Collaborative Design, Citizens’ Assemblies and Earth Democracies
Facilitating community participation towards earth-centredness
As democracies worldwide are challenged by the threat of neoliberal autocracy and there is an increasingly urgent need to transition our societies to regenerative modes of being, numerous approaches offer themselves up as ways to meaningfully engage and empower communities to lead place-based change (Pettifor 2017). Earth Democracy is a term that is used to describe both the process of change-making as well as the ever-evolving destination of a regenerative future. The term attempts to broadly capture the need for (re)establishing societies in which citizens and communities are engaged in processes of creative self-determination — engaged democracies that are geared towards developing regenerative livelihoods and systems that are deeply interconnected with Earth (Shiva 2010).
A very similar call to action is expressed through the concept of Ecological Democracy which has its own adherents, both academics and practitioners. I personally prefer the term Earth Democracy however, as I believe it better conveys a sense that our planet is a living entity. On the other hand, Ecological Democracy errs slightly towards framing Earth merely as sets of ecologies and ecosystem services to be objectified and quantified by humans. In saying this, although both conceptualisations are evocative articulations that coalesce otherwise distributed and disparate actions, they are not comprised of specific methods in and of themselves. They don’t prescribe given sets of practices and approaches that work towards their intents as described above. The question then is, what place-based community engagement approaches could help develop a local Earth Democracy?
In the following discussion I will explore collaborative design and citizens’ assemblies as two evolving sets of distinct yet complementary approaches to community engagement. Both of these modes of facilitating participatory forums aim for the development of change strategies and pathways by synthesising and navigating diverse points of view. The two approaches are increasingly being used in response to the inaction of centralised power structures to address various wicked problems. This is evidenced by the countless collaborative design workshops held by Transition Towns communities as well as the establishment of numerous citizens’ assemblies as championed by the demands of Extinction Rebellion. A better understanding of how the two approaches are both similar and different can help to highlight their complementary value. Some aspects to explore include the historical evolution of each approach, their intents, processes and focus as well as the role of participants (Moore 2019).
Historical evolution
The tradition of deliberative engagement from which citizens’ assemblies have emerged places an emphasis on the rights of diverse individuals to have their voices heard. Although earlier forms of deliberative engagement were motivated by educated political elites looking to protect their interests from the ‘will of the masses’, citizens’ assemblies have evolved into instead prioritising the broader common good of societies. Citizens’ assemblies aim for a truer representation of communities often by using sortition to better demographically represent communities in assembly processes — something quite essential considering the skewed representation seen in many federal political arenas as well as their corruption by corporate financial interference.
In contrast to this historical motivation for upholding individual rights in deliberative engagements, collaborative design has evolved quite differently from collectivist ideals. Varied manifestations including participatory design, human-centred design and service design have all sought to empower workers, end-users and disaffected communities in the face of top-down, expert-led design for social, technological and infrastructural interventions. These multi-disciplinary approaches have allowed for an increasing focus on meeting the needs of people through context-specific design interventions. “By involving workers in the design of workplace solutions, the roots of [collaborative design] are firmly embedded in a collectivist rather than an individualist orientation” (Moore 2019, 17). As a result of their evolution, both collaborative design and citizens’ assembly approaches are acutely aware of structural power relations and strive towards inclusion and equality.
Intent, process and focus
Collaborative design methods often involve extended explorations into a community’s problem context, the diverse needs of stakeholders and inherent tensions as part of “an ongoing project of socio-technical change” (Tonkinwise 2016). Rather than jumping straight to ‘solutioning’, spending more time understanding the nature of a wicked social problem can lead communities (and design facilitators) to reframe the problem — in a way that captures its context-specific complexities and better allows a holistic and networked response (Dorst 2015). Methods such as multi-stakeholder journey mapping, persona building, collective visioning and iterative prototyping help to manifest a creative, empathetic and emergent process. A particular focus on the socio-material world means that this approach lends itself well to the design and implementation of services and systems (Moore 2019).
Citizens’ assemblies by their very deliberative format are more critical in exploring the details of preferences that exist within a group of participants. Deeply embedded in assembly processes is an intent to enhance legitimacy and impartiality through reasoned discussion in order to be able to justify decisions made (Moore 2019). In response to certain questions or focus areas, a cross section of society participates together in rationally studying the options available, including through directly questioning experts. Citizens’ assemblies aim to reinvigorate trust in politics and governance systems at a time when prevailing modes of centralised representation are alienating and undemocratic (Renwick 2017). Non-coercive and reflective discussions held in citizens’ assemblies are adept in dealing with otherwise highly divisive or highly politicised issues such as same-sex marriage and decarbonisation. The clearly framed and in-depth decision-making processes of citizens’ assemblies have much potential to redirect policy, governance and politics (Patriquin 2019).
