Action research in the L-Flat, one of the largest gallery flats in Western Europe

Many initiatives have emerged from the action research in the L-Flat in Zeist, but none have tackled as many (mis)assumptions as the community center initiative. From the interviews we – two action researchers from 7Senses and seven employees from the municipality of Zeist – conducted with residents of the L-Flat, it often emerged that these teenage boys, while ‘hanging out’ near the entrances, cause a lot of nuisance. The boys themselves find it particularly annoying that their gatherings are seen as a nuisance, and like many residents, they suggest that a community center could solve this problem in one fell swoop. The boys would have a place to gather, and the residents would no longer be bothered by them near the entrances.

The community center initiative: the initial sketch

During the first focus group with the boys and Souad from the welfare organization Meander Omnium, Wil and I shared the results of the action research so far: the problems mentioned in the interviews, but also the good things, the opportunities, and the directions for solutions. We asked the boys what the most important solution was for them. They all agreed unanimously, in chorus: “THE COMMUNITY CENTER!”
Together, we looked at the talents of the youth group and how such a community center would ideally look according to them. Firstly, I noticed how many talents and other good things the boys were able to mention about themselves and their friend group. Secondly – after the boys had drawn their ideal community center – I noticed how little the boys actually need for a cool community center. As an outsider, you quickly think of a large building with multiple rooms and all sorts of amenities. The boys drew two rooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. A couch, a PlayStation, and a small kitchenette for both rooms were sufficient for the boys. Oh, and a camera, “because if something happens, we want the camera to be able to tell what happened.”

Brainstorm: what is needed for the community center?

Then, we discussed with the boys what steps were needed to realize a community center. I was surprised by the enormous collective knowledge of these boys – aged 13 to 17. They were able to determine flawlessly what needed to happen and which buildings could possibly be transformed into a community center. They also knew who they needed for the next steps. “We need to ask the district manager which of these buildings are available.” With a question to me:

“Ma’am, can we do another focus group, this time with the district manager?”

“Of course!” I said, happily surprised by this assertive move. The boys left the focus group, and a few minutes later, Wil and I came out, ready to go home contentedly. There, we met one of the aldermen, who was doing his rounds in the neighborhood to campaign for his party (it was two days before the elections). I didn’t know him, but Wil did, of course, as a colleague. I shook the alderman’s hand, to which he said:
“I just met that group of boys. What have you done with them?! I’ve never seen such a positive atmosphere around them!”

New focus group with the district manager and municipality

And so, the following week, we gathered again. This time with the district manager and some people from the municipality who were also in the know. Apart from some awkward giggling here and there, I noticed how professionally and respectfully the boys sat in the focus group. There was discussion back and forth, and at the end of the focus group, a location was determined, and new action points were established! While tidying up, one of the boys came up to me:

“Ma’am, can we talk to the neighborhood police officer next week? We would like to work with the police to establish the right rules and see how we can keep crime out.”

My mouth fell open in amazement. The boys who are said to regularly have not-so-good encounters with the police – and yes, I am aware that they are being painted with a broad brush here – are now taking the initiative to consult with the police to prevent things from going wrong.

…And then the police came

A week later, we sat down with the neighborhood police officer, the district manager, Meander Omnium, and of course, the boys themselves to follow up on the outcomes of the previous week. Because the neighborhood police officer had not previously participated in the action research, I briefly explained what action research entails. Arms crossed, a critical gaze. Throughout that focus group, I noticed he thawed, but it wasn’t because of my clumsy explanation of the project. It was the boys who were very professional here, and thus, a remarkably respectful conversation ensued! The neighborhood police officer even asked, a bit out of the blue:

“How old are you guys?! It seems like I’m talking to a bunch of adults!”

Ideas were exchanged about the location, plans were made to keep crime out, and concrete actions were taken to get closer to the community center step by step. At the end of the focus group, there were the commendable words from the neighborhood police officer and the district manager, expressing their pride in the boys for the way they handled things.

At the end of the focus group, Ismael came up to me.

“Ma’am, can we give a PowerPoint presentation about our plans for the community center at the final meeting?”

For a moment, I thought I hadn’t heard correctly, but soon I realized I was once again plagued by an assumption. This assumption was expertly smothered by Ismael’s question. Delighted and a bit too enthusiastic, I replied: “But of course, that would be great that you want to do that!” I have attended many great focus groups, but rarely have I walked out as exhilarated as I did from this one. This is why I love my job so much!

The end of the action research – the beginning of many great things

On April 10, 2018, it happened. The ‘restart meeting’ of our action research. The whole action research team had been working hard towards this for the past two months. We would present the results of the action research to the residents and other stakeholders, discuss with them the plans made so far, and hand over the initiatives that were ready to the initiators. This was to conclude our action research and as a ‘kick-off’ for the many wonderful initiatives that arose during this action research.

The principal of ‘Op Dreef’ primary school made her auditorium and classrooms available for the various breakout sessions on each theme. Soon, the school was filled up, an attendance that far exceeded our expectations. The boys were also there early, sitting coolly on the steps in the auditorium. Colleague Barry from the municipality received a comment from someone:

“Those troublemaking youths are here, they don’t belong here!” Barry responded – calm as can be – “Oh yes, they do, they are the initiators of the community center and are going to give a presentation here about their plans.” BAM! Another assumption brutally tackled.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t at the boys’ breakout session because I was leading another one, but I understood from Wil, the boys, and other involved parties that it was a very cool session. The boys gave a TOP presentation, the first two directors of the community center board – Anne Jan Odinga from Meander Omnium and Wil Verbiezen from the municipality of Zeist – were appointed, and new connections were made for collaboration. Goal: on October 10, 2018, six months after this meeting, the opening of the community center! All of this was communicated back to the public after the breakout sessions, and as if it was nothing at such a young age, the boys took the microphone to thank us, the municipality, and other stakeholders for their support.

