Civic engagement in communities

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Manpreet Juneja, Komal Faiz and Graciela Guadarrama Social systems synthesis map summary report M.Des Strategic foresight and Innovation (OCAD University) Social systems course assignment. Apr 2016

Our synthesis map takes its stakeholder through an understanding and awareness of the underlying problems of civic engagement within communities in order to increase it levels and quality. We start with describing our context and background information about community as a social system and outline three meta problems. We end by giving recommendations to stakeholders to help encourage and enhance civic engagement in communities. Further inquiry can be built on the metaproblems, implications and recommendations.

Key Terms

Stakeholders

For the inquiry on the metaproblems of civic We divide our stakeholders into the primary and engagement in communities it is important to secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholder are present our frame of reference for the key terms. the ones who hold decision making positions in a community and can cause effective change Civic Engagement due to it. These include community leaders, “Civic engagement describes how an active organizations, community Builders and decision citizen participates in the life of a community makers. Secondary stakeholder are the ones in order to improve conditions for others or to who act as support systems and contribute to help shape the community’s future.” the knowledge and resource pool. They are im(David Crowley, n.d.) plementers, ideators, scholars, academics, thinkers and active community members who presCommunity ent new ways and frames of seeing and creative A community is best defined as a group of ideas to the existing processes and problems. people with diverse perspectives, who accept and transcend their differences to work together towards common goals for identified common good. (Community builder’s common, n.d.)

Meta Problem Meta problems are phenomenons that underlies several problems and the understanding of which is essential to find the solution to those problems.

Our Focus: Community as a social system Our context of inquiry relates to the geographic community systems. Examples include education communities based in a geographic location, public safety community, professional communities, regional and national communities etc. To understand communities as a social system, we first need to understand the idea of a social contract between an individual and the community.

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“In a social system of Communities there exist a social “contract” according to which an Individual act to support a social world that, in turn, acts to support the individual, qua individual.” (as cited by Champine et al., 2014). This can be understood as a mutually-influential, symbiotic relationship.

In this symbiotic relationship there exist layers of elements and factors that influence both the individual and the community, which exist on both horizontal and vertical levels. The individual has an agency on the community and vice versa. This bidirectional agency results in various levels of engagement of an individual with the community and other individuals in it. Depending on the type and intention of participation, the levels range from ‘inform’ being the least form and ‘empower’ being the highest form of engagement. Other levels in between include ‘consult,’ ‘involve’ and ‘collaborate.’ As the diagram shows, in the case of ‘inform’ the flow of information is one dimensional i.e from the community to the individual. It is a form of top- down relationship, where the decision makers in a community decide the direction and give out information to the individuals.

In the maximum level, ‘empowerment’ is seen as a result of a multi-dimensional flow of information from community to individual, individual to the community, and among individual of the community. This can entail the concept of shared leadership and shared responsibility in a community. The

individuals are a part of the decision making process and receive and share information and knowledge. “Positive civic engagement always involves behaviors that are consistent with… a healthy civil society, or social justice, individuals may differ in the degree of active involvement in such engagement.” (Lerner et al., 2014) The barriers to civic engagement for individuals can be divided into personal and external barriers.

The personal constraints for individuals include: Overcommitment and burnout which result in lack of energy, time limitations, lack of association with the vision and values which in return causes lack of interest, lack of knowledge or information about the cause.

Some of the external barriers include: community disapproval, unsupportive culture within a community, religious/ ideological differences, lack of organizational support, lack of platforms for com3

munal activities, lack of networks, lack of transparency, and others.

In order to overcome these barriers and to achieve the ideal level of civic engagement communities all over the world rely on guiding principles and rules. Russell (2011) defines principles as “efforts meant to supplement the civic engagement process”. He suggests that these are actions undertaken and not strategies, which are a means to achieve strategies geared towards positive civic engagement. These guiding principles can be categorized as secondary and primary principles. Secondary principles implying the ones that support in achieving primary/core principles, and are influenced by them. “The core principles (trust, relationships, and active listening) are those upon which civic engagement directly depends.” (Russell, 2011) In the diagram below, trust, active listening and relationships are identified as core principles and diverse opinions, transparency, open communication, and understanding communities are secondary.