Role of participants
Both collaborative design and citizens’ assembly approaches are underpinned by an ideology of plurality and attempt not to aim for full consensus but rather the formation of plural agreements that accommodate a diverse range of sometimes conflicting needs and experiences (Moore 2019). Ongoing movements for decoloniality are aligned with this need to acknowledge and value difference over homogeneity — as revolutionary design theorist Tony Fry puts it “while the planet is singular, world is plural — for it is formed and seen in difference — as are we” (2015, 21). More nascent forms of collaborative design such as transition design and regenerative design even attempt to give voice to non-human and non-living actors in order to de-centre design interventions from an embedded anthropocentricism and into an earth-centredness. Compared to conventional multi-stakeholder needs analyses this process works to further expand the circle of empathy through which participants reframe their collective understanding and take account of otherwise externalised impacts.
While collaborative design embraces participants as subjective community members with particular context-specific needs and experiences, citizens’ assemblies frame them as citizens with the capacity to reason, deliberate and have their minds changed through discussion. In a setting where participants largely reflect the demographics of the society that they are from, time is allocated for diverse viewpoints and offerings of reasoned dissent (Patriquin 2019). Assemblies vary in duration, from a few hours to many days long, and participants have the opportunity to call for more information or demand clarification on various issues whenever needed. Participants are encouraged to critically deliberate on complex social issues, and it is often useful to include “an extensive learning phase prior to contemplation of collective decision” (Dryzek 2011, 37). Although voting ensures that all participants’ views on a matter are valuable, invited expert witnesses do play a key role in broadening and shaping the opinions and viewpoints considered.
The similarities and differences in the two approaches are depicted in Figure 1 below:
To challenge the inertia of prevailing structural power dynamics it does not suffice for these platforms to be facilitated through the guise of neutrality. Rather than seeing facilitators and participants as discrete entities capable of isolation, it is imperative to frame them as intersubjective beings who are a part of interconnected systems. Having a clear stance as a facilitator can help to support honest deliberation and further establish trust amongst participants whilst still guiding open, respectful and empathetic discussions.
Towards an Earth Democracy
There is no one-size-fits-all model for the types of Earth Democracies that could manifest themselves in any given place, but rather communities need to be given the platforms necessary to manifest their preferred futures through both creative exploration and critical deliberation. Both approaches described above have a huge deal of commonality and complementarity as they seek social impact through differing socio-material and political avenues. The practise of these approaches can play an important role in actively bringing Earth Democracies to life by harnessing the power of community voices to help transition our societies towards regenerative futures. A structural challenge that both collaborative design and citizens’ assembly approaches must rise up to is to continue to ask whose voices are not being heard, whether that means marginalised peoples or non-human entities. In other words, how do we ‘bring into being’ an Earth Democracy by developing deeply reciprocal relationships with the larger Earth community? (Escobar 2018).
References
Dorst, K. 2015, Frame innovation: Create new thinking by design, MIT press.
Dryzek, J.S., Bächtiger, A. & Milewicz, K. 2011, ‘Toward a deliberative global citizens’ assembly’, Global Policy, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 33–42.
Escobar, A. 2018, Designs for the Pluriverse, Duke University Press, Durham and London.
Fry, Tony. 2015. City Futures in the Age of a Changing Climate. London: Routledge.
Moore, N. 2019, ‘Engaging Citizens through Co-design and Deliberative Engagements’, <https://parliament.act.gov.au/>.
Patriquin, L. 2019, Permanent Citizens Assemblies: A New Model for Public Deliberation, Rowman & Littlefield International.
Pettifor, A. 2017, ‘The neoliberal road to autocracy’, <https://www.ips-journal.eu/opinion/the-neoliberal-road-to-autocracy-2046/>.
Renwick, A. 2017, ‘Citizens’ assemblies: a better way of doing democracy?’, Political Insight, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 24–7.
Shiva, V. 2010, ‘Earth Democracy: Beyond Dead Democracy and Killing Economies’, Capitalism Nature Socialism, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 83–95.
Tonkinwise, C. 2016, ‘Committing to the Political Values of Post-Thing-Centered Designing (Teaching Designers How to Design How to Live Collaboratively)’, Design and Culture, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 139–54.
