Methods of Community Development
Project background:
During a 16-week course, I created two tools (one workbook and one worksheet) using Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), design methodologies, and the change handbook to help foster community building, storytelling, and inclusive contracting. This course began with a critique of ABCD and ended with a critique of the role of designers in community building.
Course:
Professor:
Duration:
Role:
Methods of Community Development
Maura Shea
16-weeks
Design Researcher
Research Method:
Research Method
The primary research method within this course was reading and critiquing the Green Book and the Change Handbook.
Using those texts I was able to develop two tools one titled Collective Storytelling: For a New World and Connect by Number.
Where did this lead me?:
My research lead me to ask several questions:
What role do hierarchy, power dynamics, and systemic inequities play in a community?
What is my role in relation to those points and what can be done on my end to dismantle their effects on our relationship?
Citizen responsibility sits at the heart of ABCD. How can ABCD modernize its gaze on community and what individuals feel they owe their neighbors?
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Final Tools:
Collective storytelling was a handbook that I worked on for the first half of the semester. I was inspired by several things but mainly by the potential that can come from work done at W.I.N.D (Women Initiating new Directions) in combination with ABCD. As well as Robin DG Kelly’s Freedom Dreaming method. WIND works with currently and previously incarcerated women in Chicago, providing space for them to use writing as a mode of self-rediscover both personally and professionally. This tool encourages previously incarcerated women to dream and build worlds outside of their current reality thereafter enabling them to see themselves and other incarcerated or previously incarcerated women in new ways.
This tool is a work in progress. