traditional
safety-net mechanisms.
The current worldwide economic
recession has resulted in rising prices
of basic commodities, especially food
– which has further driven more
people into extreme poverty and
vulnerability. Extreme poverty and
vulnerability in Kenya has been
exacerbated by the post-election
violence in which more than 350,000
people have been displaced from
their homes and about 1200 killed.
The majority of those internally
displaced people depend on relief and
emergency support from the
government and others. But this is
not sustainable. They require social
protection in the short-term to
protect their basic livelihoods. Greater
social protection strategies are
needed.
Social protection activities in
Kenya are multi-sectoral and involve
several government ministries and
departments, and other stakeholders
such as development partners, NGOs,
CSOs and organisations involved in
RCPLA Network
News from the Institute of
Development Studies (IDS)
The Participation, Power and Social
Change Group at IDS is pleased to
announce the launch of the
Champions of Participation Resource
Pack. The Champions of Participation
events took place in June 2007 and
January 2008 in the UK. Local
government officers, elected officials
and citizen representatives from 14
different countries came together to
share their experiences of citizen
participation in local governance. A
new resource pack drawn from this
international learning experience is
now available. The pack includes a
report, policy brief and a series of
case studies. In particular it addresses
experiences, challenges and lessons
from different participation
practitioners in the UK and
internationally. To receive a pack email
ppsc@ids.ac.uk
We are still welcoming
applications for the MA in
Participation, Power and Social
Change. The course will start in
October this year and is designed for
working practitioners who wish to
study and practice ways of increasing
the participation, influence and voice
of people in development processes.
If you would like further information
please contact teaching@ids.ac.uk
Finally, our Participation Resource
Centre holds a collection of practical
and analytical materials relating to
participatory approaches to
development, citizenship, rights,
governance and the environment.
Details of the collection are available
through our website
www.pnet.ids.ac.uk/prc and we run a
limited information and document
delivery service, which is free to those
in the South – please email:
ppsc@ids.ac.uk.
News from IIED
systems, the biodiversity they depend
on and the livelihoods they support.
The project identified ways of
sustaining local crop and livestock
diversity to increase people’s
livelihoods options and their ability to
adapt to climate change. The project
sparked a revival of local food culture
that is helping to preserve agricultural
biodiversity and traditional farming
practices in several hundred villages in
Medak district, Andhra Pradesh.
The women involved in the project
decided that they wanted to use
video to document the research and
share its findings. The Deccan
Development Society had previously
trained villagers to use video and had
proven that non-literacy was no
barrier. The project shows that local
food systems, crop and livestock
diversity, and livelihoods can be
sustained in the face of modern
pressures. As such, it offers both
policy and practical guidance for the
programme of work on agricultural
biodiversity that the Conference of
Parties of the Convention on
Biological Diversity approved in 1996.
For more information, and to
order a copy of the book Affirming
Life and Diversity and 12 films on 4
DVDs, see our In Touch section.
Affirming Life and Diversity: how
Indian farmers became filmmakers
What next for IIED? Video messages
to IIED from our partners in Peru
Non-literate Indian farmers have
turned into filmmakers, to take part
in a research project. The project’s
innovative ethical approach is
described in a new book and series of
films, which were launched at the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity
conference in Bonn in May 2008.
IIED, Deccan Development Society
and a team of village-based women's
groups (sanghams) teamed up to
study ways to sustain local food
IIED has been undergoing a critical
process to develop its new
institutional strategy. IIED and the
Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity
and Livelihoods (SABL) programme
believes that it is very important to
find ways of including the analysis
and views of local partners with
whom we work. We recognise that
our choices should fully take into
account their perspectives, their
contribution to our success, and the
RCPLA NETWORK
providing social protection at different
levels. But a lack of coordination is a
major impediment to effective
delivery. A social protection strategy is
required to coordinate the roles and
contributions of different
stakeholders. A social protection
policy will also raise awareness
amongst important government
decision makers and development
partners.
Ghana and Pakistan already have
national social protection strategies,
and several African countries are in
the process of developing them,
including Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda
and Zambia. This is emerging as best
practice in addressing poverty and
vulnerability in developing countries.
Practitioners in other countries need
to play a proactive role to ensure
informed and meaningful community
participation in creating and
implementing social protection
strategies.
