Building a sense of agency: community engagement in the age of consent

Last week Julian Dobson reported that the government “has been having a series of conversations about how to, in its words, 'mobilise neighbourhoods'”. I don’t know who these conversations are with but it sounds like they might have a bit of catching up to do. Julian reminds us that government seems to want a form of community action that gets people growing and picking apples for motherhood pie but doesn’t upset the cart.

I sense that a new phase of community engagement is emerging and I want to try and clarify what that might mean. First, four little insights from the past week or so.

• I heard how a Chinese restaurant had been inspected by the fire services, whose officers found several dangerous transgressions (not just out-of-date extinguishers) for which they could have been closed down. Rather than do that, the fire officers contacted the chair of the town’s Chinese Association, who intervened to help establish some quick fixes followed by managed upgrading, so that the business was able to keep going.
• I’ve been in conversations to facilitate a process of community engagement in an area of west London that is anticipating extensive regeneration. Our approach will be to help ensure that residents recognise that it is legitimate to have ideas and aspirations for their area; and that local agencies should provide a responsive environment in which such ideas can be tested and opportunities provided.
• I heard some trading standards officers talking about moving from a triggered prosecution approach, when a business transgresses (for example in under-age selling), to an advice and training model, encouraging traders to learn, appreciate and abide by the law. They call it ‘community protection’.
• I ran a workshop with young people who experience exclusion, who were part of a young inspectors’ scheme, whereby they gain confidence, acceptance and employability skills in return for helping local services (like libraries, surgeries, activity centres) through systematic evaluation. The young people’s role was welcomed by the receiving agencies and they could only tell me of one throw-away remark that might on a bad day have been construed as patronising.

Examples like this confirm to me that we are moving into an age in which governance is far more about permissions and consent – in both directions - than about top-down decree. This may be consistent with what has been called ‘permission-based policy-making.’ You can’t do that without genuine engagement. Most politicians haven’t spotted this, because politicians don’t tend to notice change that they haven’t brought about themselves. All four of the above examples were instigated by some of those hugely innovative, under-rated, committed people in modest-ranking roles in local public services.

This change in the relation between local people and service providers is profoundly related to the nature of the network society, which is characterised by the erosion of hierarchies and the emergence of powerful horizontal communication systems. That’s been going on for at least 20 years and is nothing whatever to do with political direction from the centre. The transformation draws on, and depends heavily on, people’s connectedness at local level.

So if government wants to understand the context of ‘mobilising neighbourhoods’ (I think that phrase probably means community action around local issues), it first needs to appreciate how neighbourly recognition and interaction underpin readiness to mobilise in time of need. That’s always been the case. The bit that I think is emerging now is about building a sense of agency at neighbourhood level, which you don’t do with flimsy rhetoric about ‘innovation’ and silly competitions and decimating the public sector.

What this is leading to is a space where people who have previously experienced only disempowerment, come to feel that they have consent to act.

 

 

 

Comments

[Lorna Prescott]

Hi Kevin
The new phase of community engagement which you feel is emerging offers hope, and I too feel that horizontal communication and connections are becoming more prominent and powerful. I do hope that they are eroding hierarchies, however it is interesting to watch and hear about people at the pinnacles of some of those hierarchies who I fear are a bit clueless about the change going on around them. I can't help wondering when they will notice the erosion of the foundations, as they continue to reinforce the walls to resist most efforts at horizontal communication from the inside-out or outside-in. Will the walls come tumbling down before they retire, I wonder? Or will they remain oblivious and not give the permissions and consent that you talk about? How do those innovative, under-rated and committed people breach the walls? Particularly after many of those who stood 'in and against the state' and made challenges have been made redundant. I hope that increasing connectedness at a local level will have impact, as you suggest, and I'm keen to find ways to facilitate such connectedness.

[Kevin Harris]

Lorna thanks for your comment. I meant to mention the possible similarity with what Tessy Britton has been describing as the new ‘Creative/Collaborative’ paradigm' http://thrivingtoo.typepad.com/thriving_too/2011/11/creative-collaboration-new-participatory-paradigm.html. Creativity is a great way of unlocking hierarchies although maybe not everyone takes to it. My response to your questions would be quite upbeat but with a couple of additional questions. The old hierarchies are surely doomed, but humans like hierarchies - we like to let others lead sometimes and to dominate at others. What new hierarchies will we establish and will they be flexible enough to result in less deprivation and inhumanity? I see the decline of the public realm as the major challenge of the next few years: politically, minimising the damage that this government seems so determined to cause and then working out how to rebuild arenas of commonality so that collective life can be practised. This is not trivial.