Factors An online survey was conducted to capture a range of perceptions by people from varying backgrounds, including participants ranging from actively engaged to those who are least engaged in community building activities. 50 responses were received. The diagram shows how some factors change based on gender, income, age and occupation, which may limit and affect individuals participation. Successful communities incorporate and consider these factors in their processes and interactions to encourage or enhance participation of individuals in communities.

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Metaproblems There are various problems that exist in the context of civic engagement in communities. The identified apparent problems can be seen as signifiers are: lack of commitment, disengagement, and lower levels of civic participation. However, the signifiers are connected to deep rooted underlying problems which are the meta problems of civic engagement in communities.

The three meta problems identified through our map are: 1. Declining Social Capital 2. Rapidly evolving social constructs 3. Side-effects of technology 5

1. Declining Social Capital Social Capital is defined as the relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a social interactions in a community. (World Bank, n.d.) The quality of these interactions is achieved through bridging, bonding with individuals and strengthening links and ties amongst the members of the network in communities.

“Social capital can be found in friendship networks, neighborhoods, churches, schools, bridge clubs, civic associations, and even bars.

The motto in Cheers “where everybody knows your name” captures one important aspect of social capital.” (better together, n.d) Through our research, bridging and bonding are two important phenomenon that explain the relationships between individuals in a community. Bridging caters to the horizontal relationship across collective identities which enables individuals to relate to each other, while Bonding is an outcome of vertical deep seated connection built amongst individuals in a com-

munity. It is due to deeper connections that individuals feel encouraged to go beyond their limits and participate for the betterment of the community. As already discussed, ‘relationships’ are one of the core principles for active civic engagements. The quality of these relationships 6

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can affect and result in the decline of social capital.

Bonding and bridging influences relationships at various levels between individuals and communities and further between communities and their networks also vise-a-versa, following the idea of a symbiotic relationship. According to Dwyer & Minnegal (2010) the ‘individual influences its own evolution and is both an object of natural selection and the creator of the conditions of that selection’ and the individual either adapts or transforms because of its environment, which points out towards an agency that exists from the individual to the environment and the environment to the individual.

The diagram on page 7, shows the spheres of influence from individual to the community, further to the network of communities that affects or encourages the mutually-beneficial, symbiotic relationship. Lerner et al. (2014) also emphasizes the importance of this bi-directional relationship between individuals and contexts by defining it as “mutually-beneficial.”

The individual’s cognitive and emotional needs and motivations informs individual identity. The collective needs and motivations of various individuals in a community informs collective identity of a community. When an individual looks out to join a community, he/she looks for an alignment of his/her identity with the collective identity of a community. When the individual finds this alignment, a relationship is established. This relationship can be understood as the ‘shared alignment’ of individual identity with collective identity. The shared alignment brings mutual benefits through shared values, experiences and meanings. As the shared realm broadens and strengthens, communities and individuals nurture and grow together. In this stage of alignment, communities reap benefits by supporting an individual’s goals as a means to achieve its own goals.

Communication through active dialogue plays a vital role in this relationship. Dialogue helps build resilience in communities, which enables the exchange of information, values, meanings to develop a shared approach; ensuring collective growth of both individuals and the community.

When communities disregard the importance of nurturing this mutually beneficial relationships, and lacks in its efforts to bridge the gaps between different perspectives through active dialogue, builds trust and deepens bonds, it affects individual’s commitment and motivation towards the shared vision.

2. Rapidly evolving social constructs The term social construct is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries as “a concept or perception of something based on the collective views developed and maintained within a society or social group.” Social constructs have been changing throughout the human development process, however, the pace of evolution of social constructs in today’s world is radical and unlike the one before.

It is sporadic and unpredictable, resulting in increased pace of reorganization and disruption in communities which is hard to grasp and keep up with, which makes it an underlying meta-problem of civic engagement in communities. Some of the factors leading to this exponential evolution include technology, digital media, urbanization, and globalization.