Onwards to a cool community center in October!

A week after the meeting, the boys checked a potential building for the community center for fire safety with the fire department. And as we speak, the boys are busy with the municipality, Meander Omnium, and other stakeholders to realize this community center. The road to a community center is not easy, but seeing how the boys are stepping up now, with the support of the people around them, I have every confidence that there will be a community center on October 10! That date is already marked in my calendar. I’ll be at the grand opening!

Interested in action research in your municipality, where such cool initiatives can arise? Take a look at this page for the options.

The post The neighborhood initiative of the L-Flat: how action research tackles assumptions appeared first on SevenSenses.

As an action researcher, you’re actually not concerned with this issue because in such a process, the same population determines the form and execution of a project. So, you don’t need to get them on board because they are already participating, driven by their own intrinsic motivation. After all, it’s their own project!

Is your problem also their problem?

As the starting point of any action research, we first determine with the various stakeholders how they define the problem or situation. Sometimes that means that as a municipality, you have to choose a different starting point. Exciting, but worth it!

An example.

I remember well that a client wanted to protect sharks from extinction around the Dutch municipality of Saba (in the Caribbean). However, especially the local fishermen turned out to dislike sharks! Attempts such as distributing leaflets explaining the importance of sharks were unsuccessful. Sharks are troublesome creatures for them: they eat their fish and ruin their fish traps. Therefore, the starting point became the marine ecosystem instead of the sharks. A broader topic, where various stakeholders – including the fishermen – had much more space to indicate what they considered important. Eventually, this led to beautiful initiatives that indirectly protect the sharks (and the marine ecosystem as a whole)! If I had kept hammering on those sharks, I am sure nothing would have come of it. Also, in an action research in the L-Flat in Zeist, we chose a different starting point: from the waste problem defined by the municipality to the “living happiness” chosen by the residents (where the waste problem is part of). You can read about how that action research went here.

Exploring perspectives: there’s so much more!

The next step in action research is to explore the perspectives of the stakeholders on the subject. What causes and consequences do they see? What is the ideal situation according to them? What initiatives have been carried out in the past on this problem, and what was the effect? What is the role of the various parties, and how is their relationship? What is already going well in the community, what is abundant, what are the successes from the past, in any area? What talents and resources are already available? And most importantly… What solution directions do the different stakeholders propose? Taking the time to explore this thoroughly is a huge advantage over drawing conclusions from your desk or a quick residents’ meeting. You not only build a relationship with the residents but also learn much more important information that is crucial for project success! This (and the next) is where citizen participation gets a whole different dynamic. Or, can we still call it citizen participation?!

Reflecting on the outcomes with the stakeholders: a feast of recognition and
understanding!

As an action researcher, you analyze all the information you have received from the stakeholders. Then you create a visually clear overview of the total. The next step is the action where you as a municipality can make a difference, which is actually surprisingly simple – or almost too logical: you share those results with the stakeholders. You can do this, for example, in focus group-like meetings. This gives them the opportunity to first recognize their own perspective in those results. Secondly, it gives them the opportunity to understand the perspectives (and thus the behavior and choices) of other stakeholders.
Then you determine together with them which set of solution directions is the best combination to improve the system as a whole. This way, everyone gets the chance to contribute in their own way to the greater whole (the system), which ultimately yields beautiful results for everyone! For example, the fishermen on Saba came up with a way to fish more sustainably for red snapper, which further balances the marine ecosystem – benefiting the sharks, among others: more fish = more to eat!

The next step is the action where you as a municipality can make the difference, which is actually surprisingly simple – or almost too logical: you share those results with the stakeholders. This gives them the opportunity to first recognize their own perspective in those results. Secondly, it gives them the opportunity to understand the perspectives (and thus the behavior and choices) of other stakeholders.

And what else contributes to the motivation of stakeholders?

During the later stages of action research – as solution directions become more concrete – you as an action researcher can move on to exploring the stakeholders’ prerequisites for making it a success. What do they need? This is, of course, very specific to each project. However, there are some more general factors that ensure that each stakeholder can contribute to the success of a project from intrinsic motivation. Here are a few:

• Pride: the activity increases his or her sense of self-worth;
• Dignity: the activity increases his or her sense of autonomy, independence, and competence;
• Identity: the activity is carried out by the right person (the one experiencing the problem);
• Control: he or she has a sense of control over: 1) the necessities (he/she can easily access them), 2) decisions (he/she can participate in decision-making), and 3) activities (he/she has the capacity to do it);
• Responsibility: he or she feels responsible for his/her tasks;
• Unity: he or she feels empowered and supported by the group he/she works with. Celebrating the first successes – however small – can strengthen this sense of unity.
• Place: he or she carries out his/her tasks in a safe, non-threatening environment;
• Location: the activity takes place in a location where he or she feels connected.

All these factors contribute to people genuinely enjoying contributing. And that’s where the motivation comes from!

Motivating without motivating

Together with stakeholders, you can explore which (the above and/or other) factors are at play and how they can optimize those factors together. If you notice that a stakeholder is losing motivation, you can look back at these factors. What is he or she missing? Has something been overlooked? Then it is very important, for example, as a municipality, to have a dialogue with the stakeholders about this. In action research, and your role as a municipality remains that of a facilitator, and the residents stay in the driver’s seat. This way, as a municipality, you make the transition from focusing on citizen participation to focusing on government participation. Citizens motivate each other, and the municipality jumps in where necessary. Or, in other words, motivation without motivating!

