Community engagement and participatory design processes

Terminology Comprehension

Community engagement is a strategic partnership between a community and an organization, municipality, or agency that aims to enhance the quality of life within the community. This collaborative process involves both parties working together to identify, plan, and implement solutions to overcome community challenges. Through various participatory approaches, community engagement strives to ensure fair and effective participation of all stakeholders in creating their living environment.

On the other hand, participatory design is a process that involves multiple stakeholders, such as developers, users, and other interested parties, working together to design and develop products, services, and experiences. This iterative process involves continuous stakeholder communication and feedback to ensure that the final product meets their needs and expectations. 

Principles of Community Engagement

The Co-Intelligence Institute has developed the seven basic concepts that effectively embody the shared ideas and understandings of individuals working in the field of community involvement – conflict, conflict resolution, and collaboration. 

1. Careful planning and preparation: Ensure that the process’s design, organization, and convening fulfill a clearly stated objective and the needs of the participants through proper and inclusive planning.
2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity: Integrate various individuals, opinions, ideas, and information equitably to establish the groundwork for tremendous results and democratic legitimacy.
3. Collaboration and a Common Goal: Encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to collaborate to enhance the common good.
4. Openness and Learning: Assist every stakeholder engaged in listening to one another, exploring new ideas without regard for predetermined results, learning and using the information to generate new alternatives, and carefully evaluating the effectiveness of community engagement activities.
5. Transparency and trust entail being explicit and open about the process and providing a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of opinions and ideas expressed.
6. Impact and Action: Ensure that each participatory effort has a genuine chance of making a difference and that participants know that possibility.
7. Sustained interaction and Participatory Culture: Foster a participatory culture by supporting continued quality community interaction through programmes and institutions.

Different Forms of Community Engagement

1. Informative Participation: Informing people about impending procedures, decisions, and changes to their living environment is the goal of informative participation. People frequently need to be made aware of the processes that impact their immediate environment, which could help avoid disputes later on.
2. Participatory Planning Participation: The public offers suggestions and criticism regarding ongoing development initiatives during participatory planning in advance. Online technologies assist in incorporating a broader population and closing the gap between cities and citizens, even while some groups of people are difficult to reach (mainly, when used in conjunction with offline choices accessible to residents who have trouble using digital solutions). Early in the planning process, when planners seek to assess inhabitants’ values, attachments, and attitudes towards a development site, preparatory involvement is frequently used. The secret to effective planning involvement is to take this insightful insider knowledge seriously. 
3. Decision-Making Participation: Residents have the power, tools, and knowledge in the decision-making participation model to submit proposals and make informed decisions regarding budget spending, urban planning, environmental initiatives, transportation development, etc. The community decides how to spend city development funds (participatory budgeting) or how to implement specific policies (participatory policy-making). Citizens participate in this process by submitting recommendations and voting on which suitable solutions should be adopted.

Benefits of Community Engagement

Community engagement plays an important role in the lives of individuals and communities alike. It can create a sense of belonging, give individuals a sense of purpose and connection, and help build strong communities. It can also help address local issues, promote civic engagement, and increase public involvement in local decision-making. 

Community engagement can also facilitate the growth of social capital, which encompasses the shared resources and networks that support the prosperity of both individuals and communities. Through collaborative efforts and inclusive participation, community engagement can help establish stronger social connections and foster trust among community members. As a result, the community is better equipped to tackle challenges and seize opportunities, ultimately enhancing the overall well-being of individuals and the community as a whole.. It can also help bridge gaps between different social and cultural groups by providing a platform for dialogue and collective action. Finally, community engagement can also help to foster a sense of trust and responsibility, as well as promoting economic development and employment opportunities.

1. Educating the Public: Improved public education significantly benefits public participation. People become more aware of their local government, its services, the decision-making process and how to use those services.
2. Design Delivery: Enhancements to the research design, tools, interventions, representation/participation, data collection and analysis, communication, and dissemination. The community’s understanding of local circumstances facilitates the identification of new treatments or previously unrecognized causal relationships. By swiftly engaging partners and participants and identifying new sources of information, the project’s speed and efficiency can be boosted.
3. Research Utility: Improvements are made based on research findings used to effect change (e.g., through new or improved services, policy or funding changes, or transformation of professional practices) while also expanding the capacity for change and maintaining long-term partnerships.
4. Ethics: Participation opens up chances to improve the consent process, uncover ethical difficulties, and develop mechanisms for resolving ethical issues as they arise.
5. Citizen Participation: By involving citizens in decision-making, government leaders can better grasp residents’ challenges and needs, enabling them to judge better how services are delivered and develop policies that reflect their constituents’ needs and interests. The public’s knowledge and skills can be strengthened, and their contributions can be recognised (perhaps through financial rewards). These efforts promote goodwill and establish the framework for future collaborations. 
6. Public Trust: Public participation can aid in developing public trust in decision-makers. Citizens are more likely to believe their voices are heard when they are invited to participate in the process, leading to more confidence and civic involvement. 
7. Academic Benefits: Academic partners can obtain a better understanding of the subject under investigation and respect for the significance and value of community involvement, which can occasionally result in immediate career benefits. Furthermore, new insights into the importance of a project and the various uses to gain from it can lead to greater chances to disseminate its findings and their comprehensive application. Improvements in how studies are conducted can make participation easier and benefit researchers.
8. Collaborations: Community organizations can gain more excellent institutional capability, increased expertise, a more robust profile in the community, and stronger connections with other community members and entities. These advantages can foster goodwill and establish the framework for future collaborations.
9. Accountability: Public engagement increases the accountability of government leaders. By engaging citizens in decision-making, architects, designers, government leaders, etc. are more likely to be held accountable for their actions because citizens are more likely to be aware of the actions and hold them responsible.