Social Constructs plays an important role in individual’s understanding and learning as well as community’s knowledge and wisdom. Fritjof Capra (2002) in his book ‘The Hidden Connections’ talks about the tacit and explicit knowledge in communities. He defines tacit knowledge as “the context 8

of meaning” that is created by the dynamics of culture resulting from a network of communications within a community. Learning in communities, therefore, is a social phenomenon, “because the tacit knowledge on which all explicit knowledge is based is generated collectively. Moreover, cognitive scientists have come to realize that even the creation of explicit knowledge has a social dimension because of the intrinsically social nature of reflective consciousness. Hence, the systemic understanding of life and cognition shows clearly that collective learning has both individual and social aspects.”

The evolving social constructs contribute to another phenomenon called the ‘brain drain.’ Due to the aforementioned pace of evolution of social constructs, the pace and quantity of brain drain has also increased.

Brain drain affects the community in terms of quantity and quality of human capital, which means a reduction in the number of participation, and the amount of knowledge and skills, and positive inspiration. When capable participants of a community leave, they cause a dearth of human capital and positive motivation in that community. Conversely, this results in an increase of human capital for other communities where they may not be valued for their capacity and capabilities which in-turn affects their engagement levels. Due to the rapid pace and profuse, quantity of this increase and decrease, the scale of its impact on communities is also ever- increasing and unpredictable, in turn causing an imbalance. Some communities may benefit from higher human capital and positive inspiration while other communities may suffer because of its scarcity. Tony Fry in his book “Becoming human by design” explains this same phenomenon through a very provocative narrative on human evolution. He says:

“For almost 150,000 years we were nomads, for the past 10,000 years we have been settled, unfolding moment is that of un-settlement” -Tony Fry 9

This unfolding moment of unsettlement can be further understood by identifying and studying the Panarchy of Human Identities in social systems.

Panarchy of Human Identities: Identities play a very important role in individuals civic participation.

As we can see in the Panarchy of Identities in relation to geographic community systems, there are layers of identities an individual associates with. Each layer has its influence on individuals sense of belonging and commitment to the community of his/her practise. Each horizontal layer is a link of relationship under a collective identity. While lower levels ensure stability, the levels above ensure unity and solidarity of the levels below. Research shows that, globalization has led to the age of unsettlement, with individuals travelling from one country to another, resulting in dissolving National (geographic) Identity. The gradually fading away horizontal layer of national identity which holds together networks of people within a collective identity, may disrupt the levels below. Many individuals who travel across countries in search of work or living do not always associate with their National identities, they may look to associate themselves with ideological or religious identities or even Global identity beyond national boundaries. But one can notice that there exist a small problem when associating one-self with global-identity. As for identities to exist, there is an intrinsic need to contrast individual identity against the idea of the “other”, which raises this problem at the Global level, where the quest of “Who is the other” leads to an unsettling identity crisis. The individuals struggling with identifying themselves with global identity may not always feel belonging or attachment anywhere, which may further affect their interactions and engagements in their communities.

This emerging phenomenon may be an indication for a need for reorganisation, or restructuring within communities. A new social construct beyond national boundaries, may be a way forward to bring the balance and control in the panarchy.

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3. Side-effects of technology Technological development is one of the biggest hallmark of our era. In the case of civic engagement it has enabled accessibility, communication, connections and the existence of virtual networks. In the case of accessibility, both physical and virtual access have improved because of technology. It has made it easier for people to not only have the information about different communities on the globe but to be able to reach places with more ease and in less time. In the case of communication and connections, technology has enabled people to build networks, relationships and connects despite physical distances and concerns. However, this ever- beneficial technology has its downside for civic engagement.

The influx of information at a rapid pace is not giving space for people to synthesis the information and develop reflections that lead of knowledge and wisdom. This has also caused people to have shorter attention spans and illnesses such as ADHD. It has reduced the retention of information since we are more reliant on technologies for retaining knowledge. In the case of civic engagement, it has enabled people to commit to various virtual communities at the same time, which results in over- commitment and less time and quality per commitment.

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It is also hard to determine the level of civic engagement on the online platforms. People can easily portray a false sense of engagement. Language has also become a barrier because english is the most used language online and many people with a lot of wisdom and knowledge can not share it using the online tools. Infact in many cases, not having technology and digital access has completely pulled people out of the new knowledge and updates-- these are the disconnected individuals.