The post Citizen participation: how to motivate people without motivating them appeared first on SevenSenses.

1. Design your focus group beforehand by creating a program with components that gradually lead to the goal of your focus group. Allow invited guests to contribute ideas. Prepare well, but also be open to improvisation! Often, we think we’ve created a wonderful program in advance, only to find that the actual needs of the group lie elsewhere. Therefore, try not to stick too rigidly to your program (and the times), but instead be flexible and improvise if the group’s needs change.
2. Share your results! Ensure that you visualize the results of the PAR in such a way that participants gain a clear understanding and overview. This forms the basis for the co-creation process! Allow room for participants to make additions or changes. Don’t worry if you feel that some information is missing in your visualization! Put a question mark there, inviting participants to provide additional input.
3. Maintain an open, non-judgmental attitude. As a facilitator of the focus group, maintain an open, non-judgmental attitude throughout the entire session so that participants feel comfortable sharing their ideas. Stay curious about their ideas, ask questions, and communicate from genuine interest. Rejecting ideas (even if done kindly) is unacceptable! Trust that the group will filter out the best ideas, you don’t need to do that for them.
4. Facilitate “aha” moments for your participants. Give participants the opportunity to make discoveries about the problem themselves. This is also known as ‘analyzing with participants’. By allowing them, for example, to make associations between different components of your results, they will experience ‘aha’ moments, leading to more enthusiasm and ownership over the new ideas that emerge. These are important building blocks for motivating groups of people to work together!
5. No debate or discussion – with losers – but dialogue – with winners. In a debate, the one who ‘shouts’ the loudest or has the most convincing arguments often ‘wins’. This means there are always many losers who go home disappointed. This is deadly for motivation! As action researchers, we don’t facilitate debate or discussion, but dialogue. In dialogue, we all open ourselves to each other’s ideas and build on them. Everyone has a share in the end result, so participants are all ‘winners’. Be vigilant as a facilitator for signs of potential discussion and guide participants back to dialogue.
6. Make agreements. At the end of the focus group session, make concrete agreements with the participants. Usually, after a single focus group, there is not yet a concrete action plan, so another focus group session is necessary. Agree on a date, place, and time with those interested and write down the names and contact information of the participants who want to participate. Invite new participants if necessary or ask participants to bring along any interested parties.
7. Close positively. A focus group can sometimes be quite burdensome, especially when dealing with long-standing issues or problems that people are greatly affected by. Depending on the purpose of your focus group (which in turn depends on the stage of the PAR you are in), this could involve collectively visualizing the ideal situation, prioritizing the best solution directions, or using a positive energizer. If people leave with a positive feeling, they are likely to feel the energy and motivation to come again – and when the action plan is ready, to get started with it!
8. Enjoy the focus group! Last but not least: don’t forget to enjoy yourself! I often see facilitators very nervous before a focus group, and I also sometimes get quite nervous. In those moments, don’t forget the following two things. Firstly, bringing people together constructively around an issue (who might never have come together otherwise) is already a step in the right direction. You’ve already won that! Secondly, I notice in practice that if you can radiate confidence in the process, in yourself, and especially in your participants, it has an enormously positive effect on the atmosphere in the group and the outcomes. Your own enthusiasm – for example, when you hear a new idea from participants – is contagious. So, even if it’s your first time leading a focus group: have confidence, radiate, smile, and enjoy it!

Want to know more? In our methodology section, you will find the ‘focus groups’ method, where you can learn all about facilitating focus groups. The Participatory Action Research handbook, written by 7Senses founder Madelon Eelderink, which was published in January 2020, describes in detail how to conduct focus groups at different stages of your Participatory Action Research. You can order the book here.

The post Co-create TOP action plans! 8 Tips for facilitating focus groups in Participatory Action Research (PAR) appeared first on SevenSenses.

Top-down

Organizations in the municipal domain are accustomed to operating top-down. Solutions are developed based on expertise within these organizations, which are then offered or imposed on society. The problem with this approach is that the expertise present in society – for example, regarding the living environment – is not utilized. Nowadays, issues have become so complex that this expertise is indispensable.

Bottom-up

In an attempt to actively involve society, there is an increasing focus on bottom-up approaches. Society itself takes action and can effectively utilize its expertise. However, the disadvantage is that the expertise brought by organizations is no longer utilized. The role of organizations generally remains limited to facilitating the process. As a result, alongside bottom-up processes, organizations continue with their top-down approach, often leading to friction in practice.

Community-up

The solution lies in moving from either-or to both-and. Expertise is utilized from both sides. Professionals from involved organizations and people from society jointly develop and implement plans. This is what’s called community-up. Based on equality, all parties discover in a co-creation process how their perspectives reinforce each other and how each party can contribute a piece to the overall puzzle.

Common Misconceptions

Working community-up is really different from what we’re used to. However, many people look at community-up from their existing way of working, which often leads to misconceptions. Here are some common misconceptions:

“Community-up is another word for bottom-up.”
No. With community-up, “top” and “bottom” are both involved and jointly develop solutions. There is shared ownership of projects in which each party contributes a clearly defined contribution.

“Community-up means residents come up with a plan, and then the municipality foots the bill.”
No. With community-up, all involved parties jointly devise a solution and are collectively responsible from start to finish. This includes arranging any necessary budget.
Often, the municipality has the most financial resources. If these are used through a community-up process, it’s because the municipality participates in the co-creation process and discovers how their resources can be deployed in a way that optimally aligns with municipal objectives.