Pedagogy of Shared Participation

‘It is important to connect critical reflection with political action and architectural practice’. 

(Jesica Amescua Carrera and Mariana Ordonez Grajales, 2022)

Participatory design approaches to the social production of human habitats provide an invaluable opportunity to resist oppressive systems of racism and colonialism, perpetuated in architectural practice for far too long. Through collective action, people of different life philosophies, identities, organizations, and domains can join forces and strengthen solidarity to promote the redistribution of power. Such approaches recognize people’s agency and act as an anti-patriarchal pedagogy and collective right to challenge the patriarchal structure of school-based education, professionalization of knowledge, and capitalist modes of production. By engaging in activities such as walking, conversing, healing, planting, cooking, designing, and building, these approaches enable the sharing of invaluable knowledge and understanding of cohabitation. They can help to counter the continued marginalization and devaluation of unstructured knowledge processes.

Significance of Participatory Practices

Participatory design offers a different approach to architecture and information production, embracing the social nature of design and building. This approach seeks to empower people, often marginalized or excluded from the design process, by including them in decision-making. Through participatory design, people can have a say in creating the spaces and places where they live and work. Participatory design has been used successfully in various contexts, from housing projects to the planning of urban areas. 

By giving people a voice in the design and production of their environment, participatory design can promote equity and justice within a community. Additionally, participatory design can develop a sense of collective identity and improve the quality of life for everyone involved. By sharing the design process, people can better understand the values, needs, and desires of those around them, leading to more effective and equitable solutions to design issues.

Powerful emotions such as hope for a better future, rage at injustice, attachment to places that preserve collective memories, and a dedication to solidarity drive participatory processes. However, conventional education’s disconnect between thinking and doing prevents meaningful critical reflection. The participatory design addresses this issue by creating an anti-patriarchal pedagogy for social transformation. 

Participatory design necessitates a shift in attitude and ability among those involved in teaching and learning and a rejection of oppressive and violent practices. Additionally, it consists of developing new approaches, tools, and techniques to promote design as a tool for creative autonomy. Ultimately, participation is a process of community transformation aimed at reclaiming living sovereignty and co-creating a shared future.

‘Relational Identity’

Archaeologist Almudena Hernando has investigated the concept of ‘relational identity,’ which sees individuals as part of a broader unit or social group, resulting in a ‘dream of individuality,’ in which people believe they can have security and power if they isolate themselves. However, participatory design recognises that architectural design and information production are social activities. As a result, every attempt to reject this fact through individual authorship results in the marginalization and exploitation of many people.

By enabling people to work together and become the authors of their own spaces, the dream of individuality is replaced by the power of relational identity. Architectural designs constructed through participatory design processes can be seen as a reflection of the collective imagination of the people involved and a testament to the power of shared authorship. Participatory design is an essential tool for empowering individuals to take control of their environment and create a more equitable and just society.

Citations and References:

Maarit Kahila and Anna Broberg (2022) All things urban, All Things Urban – What is Community Engagement and Why is It Crucial for Urban Planning? Available at: https://www.allthingsurban.net/blog/What-is-Community-Engagement-and-Why-is-It-Crucial-for-Urban-Planning (Accessed: May 3, 2023). 

PennState. Core Principles of Community engagement. Plone site. Available at: https://aese.psu.edu/research/centers/cecd/engagement-toolbox/engagement/core-principles-of-community-engagement (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

Jesica Amescua Carrera and Mariana Ordonez Grajales (2022) Participation as pedagogy, Architectural Review. Available at: https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/participation-as-pedagogy (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

ATSDR. Chapter 1: What is community engagement? (2015) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available at: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement/pce_what.html (Accessed: May 4, 2023).

Robinson, E. (2018) Affordable art.  Brooklyn Dolly by Erin Robinson., Tumblr. Available at: https://superselected.tumblr.com/post/173039156772/affordable-art-brooklyn-dolly-by-erin-robinson (Accessed: May 5, 2023). 

Vaughn, L.M. and Jacquez, F. (2020) Participatory research methods – choice points in the research process: Published in Journal of Participatory Research Methods, Journal of Participatory Research Methods. JPRM. Available at: https://jprm.scholasticahq.com/article/13244-participatory-research-methods-choice-points-in-the-research-process (Accessed: May 5, 2023).