Examples Rapidly changing social constructs: Aboriginal community One of the challenges that the aboriginal community faces today is the disengagement of the youth or the millennials with the community. Cultural events organised by the community leaders and activists in an effort to bridge the gap and increase youth participation are successful in developing a sense of relatability amongst the members. As seen in the diagram, this is a positive reinforcing loop where members do build empathy with the people who suffered the consequences of colonization.

However, a pattern can be seen underlying this challenge, which points out the archetype of ‘limits to growth’. Today’s aboriginal youth has not had first hand experiences of atrocities and discrimination that the previous generations have faced and hence the lack of shared experiences of the youth with the previous generation of aboriginal community leads to the reduced sense of sharing similar values. On the other hand, their social context of the youth has changed due to various reasons such as exposure to the new media, urbanization, information technology, etc. Thus the changing social context further adds to the lack of shared values in the youth, and acts as a limiting condition. These two factors become a hurdle for the aboriginal youth in building a deeper sense of association with their community. Thus resulting in their disengagement and lower levels of participation.

Declining social capital and side effects of technology: Consumating Consumating, was an alternative dating community. In 2005, CNET bought Consumating. The media giant wanted the next popular social networking website and immediately focused on ramping up the membership.

The community indeed grew from 5,000 members to 60,000. It also suffered a backlash from prior members and a lack of interest from new members. In 2008, CNET shut the doors on Consumating for good.

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CNET’s focus on rapid growth sucked the air from the community. Consumating’s success was rooted in the fervor of the community itself—how often members contributed, how they interacted, how they connected—rather than its overall size. (Silverman M., n,d.). This community’s decline is a perfect example of a system archetype for “fixes that fail” as illustrated in the diagram.

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Most experts agree that if technology is to succeed, it will have to be used to reinforce face to face ties. (bettertogether, n.d.)

Recommendation Active Dialogue: Dialogue involves active listening and building a shared understanding of the issues by being open to communication.

We believe a Dialogic design process will help communities to collectively enlist and build relationships between existing limiting factors that are affecting civic engagement in communities and understand influences of one problem area on another.

-Dialogue has capacity to build resilience in communities Creativity and innovation are key in keeping the communities alive. This is ensured by having space for new ideas, and new people to co-create new possibilities.

Spaces and platforms to encourage informal gatherings and meet-ups help communities bridge the gap in communication and bond with the members at personal level. Provision of physical spaces enables communities to utilize open forums for interactions and lets community members plan for communal events. Social ties stemming from informal networks are often stronger and deeper. Communities can build social capital by creating new ties and strengthening old ones.

These connections may increase individual well-being and provide opportunities by linking people strongly to their local community and to the larger societal resources. (bettertogether, n.d.)

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Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a community to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper irrespective of caste, gender, race, ethnicity, economic status, etc. It also helps in mitigating disparity and discrimination between different groups and economic classes. By accommodating memberships across demographics and social identities communities can ensure social cohesion and become resilient to the changing social constructs by accommodating memberships across demographics and social identities.

Shared leadership and participatory decision making, involving various stakeholders.

Reorganisation and restructuring if need may be, by re-visiting existing structures and processes in response to changing social constructs. Looking out for emergent structures and responding to the emerging environment.

Choosing the tools wisely to ensure smooth communications. “When deciding what kind of tool to use, it is important to consider how accessible it is to the intended audience and how well its technological features match the intended civic engagement aim. Whether the technology uses real-time or asynchronous communication can profoundly affect the quality of the discussion.�

Anonymity in online discussion forums can be both helpful and harmful in ensuring safe environments for healthy conversations. Communities should moderate and facilitate dialogue in online discussion forums.

Next Steps: For a start this map will be used by the Impact Collective Lab for their Social Innovation at OCAD University mapping project as a foundation to build upon. We then intend to take it to various communities such as Global-shapers, Ashoka, centre for social innovation and others to share this understanding with our determined stakeholder through a Dialogic Design workshop.

This inquiry also intends to inform the Major Research Projects of the individuals in our team. Although the group members have their own projects, but they will be utilizing various aspects of this understanding in their respective projects.

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