Papers 13: paper 6

In this short paper I will be providing some insights from the UNESCO Growing Up In Cities (GUIC) project, in particular lessons learnt from our fieldwork with children, youth and communities. I will focus particularly on the importance of providing a voice, and the value of listening, as the ways and means of creating authentic opportunities for participation. Most of my examples are from fieldwork with children and youth, a subgroup who historically have not been well represented in the discussions and debates about environment and community development and the impacts of a changing global context. Yet, these tools are just as useful when working with any group within a community. Particularly in contexts where opportunities for ALL members to speak and participate in local and global discussions about their real concerns and experiences, have not traditionally been valued. For further examples of particular fieldwork methods discussed in this paper you could refer to two recent publications from the UNESCO Growing Up In Cities project that have been published jointly with Earthscan: Creating better Cities with children and Youth: A manual for participation by David Driskell and Growing Up In an Urbanising World edited by Louise Chawla.

Children, youth and other community members experience participation in community settings as the capacity in which they can play a useful and authentic role in the decisions being made by that community. This implies that to understand participation we need to understand what a meaningful role for each individual might be and to create opportunities for participation. In our participatory work with young people, parents and communities in a variety of contexts, it was clear that being provided with the opportunity to have a say in local and global discussions was not a normal part of community life. This meant many participants didn’t have much experience and felt ill-equipped and unskilled for making a valuable contribution. So issues of personal competence were important to consider and address. The second thing we found was that people were very sceptical about the possible outcomes of a participatory project. This was in part due to their previous experience in consultation processes where they had seldom received any feedback on the outcome of their input. Often this sceptical view can be linked to the lack of opportunity to take ownership or have some control over the type or method of participation available to them. Our experience showed that they were two main issues that needed to be addressed to support participants:

A sense of personal competence, that is feeling confident to participate, is critical if you want to ensure that the project you are undertaking is truly representative of the community; see the following example. We realized that to ensure we represented the needs of all the young people in the neighbourhood, we needed to provide a variety of opportunities where they all felt able to participate. This meant considering the type of participation made available – realising that different individuals/groups will want or be able to participate in different ways. It also meant considering the participatory methods used and ensuring at any level or type of participation the methods always included an opportunity for the participants to know how their contribution had been used.

An issue of representation

When we first started our fieldwork on a youth and public places project in Melbourne we asked youth workers from the local council to identify young people who might like to participate. They sent us to the local youth centre where they said they would invite young people from all over the neighbourhood to attend. When we got there we found that all the young people at the centre were male and of Anglo-Saxon descendent. We had done our homework and knew that this neighbourhood had over 30% of young people from overseas and at least half of them were female. We then had to consider another way of connecting with the young people. So we went further afield and spoke to young people at the local schools, at the shops, and with those who attended local clubs and churches. After speaking with these young people we found that one of their greatest concerns was the level of violence and bullying that went on at the youth centre by the white boys. Because of the presence of the boys at the centre they said they would never go there. We found the young people’s ideas and concerns away from the centre were very different to those of the boys at the centre and we soon realized that if we had only listened to the centre boys then we would have misrepresented the needs of the young people.

The following is a list of the types of participation that could be evident in participatory work and their characteristics. The type of participation influences what a person might say and the value they put on their participation. When considering the type of participation you make available for individuals it is important to ask yourself what is your own role and what ‘power or control’ is being given to the individuals to have ownership over the project you are implementing.

Assigned participation: An individual is told to participate and has little opportunity to decide on how or what they will contribute or even if they want to participate. The participants are likely to feel anxious and unskilled as they feel their views or concerns may be scrutinised or used against them. They are unlikely to say how they really feel unless it is supports the status quo.

Prescribed participation: The individual feels a moral and cultural obligation to participate and considers the opportunity to participate a privilege. Even if couched in a way that it looks like they have free will: ‘you can participate if you want to’, the obligation to participate is such that this is only a facade. The participant might find it impossible to express his or her own opinions in fear of going against the ‘grain’. This form of prescribed participation is particularly evident when teachers or parents commit children to participate in projects where they have little choice because of the power relationships.

Invited participation: The individual is invited and provided with the opportunity to feel able to withdraw without being disadvantaged. The level and form of participation is still controlled by the project officer but the individual, unlike in the prescribed participation scenario, has a choice. The participants are more likely to say how they really feel in this situation.

Negotiated participation: The individual is assigned a participatory role through an invitation, but has the opportunity to negotiate the level and type of involvement and how long they would like to be involved. Providing a diversity of methods is important if you want to provide an opportunity for people to negotiate their participation - so they can pick and chose and feel they are able to contribute in ways where they feel they have strengths or something useful to offer. The role of the project worker is to provide skills to enhance the individual’s capacity to contribute.

Graduated participation: As the individual increases in competence, opportunities are provided so new and different types of participation are available to them. This means making a commitment to developing individual skills and the importance of working with a community over a period of time so they can take over responsibility and ownership of the project.

Collaborative participation: Collaborative participation is when a project is initiated and supported by a group, which collectively negotiates all elements of the project, including the level and form of involvement of individuals and the type and use of the information emerging from it.

Self-initiated participation: A self-initiated or existing project is the only time when self-initiated participation is truly evident. That is, a group has an existing project around an issue or concern to them and they control the information and contribution they make to the project. The participation is negotiated with the individuals controlling how their information is used. Self-initiated participation might start from the group contacting you and saying they have something to contribute or might be initiated by your contact to them.

To support participation, particularly of children and youth, the Growing Up In Cities team developed a number of participatory methods. What was successful about using these approaches was the opportunity it allowed for individuals to decide how and at what level or type of participation they wanted to engage in. This is in contrast to having only one style of participatory method available - interviews or a community meeting – which may not suit all individual needs. Also the range of possible contributions means you obtain much richer information. Some examples of the participatory methods we used included:

Peer surveys: this is when young people (or community members) are provided with the resources and skills to go out and interview their peers or other members of the community. The advantage of this is that they can access people and be in places you can’t.

Guided tours: this is when young people or the community members take you on a guided tour of the areas under discussion. You are positioned in the role of the journalist following on behind taking notes and pictures – in some instances we have taken videos of these tours and shared it with the community. Guided tours are particularly useful if you are developing community capacity building around specific environmental issues as it allows you to go and see the actual physical issues through the eyes of the participants. It also places the individual in the role of the expert.

Focus groups: this is when you provide a small group of individuals the opportunity to explore a particular theme or issue. This is important particularly for individuals who might feel unable to speak in large fora because of age, gender or other factors (such as they may have a different opinion to the majority).

Drawings: this is getting children, youth or adults to draw pictures of their area or of things you are concerned with, it is a useful tool for breaking the ice, having a reference point for engaging in a conversation or as a data gathering exercise (there is quite a lot of research done in this area about understanding individual concerns based on the prominence they place in their drawings). For young people this is a nice familiar exercise that allows them to contribute if they feel unable to provide written submissions – in many cultures drawing is a more natural way of expressing ideas. For example, the things you might ask people to draw could include: imagine your island in 20 years time, draw a picture of your community, the inside of your house, what do you imaging the island used to look like.

Self-taken photography: in this method you ask participants to use a camera (photographic or video) to document certain things around the topic or issue you are exploring. This allows you to again see things you wouldn’t normally have access to. It allows the participants to control what they want you to see (and not see) and gives you an idea about how people view they own lives. Often these photographs or video are then used as the basis for further conversations or discussions with other individuals or other members of the community.

Video or audio taped interviews: in this method we asked individuals to go out and interview people in their community. Again this method is about accessing people who would not attend a regular meeting or interviews. It also allows the participants to have ownership over the project. Depending on the skills and resources, the questions asked and the way the interviews are conducted can be left up to the individuals. This is a great way to produce copies of oral stories from older members of the community – the sensitive nature of this means having participants involved is important and valuable.

Gullivers mapping: this is a type of community participation model where a large map of the area is placed either on a large sheet of fabric or board and located in a public place and people are invited to write down their issues, concerns, ideas or experiences on the actual map locations. For example in one location the local council were trying to understand what the local people’s concerns over traffic were as a means of better planning. After a number of unsuccessful ‘local meetings’ they decided to try a Gullivers mapping exercise. The local shopping mall was seen as a place where lots of people hung around so a map was put in place in the centre of the shops and passers-by wrote on the map their traffic concerns and located where these were.

When planning for participation you can select from a number of these methods, use them as complementary methods, or invite participants to select from the variety of methods which ones they are most interested in using. The key is to make sure no one who wants to be a part of the project is not represented because the methods used or the type or style of participation cannot accommodate their skills or resources.

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