“With community-up, you gather needs from residents so you can better help them.”
No. With community-up, you’re not helping people. Instead, you enable residents and municipal employees, along with network partners, to discover how they can jointly develop solutions for (challenging) issues in society. Residents and organizations align their respective objectives and discover how they can reinforce each other.

“Community-up in disadvantaged neighborhoods is not realistic. Residents in difficult circumstances cannot be expected to collectively address a problem.”
No. The best way to overcome difficult circumstances is to contribute to them yourself. We have repeatedly experienced worldwide that communities have enormous power, even in challenging circumstances. It is our belief that by excluding residents from the process, the problems persist.

Fundamentally Different Way of Working

Many processes within municipalities are based on debate, while dialogue is needed for co-creation. Being open to each other’s ideas and connecting them requires an equal stance.
Additionally, many existing processes focus on maintaining control. A course is set, after which everything is geared towards maintaining that course. Co-creation requires letting go and allowing space for achieving common goals in different ways. Steering becomes more indirect: less focus on concrete output and more focus on “wholeness”, the effective functioning of the interplay between all parties.

New Opportunities in a Complex World

Issues in the municipal domain are becoming increasingly complex. To address them effectively, input from both municipalities and society is necessary. In practice, the system world of municipalities and their network partners and the lifeworld of people in society do not align well.

Community-up offers new opportunities precisely at this point. Community-up reconnects the system world and the lifeworld. By jointly exploring how a particular issue can be approached, the expertise from both worlds is used and brought together into an integrated approach in which both system parties and people from society play a role.

Because everyone is involved in the thinking process, solutions arise that individual parties would never have thought of. And because everyone contributes to the solution, all stakeholders feel ownership. That sense of ownership is the best predictor of sustainable impact!

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This blog was created during the Ecosystem Restoration Design training that Madelon attended in 2024 and is part of the PAO blog series for ecosystems, in which she shares her views on how PAO can contribute to ecosystem restoration and more.

In January 2022, I travelled in Peru from the Andes highlands to the Amazon region, by bus. Locals said the travel would be beautiful as the landscape becomes greener and greener, going from well over 3000 meters height all the way downhill. I was super excited to go to the Amazon jungle, as I remembered from earlier travels how happy the lush forests used to make me feel. However, the landscape did not become the type of ‘greener’ I had hoped for. For as far as I could see, there were only huge expanses of agricultural fields without any trees or other natural vegetation. I shushed myself with the thought ‘we just need to get some further into the amazon’, but even though on the map it looked like we were far into the Amazon rainforest, it did not look like it at all. Locals say ‘but on the other side of the mountain there is still forest’ but on the other side of the mountain they say the same thing. It made me feel incredibly sad and worried. The Ecosystem Restoration Design course triggered some ideas on possible causes of the degraded landscape and what Participatory Action Research (PAR) could contribute to addressing the complexity of deforestation and creating ownership among stakeholders to tackle the root causes of deforestation.

The problem of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon

When it comes to causes of the massive deforestation and degradation, the course brought me to the following possibilities (that need further research, though). First, cutting trees gives fertile land, so to farmers it makes sense to clear forest where they can (i.e. slash and burn activities), cultivate a few crops and move on to the next piece of land once soil fertility is too low. The agricultural fields I saw in the Peruvian Amazon are large, so I presume we are not talking about smallholder farmers here. It could be that the government stimulates farmers to become bigger by providing subsidies for machineries or free fertilizer. I saw only monocropping, probably because it makes economically sense for a farmer to produce and sell many of the same crops. Finally, if these farmers don’t own the land themselves, they will not be interested in investing energy in planting trees or other long-term efforts. Often I see or hear about dedicated nature lovers who work their asses off trying to convince local stakeholders of the importance of nature, leading to great deception when they are not being heard. The thing is, it is not about convincing people. It’s about hearing all different perspectives (also the ones you might not want to hear) and allowing local stakeholders to co-create solutions based on those perspectives. That’s where Participatory Action Research (PAR) comes in.

Creating ownership to tackle deforestation

To address the problem of deforestation through PAR, the PAR practitioner first needs to orient him/herself to fully understand the current situation. For example, how is land tenure organized? What does the law, rules and regulations (also the informal ones) say? You would also need to further investigate the climax biome, weather patterns, quality of the soil etcetera. Of equal importance, local stakeholders such as the farmers and their families, wholesalers, landowners, local governmental bodies, agroforestry experts et cetera need to be interviewed individually. We need to know their view on the current situation, their desired situation and needs, and what assets (e.g. abundance, manpower, things that go well) and solutions they see. In the same interview, it is important to gain insight in what motivates them to do what they love to do and to learn about their deepest values. That’s what we call System Exploration: the entire system (and all perspectives on the system) in which the problem of deforestation is embedded is being explored.

Once you have all their individual perspectives, you create an overview of their ‘shared truth’ and invite them to come together to reflect on this shared truth. Next, you organize new brainstorm sessions to facilitate them in finding solutions that all of them would benefit from, including nature of course (nature is a stakeholder too!). The agroforestry experts could help think along how to improve the agricultural landscape. I believe that in that way, a sense of ownership is developed among the stakeholders that motivates them to make the execution of their solution(s) a success.

And hopefully, when you travel from the Peruvian highlands to the Amazon region one day, you will see a beautiful lush agroforestry landscape!

Join our trainings!

Want to learn more about Participatory Action Research, for either ecosystem restoration or other complex problems? Join the SevenSenses PAR Practitioners Program!