We believe that ‘a stitch in time
saves nine’. PAMFORK is calling on all
practitioners wherever they are to
stand up and be counted – for the
time is now!
147
RCPLA NETWORK
RCPLA Network
148
impact of whatever we decide on
their work.
During the month of April 2008,
IIED collaborated with ANDES
(Association for Nature and
Sustainable Development) an
indigenous NGO based in Cusco,
Peru. We asked indigenous
communities in the Peruvian Andes
to help frame IIED’s next Institutional
Strategy on policy research and
advocacy work.
We invited some of our partners
to give their views on what IIED
should be doing next as part of its
new institutional strategy. Following
extensive discussions, SABL and its
partners decided to use participatory
video methods to elicit views,
analysis and recommendations from
a range of non-literate and literate
people with whom we work in Peru,
India and Iran.
The goal of this consultation is to
listen to communities’ views and
priorities – and understand how IIED
can better work together with its
partners and the communities they
represent, to achieve common
objectives. These consultations are
crucial in integrating perspectives
from our partners on emerging
priorities and bodies of work:
• how they see us and to get their
perceptions of what added value
IIED brings to the work on
sustainable environment and
development; and
• how they think an organisation like
IIED can make a difference.
We now have a series of video
messages sent by indigenous
communities and other partners
based in Peru. An outline of the
methodology used for this
participatory video process is also
on the website as well as a
description of the questions used.
More videos will be added soon,
including the ex-Minister of the
Environment and indigenous
parliamentarians. Other videos will
show national and international
perspectives/analysis to
complement the local community
perspectives which you can now
access on this website.
You can watch the videos
online at www.iiedwhatnext.org
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Towards empowered participation: stories and reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Immersions: learning about poverty face-to-face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Practical tools for community conservation in southern Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Mapping for change: practice, technologies and communications . . . . . . . . . .■
Tools for influencing power and policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Civil society and poverty reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Critical reflections, future directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Decentralisation and community-based planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Learning and teaching participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
General issue (Mini-theme: parti-numbers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Participatory processes for policy change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Community-based animal health care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Local government and participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Advocacy and citizen participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Children’s participation – evaluating effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Deliberative democracy and citizen empowerment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Popular communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Participatory processes in the North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Sexual and reproductive health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Community water management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Learning from analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Understanding market opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Participation, literacy and empowerment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Participatory monitoring and evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Participation and fishing communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Performance and participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Methodological complementarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Participation, policy and institutionalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Children’s participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
Critical reflections from practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .■
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NOTES
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participatory learningandaction
Guidelines for contributors
For a full set of guidelines, visit our
website www.planotes.org or contact us
at the address below.
Types of material accepted
• Articles: max. 2500 words plus
illustrations – see below for guidelines.
• Feedback: letters to the editor, or
longer pieces (max. 1500 words) which
respond in more detail to articles.
• Tips for trainers: training exercises, tips
on running workshops, reflections on
behaviour and attitudes in training,
etc., max. 1000 words.
• In Touch: short pieces on forthcoming
workshops and events, publications,
and online resources.
We welcome accounts of recent
experiences in the field (or in workshops)
and current thinking around
participation, and particularly encourage
contributions from practitioners in the
South. Articles should be co-authored by
all those engaged in the research,
project, or programme.
In an era in which participatory
approaches have often been viewed as a
panacea to development problems or
where acquiring funds for projects has
depended on the use of such
methodologies, it is vital to pay
attention to the quality of the methods
and process of participation. Whilst we
will continue to publish experiences of
innovation in the field, we would like to
emphasise the need to analyse the
limitations as well as the successes of
participation. Participatory Learning and
Action is still a series whose focus is
methodological, but it is important to
give more importance to issues of power
in the process and to the impact of
participation, asking ourselves who sets
the agenda for participatory practice. It
is only with critical analysis that we can
further develop our thinking around
participatory learning and action.
We particularly favour articles which
contain one or more of the following
elements:
• an innovative angle to the concepts of
participatory approaches or their
application;
• critical reflections on the lessons learnt
from the author’s experiences;
• an attempt to develop new methods,
or innovative adaptations of existing
ones;
• consideration of the processes
involved in participatory approaches;
• an assessment of the impacts of a
participatory process;
• potentials and limitations of scaling up
and institutionalising participatory
approaches; and,
• potentials and limitations of
participatory policy-making processes.
