What does ‘community engagement’ really mean?
Written by Kamina Walton, Founder/Director
Many of us within the creative sector have struggled to write a banging funding application for our ideal project to work with a local community. If we’re lucky enough to get the funds we find ourselves struggling to recruit people to participate. Plans can start to shift and change before delivery has even begun. The process is often shaped by funding structures that require clear timeframes, aims and objectives. Positive evaluation and an outcome with good news stories to share is seen as a given.
Historically engagement and participation programmes have been viewed as providing projects as some kind of benevolent gift to ‘other people’. They are usually devised for distinct communities, often categorised as those who are marginalised, under-represented or ‘hard to reach’. This approach can be both disempowering and disengaging.
This post sets out to explore my understanding of the term ‘community engagement’ in the context of creative sector work. I believe that when we shift the focus and support community members to have agency over engagement opportunities powerful new possibilities emerge. These can benefit both the community and the organisation. This approach is still not the norm but is at the heart of the work we are trying to do within Rising.
What does ‘community’ mean to me?
When I think of ‘community’ the words of Peter Block from his book ‘Community: The Structure of Belonging’ come to mind:
“Community is about the experience of belonging… To belong to a community is to act as a creator and co-owner of that community.”
I love this strong association between ‘community’ and ‘belonging’. My own practice as an artist has always been sited within communities, working alongside individuals and witnessing their personal stories. Whatever form the work might take the focus is on conversation, collaboration and co-creation. I have spent countless hours engaged in conversations with diverse individuals of all ages that have been both intimate and rich. These have inspired works that have reflected communities of health, disability, age or culture and exist to amplify their voices. Relationships formed are based on implicit trust. Engagement has been long-term and in-depth and the process an iterative one.
Sustaining a sense of belonging
The problematic nature of communities is that they always seem to be ‘over there’ and even when we do things to or with them we remain ‘over here’. When we consider the cultural offer we must always begin with conversation to ensure we are not doing ‘to’ but ‘with’. Working together towards a ‘community of practice’ where we are learning together, being vulnerable and holding one another accountable is where the real work happens.
There is currently an urgent need to step up and build bridges between disparate groups in order for communities and cultures to move forward. Artists can play a key role in this transformation but they need access to skills, resources, investment and radical models of engagement. With appropriate support the outcome will ensure change in our neighbourhoods and cities in ways both practical and transformational.
“… there’s a real arrogance within a lot of arts organisations that they know what would be good for that community.” – Cultural professional
The power of community is in collective wisdom, new ideas, mutual support, belief in and accountability to others. In his book Block speaks of understanding that creating and sustaining a sense of belonging is fundamentally about the experience of community, not about its formal structures and mechanisms. He describes communities as being “built from the assets and gifts of their citizens, not from citizens’ needs and deficiencies.”
Rising is a space where our focus is on giving voice to our community. Personal expression is articulated powerfully and we amplify this in virtual and public spaces. Support is bespoke and through their experience individuals feel emboldened by the realisation of their potential of their personal and collective power. We understand the true meaning of co-creation, inclusion, empowerment and democratic leadership. We listen and pay attention.
Within the city we are constantly seeking out allies, and investing time in relationship-building with those we believe really get this way of working. We are channelling our energy into working proactively with those who are trying to achieve similar things. By identifying key challenges and issues we can begin to think creatively about how we might work collectively to more powerfully and forcefully advocate for social justice.
“It is in collectives that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.” – Angela Davis
Our Culture
Earlier this year we were selected to be part of a small national cohort supported through Battersea Arts Centre’s Co-Creating Change programme for our new engagement strand, Our Culture. This is a process centring d/Deaf and disabled young people, young refugees and working-class young people to explore how arts, wellbeing and social justice can be truly entwined. Our methodology is a slow, considered process of relationship building and exploration.While co-creating the application with four young people with the lived experiences we’re centring they voiced some of their current frustrations:
“Arts organisations rarely understand the needs of the deaf community. They do not have strategies to promote their work within the deaf community [...] deaf people are rarely involved in the consultation process for improving accessibility” – Ciaran O’Brien
“Refugee status meant most of my opportunities and creative projects had to revolve around my story” – Rediat Abayneh
“There’s a lack of conversations and learning — an unwillingness to have these conversations — when we’re in spaces where we feel comfortable we take a lot of things for granted about others’ needs” – Osei Johnson
These comments highlight how even the work that is being done is not centring the right people. The demand for spaces for underrepresented communities to meet, work and make good trouble to change the sector’s status quo is acute.
“Yes, companies should create change in people but people should always change organisations and companies as well.” – Dave Young
The sector needs and ostensibly wants to change but until this slow, considered and meaningful legwork can be done, underrepresented communities will continue to be excluded from opportunities and from authoring the engagement work that exists to support them. Relationship-building is the work. Acknowledging this means any work that follows is all the more robust, authentic, and sustainable.
We know it's not easy
We know that change doesn’t necessarily happen overnight but, as the last year has often painfully taught us, it can happen rapidly. We need courage to challenge the status quo, to do things differently, to take risks and loosen our reins on control. Any new work with a community must begin with conversation. It must be centred around co-creation. It must acknowledge the inherent expertise within communities that so often gets overlooked. It must respond to that community’s needs and wants. Only then should we start fundraising and think about how the work fits with our organisation’s vision.
“There was also scant evidence of funders critically evaluating their own funding strategies and the logics on which they are based.” – Failure seems to be the hardest word to say / International Journal of Cultural Policy
Rather than accepting the existing structures we need to be holding discussions with funding bodies, championing models of best practice. We must demand new ways of thinking around allocation of funds and timeframes for projects. Whereas the emphasis is almost always on the project outcome we need to highlight the importance of the process. We need to put an end to projects that parachute into communities and end as rapidly as they appear. These hold limited value, can damage trust and rarely have a legacy.
Next steps
More and more I find myself visualising Rising as a protest. My hopes for 2021 are that we continue to offer tools, platforms and means for our community to challenge some of society’s injustices. That we amplify more voices and, as a community, we become instrumental in effecting positive change. We empower more and more individuals to believe in their ability to lead new ways of thinking, working, learning and communicating.
We need to recognise that narratives underpin policy decisions as much as data and evidence. Existing narratives “frame the participant as the problem who needs to be ‘fixed’ rather than the policies, projects and practices that create and sustain structural inequities in regard to how different people’s cultural lives are valued and supported.” (‘Failure seems to be the hardest word to say’ ) All real change begins with a shift in narrative. We must devise ways of using new narratives to engage with local government with the clear intention of influencing policy-making.
We must ensure our teams feel embedded, empowered and supported to initiate challenges and mobilise communities of change. We must keep building and growing our community, creating a safe space where they feel welcome, listened to and celebrated. We must take our civic role seriously where people and communities are central to our practice. Developing relationships and strong connections are central to this approach.
Kamina Walton, Founder/Director at Rising Arts Agency
Resources & links:
‘Failure seems to be the hardest word to say’ International Journal of Cultural Policy
Recent report in the International Journal of Cultural Policy
‘Community: The Structure of Belonging’ Peter Block