Rather read more about PAR first? Order my handbook Participatory Action Research (in Dutch) here.

I’m curious to your experiences, let me know!

Madelon

Also read the other blogs in this ‘PAO for ecosystems’ series:

Ecosystem restorers: here’s how to get locals ‘on board’

What Cows Can Teach Us About Sustainable Change

And more will follow!

The post How a Participatory Action Researcher would address deforestation issues appeared first on SevenSenses.

This blog was created during the Ecosystem Restoration Design training that Madelon attended in 2024 and is part of the PAO blog series for ecosystems, in which she shares her views on how PAO can contribute to ecosystem restoration and more.

It’s fascinating to me to see what impact a holistic grazing approach can have on restoring land. By mimicking the natural behavior of herds and wildlife—calculating animal-days per hectare and managing cattle grazing accordingly—grasslands can recover, leading to spectacular increases in productivity. It can even help reverse climate change and prevent conflicts over pasture and water! Considering the current crises, particularly around water, I realize how incredibly important it is to restore degraded land through holistic grazing.

A Radical Shift: From Reductionist Thinking to Holistic Management

Holistic grazing is the complete opposite of the traditional reductionist approach of managing land.

Something extraordinary happened in my brain when I looked at the differences between the reductionist approach and holistic grazing. As if something clicked! There seems to be an exact parallel with the way traditional organizations work versus the new type of leadership that is emerging with Participatory Action Research (PAR).

First, let’s dive into the difference between holistic grazing and the reductionist approach: reductionist uses mostly annual crops, holistic uses perennial crops. Reductionist is based on monoculture, holistic on polyculture. Reductionist is about the manipulation of parts whereas holistic is about management of wholes. Reductionist is about command & control whereas holistic is about facilitation. 

I would like to share that with you! 

Traditional Organizations vs. Participatory Action Research: A Surprising Parallel

Looking at how traditional organizations work versus the work ethic we pursue through PAR, I see the exact same thing happening, where the traditional way of working looks exactly like the reductionist approach and PAR looks exactly like the holistic grazing approach. Let’s call it ‘traditional’ versus ‘PAR’. Traditional focuses on short term gains (“annual crops”) and often get in trouble later, when unexpected external factors come into play. PAR focuses on making impact last for the long term (“perennial”). Traditional is based on offering one (or small set) of specific program(s), service(s) or product(s) and optimizing that to serve as many people as possible (“monoculture”) – and then wonder why people don’t make use of it. PAR focuses on what is needed locally and adapting to that, meaning that the outcome looks different per location (“polyculture”). Traditional aims to make small, low-key changes to solve one piece of the puzzle (“the manipulation of parts”), PAR focuses on the entire system and the interaction of all these parts, in order to get the best actions for change that work best for all of those individual parts (“management of wholes”). Lastly, traditional has a specific outcome in mind and aims to control everything to get to that outcome, directing all actors to do what leads to that outcome (“command and control”) – wondering why they don’t do as they are told.

PAR practitioners do not know the outcome beforehand, but facilitate stakeholders in finding the way that suits them best in getting to an outcome that works for all of them. 

Learning from Nature: what does holistic grazing mean for the way we as human beings work?

Fascinating this parallel, isn’t it?! I think we can learn so much from how nature works when it is all healthy and flourishing, and mimic that in the way we work in organizations – on whatever that may be. Look at this: holistic grazing leads to restored degraded grasslands, improved soil health and protection from drought, increased biodiversity, carbon sequestration instead of carbon release, increased and sustainable forage production, reduced feed costs and better livestock performance and in the end economic benefits and empowered communities.

Now I would like to invite you to translate these benefits and think of what will happen if we apply the holistic grazing principles to the way we work as human beings in all that we do. 

What would happen if you apply it in your work?

Join our trainings!

Want to learn more about Participatory Action Research, for either ecosystem restoration or other complex problems? Join the SevenSenses PAR Practitioners Program!

Rather read more about PAR first? Order my handbook Participatory Action Research (in Dutch) here.

I’m curious to your experiences, let me know!

Madelon

Also read the other blogs in this ‘PAO for ecosystems’ series:

Ecosystem restorers: here’s how to get locals ‘on board’

How a Participatory Action Researcher would address deforestation issues

The post What Cows Can Teach Us About Sustainable Change appeared first on SevenSenses.

Nederlands, graag!

Last year I excitedly started the Ecosystem Restoration Design Course on Earth Day. Well, now that it has finished I’m even more excited! First and foremost because it made me realize how incredibly easy it can be to ignite restoration of natural ecosystems and let nature do the rest. I don’t need to be a biologist, nor an engineer to give nature a little nudge to restore itself. I joined the course with my Participatory Action Research (PAR) glasses on as I’m curious to see how PAR can contribute to restoring ecosystems and what that would look like. In this first blog I share my thoughts on how to get locals ‘on board’ of your ecosystem restoration project.

“It’s hard to get locals on board!”

The teachers – ecosystem restorers- often speak about the difficulty of getting the local community ‘on board’. They share tips such as: be humble, immerse yourself in the local culture, gain their trust, be transparent and tell them why it is important what you are doing. Although I do agree with most of their tips, I do feel there is something important missing here. It predominantly starts from the idea that local people have to join ‘our’ restoration project – in the form of volunteering, helping to protect the area or at least accepting our work in their area. But in my experience, most people don’t want to join other people’s project, they want to join their own project! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some projects where local people with time really started to gain a sense of ownership over the project, but I believe we need a different starting point to increase this sense of ownership.

Let go of YOUR plan

Here it may get a little tricky and if you have your project design ready and are super eager and motivated to start immediately, you may not want to read it (I suggest you stop reading this blog here, then). What I strongly believe is that the best and most intense sense of ownership among local people is achieved when you get at location without any specific plan. To let go of your ideas on what should be done when and where and how. To first immerse yourself in the area, join the local community activities, just BE there. Have informal conversations with people about their lives, and what gets them up every day. Once you feel you have a basic relation of trust with people, you can start having more in-depth conversations (or interviews if you may want to call it so) about what the area means to them and what challenges they face in using the area (for whatever that may be). What they would like to change for the better. You get to learn so much from locals in what works and what doesn’t, and in my experience, on top of that, people are way more open to your intentions and ideas once they first have been able to share theirs.

Let them co-create their plans

But even then, as a PAR Practitioner, you don’t explicitly share YOUR ideas (yet). You bring all the knowledge and perspectives -gained from your conversations with involved people- (anonymously) together and add yours (also anonymously) only where you feel it contributes to the total body of knowledge. You can do so by making one or more visualisations that reflect their ‘shared truth’. Next, you invite them to reflect on those visualisations together, fill in missing pieces of information, let them draw conclusions and brainstorm on what actions to take. What happens next is always so fascinating to me: when you allow them to do this together, they build upon each other’s ideas and come up with action plans that I (and them individually) would have never thought of! Although your initial plan may look different now, I am sure you can still achieve your goals to restore the ecosystem. But now with people who want to help right from the start because they feel it is also their project!

Courage + patience = ownership!

So, the title of this blog is a little misleading. To me, there’s no such thing as ‘getting locals on board of your project’. What would happen, if you want to restore an ecosystem and you can co-create action plans together with the local community, in which you can still do what you intended to do, yet it is conglomerated and merged with the ideas of the locals? Ideas over which they feel ownership and over which they feel intrinsic motivation to make it a success? It may require some courage to let go of your initial plan and some patience as you can’t start restoring the ecosystem immediately, but I would suggest to anyone who’s in the starting blocks of restoring a piece of land: if you dare, try it out!

Want to get trained in PAR first? Check out the different trainings we offer at the SevenSenses Academy. Or click here for a ‘quick and dirty’ description of the different PAR stages to go through in a typical PAR. Prefer something in between? Order the Handbook Participatory Action Research written by SevenSenses founder Madelon Eelderink (in Dutch).

There’s more blogs following up on PAR for ecosystem restoration design. Want to be the first to know once the next blog is published? Subscribe for SevenSenses stories! Add your email in the footer of this page and click ‘yup, I’m in’!

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People often ask me, “How do I get people motivated to participate in my project?” “How do I create support?” I wish I could give them a magical answer, one like, “oh just do this and then you’ll have them. Delightful, it seems to me. Unfortunately, the reality is different. First of all, people often don’t want to participate in someone else’s project, they mainly want to participate in something of their own. And that’s where it starts. So we have to put energy into making the project “feel its own”. Or better: making the project our own. We can achieve this with Participatory Action Research (PAR).

By applying the basic principles of PAR, we gradually build up the sense of ownership among PAR participants during the PAR process. That ownership can be seen as the feeling that something is “yours,” something for which you feel responsibility and for which you are intrinsically motivated to become active. In practice, you often see that those involved do not get moving because they are ‘ordered’ to do a project or solution that does not feel like theirs. This in itself is not surprising: those involved generally do not want to participate in someone else’s project, they want to participate in their own project! We have to build up that sense of ownership in order to get people to actually start their desired change in a sustainable way. Below are a number of important building blocks of ownership, all of which should receive as much attention as possible in a PAR.

Being heard. The first building block for ownership is, as a participant, being able to express your own perspective to one or more persons -PAR practitioners- who listen from genuine interest and facilitate you in this. For example, it gives -at the beginning of the PAR- recognition of the problem but contributes throughout the PAR process to the feeling of ownership. So, as a PAR practitioner, make sure you continue to listen actively throughout the entire PAR process.

Recognizing your own perspective. A second building block follows once the PAR practitioner shares the initial PAR results, during the ‘Insights Sharing & Solution Identification’ stage. When you’ve displayed this well, participants recognize their perspective in it and see the broader context in which their perspective is embedded. This recognition of one’s own perspective is an important affirmation “that it is allowed to be there” and thus contributes to a sense of commitment and ownership over the situation to be changed. So, as a PAR practitioner, make sure that you get a good picture of participants’ perspectives and allow participants to reflect on them and make additions.

Feeling strenghtened by others. In addition to recognizing your own perspective in the results, the feeling that you are not alone in this is an important building block. In the joint reflection on the results with the participants in a group you get this going. Knowing that others experience the same problem -recognition of the problem- and being able to reflect on this with them is therefore also an important building block for ownership. As a PAR practitioner, therefore, make sure that participants can speak out to each other.

Shared insights. Experiencing eye-openers, ‘aha’ and ‘eureka’ moments together, or discovering something you didn’t know before gives the feeling of ownership an enormous boost. This discovery belongs to the participants and they will appropriate it. This gives new energy and motivation to tackle the situation at hand. During joint analysis with participants at the stage of Insights Sharing & Solution Identification, as a PAR practitioner you give participants the opportunity to make new discoveries themselves.

Choosing together. In a PAR, participants establish a shared ambition in which the new insights are embedded. As a PAR practitioner, you facilitate participants in clarifying the desired situation and shared ambition based on their insights gained. Then, they make their choices together for -in addition to the PAR process- the directions for solutions and the form and content of the action plan. This is one of the most important building blocks of ownership. Participants prioritize and choose (that is, not the PAR person), so it belongs to them. This building block is most prominent at the Insights Sharing & Solution Identification stage, when participants make choices together regarding solution direction(s). As a PAR practitioner, clearly show that they -not you- are making the choices.