Language and style
Please try to keep contributions clear and
accessible. Sentences should be short and
simple. Avoid jargon, theoretical
terminology, and overly academic
language. Explain any specialist terms
that you do use and spell out acronyms in
full.
Abstracts
Please include a brief abstract with your
article (circa. 150-200 words).
References
If references are mentioned, please
include details. Participatory Learning
and Action is intended to be informal,
rather than academic, so references
should be kept to a minimum.
Photographs and drawings
These should have captions and the
name(s) of the author(s)/photographer
clearly written on the back. If you are
sending electronic files, please make sure
that the photos/drawings are scanned at a
high enough resolution for print (300 dpi)
and include a short caption and credit(s).
Format
We accept handwritten articles but
please write legibly. Typed articles should
be double-spaced. Please keep
formatting as simple as possible. Avoid
embedded codes (e.g. footnotes/
endnotes, page justification, page
numbering).
Submitting your contribution
Contributions can be sent on paper or by
email to: The Editors, Participatory
Learning and Action , IIED, 3 Endsleigh
Street, London WC1 0DD, UK.
Fax: +44 20 7388 2826
Email: pla.notes@iied.org
Website: www.planotes.org
Resource Centres for Participatory Learning
and Action (RCPLA) Network
Since June 2002, the IIED Resource Centre
for Participatory Learning and Action has
now housed by the Institute of
Development Studies, UK. Practical
information and support on participation
in development is also available from the
various members of the RCPLA Network.
This initiative is a global network of
resource centres for participatory
learning and action, which brings
together 15 organisations from Africa,
Asia, South America, and Europe. The
RCPLA Network is committed to
information sharing and networking on
participatory approaches.
Each member is itself at the centre of
a regional or national network. Members
share information about activities in their
respective countries, such as training
programmes, workshops and key events,
as well as providing PLA information
focused on the particular fields in which
they operate.
More information, including regular
updates on RCPLA activities, can be found
in the In Touch section of Participatory
Learning and Action, or by visiting
www.rcpla.org, or contacting the network
coordinator: Ali Mokhtar, CDS, Near East
Foundation, 4 Ahmed Pasha Street, 10th
Floor, Garden City, Cairo, Egypt. Tel: +20 2
795 7558; Fax: +2 2 794 7278; Email:
amokhtar@nefdev.org
Participation at IDS
Participatory approaches and
methodologies are also a focus for the
Participation, Power and Social Change
Group at the Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex, UK. This
group of researchers and practitioners is
involved in sharing knowledge, in
strengthening capacity to support quality
participatory approaches, and in
deepening understanding of
participatory methods, principles, and
ethics. It focuses on South-South sharing,
exchange visits, information exchange,
action research projects, writing, and
training. Services include a Participation
Resource Centre (open weekdays) with
an online database detailing materials
held. The Group also produces a
newsletter and operates an email
distribution list.
For further information please
contact: Jane Stevens, IDS, University of
Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RE, UK.
Tel: +44 1273 678690
Fax: +44 1273 621202
Email: J.Stevens@ids.ac.uk
Website: www.ids.ac.uk
Participatory Learning and Action is the world’s leading informal
journal on participatory approaches and methods. It draws on the
expertise of guest editors to provide up-to-the minute accounts of
the development and use of participatory methods in specific fields.
Since its first issue in 1987, Participatory Learning and Action has
provided a forum for those engaged in participatory work –
community workers, activists, and researchers – to share their
experiences, conceptual reflections and methodological innovations
with others, providing a genuine ‘voice from the field’. It is a vital
resource for those working to enhance the participation of ordinary
people in local, regional, national, and international decisionmaking, in both South and North.
ISBN: 978-1-84369-707-7
ISSN: 1357-938X
Order no: 14562IIED
International Institute
for Environment
and Development
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H 0DD, UK
Tel: +44 20 7388 2117
Fax: +44 20 7388 2826
Email: pla.notes@iied.org
Participatory Learning and Action website: www.planotes.org
IIED website: www.iied.org
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