Empowering each other. Knowing that what you are doing has a positive influence on the bigger picture that benefits others and vice versa can be enormously motivating. This makes everything you do extra valuable and therefore very useful! That is why it is important for PAR practitioners to understand where solutions and actions reinforce each other. This building block is applicable from the moment solution directions are chosen, i.e. at the stage of Action Plan Co-creation and beyond.

Building a solution together. If, as a PAR participant, you yourself experience the process of building a solution direction into a concrete action plan, nothing is “new” or “uncharted territory” anymore. You influence the co-creation process and recognize all the elements of the action plan. It gets into your blood, so to speak. Therefore, this is one of the most important building blocks of ownership and takes place mainly at the Action Plan Co-creation stage. As a PAR practitioner, you facilitate the participants in building the solution direction together into a concrete action plan and make it clear that, as a PAR practitioenr, you are not co-building yourself.

Formality. Once the result of a nice action plan is there and participants are proud of the result, the next boost for ownership is that this action plan is made formal in one way or another: “it is there and it is really ours!”. This gives the action plan a sense of existence. This takes place at the Formalization & Transfer stage and can be done in many different ways; what is important is that as a PAR practitioner you let participants decide which way of formalization suits them best.

Appreciation. An important building block that is often overlooked is appreciation. Participants are proud of the resulting action plan and like to see that confirmed by appreciation, in whatever form, from the right person or persons. Apart from the appreciation that you as PAR practitioner express throughout the process and encourage participants to express, the appreciation referred to here as a building block is somewhat more formal in nature, is often expressed by an authority actor and occurs primarily at the Formalization & Transfer stage. As a PAR practitioner, consult with your participants what form of appreciation -and by whom- is desired and include this person (or persons) in the communication of your results.

Celebration. The shaping of the action plan can be seen as a success that the group of participants achieved together. Celebrating this outcome -being able to express pride- is an important building block of ownership. The joy that a celebration brings gives extra energy and motivation to get started!

The sense of ownership that PAR triggers, ensures that participants confidently take a role in the action plan and feel responsible for the successful execution of the tasks associated with that role. Once participants have been able to build optimal ownership and motivation and they enthusiastically set about implementing their action plan, one thing is very important: maintain that sense of ownership! Sometimes this feeling is threatened by authority actors who, with their best intentions, want to help those involved – the implementers of the action plan – too much, jeopardizing their sense of autonomy. For example, in municipalities involved municipal officials sometimes want so much for a (citizen) initiative to succeed that they take the lead and pull the initiative towards themselves, as it were. The participants then feel that the initiative no longer belongs to them, but to the municipality. In this way, as a civil servant, you knock all the carefully built-up ownership of participants out from under their feet, and with it the motivation to remain active. So please, don’t!

That is why we as PAR practitioners are keen on this during the Monitor stage. By monitoring initiatives, paying attention to this in reflection sessions with those involved, and making any authority actors aware of this, we can largely prevent this from happening and repair any cracks that may have appeared in time.

Want to learn more about Participatory Action Research? Join our PAR Practitioners Program or order the Handbook Participatory Action Research authored by SevenSenses founder Madelon Eelderink!

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“Madelon, what exactly is the difference between Participatory Action Research and other projects we do at the municipality?” Sometimes you get those questions that you can get hell-bent on! I was at a get-together when an employee of Gemeente Utrecht asked me that question. I took a deep breath and began my story, something along the lines of the following.

Being heard, but individually

A very big difference is often found at the start of the PAR. While many (participation) projects often start with “bringing stakeholders together,” a Participatory Action Research (PAR) starts very differently. Indeed, an important part of the start of a PAR is to talk with people individually, often in the form of a semi- or unstructured interview. In this process, the PAR practitioners do not determine what the conversation is about, but the person opposite us. Out of genuine interest and curiosity, we ask questions and let the people involved tell their own story. As a result, they often feel heard and that is an important building block for the feeling of ownership.

Brainstorming about ‘the shared reality’

Then, when we have spoken to all -if not as many- stakeholders individually, we analyze the conversations and create a visualization of the results. That visualization always represents the shared reality according to all those spoken to. We then share this in so-called focus group sessions, in which we let those involved brainstorm together about the results. There is an important difference here: whereas in many projects the people involved often come with the goal of convincing the other person that they are right, ‘armed’ with all kinds of arguments, with PAR it is much more likely that the participants come out of curiosity about the visualization and in the mode of ‘we are going to brainstorm’. By having stakeholders brainstorm and puzzle with one or more visualizations, we divert attention away from: “I have to have the best arguments.” This often yields tremendously beautiful insights! Here again lie some important building blocks of ownership, which you can read in the blog ‘Building a sense of ownership as a source of motivation among stakeholders’.

Co-creation of their own action plans

Gaining insights together and then co-creating action plans together that suit each of the people involved is one of the coolest things to be able to facilitate, because the energy that arises and the ownership and the desire to get to work is contagious and makes people happy!

We no longer have to try our best to win over the other, because we win together.

What a lot of work!

A PAR is often a huge job on the front end, because you spend so much time individually talking to all those involved, analyzing those conversations and making good visualizations. But after almost 10 years of SevenSenses (in March 2023 already!) and 15 years since my first PAR, I can say with full conviction what an enormous added value it has compared to ‘just quickly bring people together’. Below you can see a model I created based on the differences I see between top-down implementation of projects versus community-up co-creation of projects through PAR.

If you think of the horizontal arrows as time, you see that top-down project design is done pretty quickly, if you come up with something with a small club of professionals from behind your desk. Then you often see that those same professionals are struggling as they have to persuade the community to get on board with their project, or if it gets out of hand, even setting up complaint lines and arranging extra meetings where they get told off and yelled at by the audience. People are angry because they are “suddenly” faced with a project, which they feel is not appropriate. It is not for nothing that residents hate public participation evenings, because “the municipality does what they want anyway!”

PAR often takes a lot longer, but by giving all stakeholders the opportunity to help build a sense of ownership and motivation for the solution, the chances of getting lasting impact are greatly increased. Bonus: those involved often also volunteer to help implement their project. That way you often reach your goal much sooner and easier!

Of course, the above raises a huge number of questions. Because what if those involved come up with things we don’t really want because we already have a solution? How do you conduct such action research in the first place?

Now let me tell you SevenSenses offers trainings just for that! Like the PAR Practitioners Program, where you learn all the PAO skills and if desired can apply them directly in your own work under supervision! Curious? Take a look!

Prefer reading how to do Participatory Action Research? Order the ‘handboek Participatief Actieonderzoek’ authored by SevenSenses founder Madelon Eelderink.

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So many people, so many perspectives….

When dealing with complex social problems, we are often unaware of the enormous number of different ways of looking at the problem. Often we have a vague idea, such as “Pete probably just wants to make more money,” but that is often all. And then we are surprised that we can’t solve the problem! Or worse, that we want to act quickly out of good will and then get all sorts of people on our roof who had a different perspective…

Take a tree, for example. By itself, of course, a tree is not a complex problem. But it can be part of a complex problem where people can’t figure it out and seem to be diametrically opposed: “the tree has to go” or “the tree has to stay!” – and then we often have the “voiceless” we often forget about, such as nature, animals and future generations… This picture is a (surely incomplete) representation of the perspectives that can exist on “a tree” alone! Perhaps you, dear reader, know of others?

Tackling fast ends up being very slow….

If we want to solve complex issues, it pays to explore those perspectives first. Pretty logical, right? And yet it happens so little! Because it has to be addressed quickly (also quite logical in itself). But then we fail to solve the most pressing problems for decades. In ‘the best’ case, those involved are brought together as quickly as possible to find solutions together.

But those same people involved, thinking that others probably want something different than they do, come to that meeting ‘armed’ with arguments, attack and defense tactics, so that ‘their’ idea will win. Not so good for the atmosphere it seems to me, let alone for a constructive brainstorm and innovative solutions….

The facilitator often stands there helplessly, trying to calm things down, but it is a losing battle, because there is no chance of getting them to brainstorm. Everyone is frustrated and the solution, instead of getting closer, seems further and further away….

How it can be done differently

But fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way at all. As a Participatory Action Researcher (PAR practitioner) you work from the principle that everyone should first be able to share their perspective at ease, without having to defend, explain or justify themselves, and be heard in it. Therefore, in the first phases of the PAR, PAR practitioners often only have individual conversations and interviews with those involved, in which they ask them about their perspective on the current and desired situation, their needs, assets (things that are going well, abundance), solution directions and values. The PAR practitioner analyzes these and makes one or more clear visualization(s) of them. Only then does the PAR practitioner bring those involved together in a series of sessions, carefully weighing who would be best to meet when, in order to ultimately arrive together at a solution that works for everyone.

And then what happens…

At the moment when those involved first sit together in a session, the PAR practitioner does a number of important things that start an effective dynamic between them. He (or she, but let me stick with he) shows the visualization in which all perspectives are reflected, and thus in which the “shared reality” comes out well.

This is still only a rough representation of the results from the conversations; the PAO does not draw any conclusions from it and especially does not give any recommendations or advice. Instead, he asks those involved for their reaction to the visualization, and whether they want to add to it, so that they can then draw their own conclusions and arrive at solutions.

Perhaps somewhat irreverently put, but I always find this a fantastic ‘distraction tactic’. Where otherwise those involved are mainly focused on each other, fighting each other with the best arguments to let their idea ‘win’, now they look together at a visualization (read: their shared reality) and reflect on it. In addition, some interesting things happen. First, stakeholders recognize their own perspective in the visualization and thus feel heard and acknowledged in their perspective. Second, they gain greater understanding of others’ perspectives. Third, they see how the problem outlined is embedded in a broader system of causes and consequences, as well as assets, solution directions and values, and thus expand their knowledge. With these new insights, new possibilities and ideas emerge to address the issue.

From arguing to brainstorming and creating action plans

By comparing and matching the results in certain ways, they can connect the ideas and co-create a joint action plan from that.

Experiencing those “aha moments” together works great for starting a dynamic where all involved feel ownership – after all, their idea is also part of the action plan – and also feel like implementing that action plan together, because they discover how they can strengthen each other.

And even then it’s not easy – change is scary – but as a PAR practitioner you know better than anyone how to guide people through this, so that they can make the desired changes that make them happy.

Well, this -and much more- is the work of a PAR practitioner. Now that you’ve read this blog I’m sure you can think of situations – whether or not you watch the news – in which PAR can be used. Perhaps in your own work?

If you are interested in also learning how to apply PAR to address complex problems with many stakeholders, join the PAR Practitioners Program!

Will we see you soon at the SevenSenses Action Research Academy?

Greetings, also on behalf of the trainers,

Madelon – Founder SevenSenses

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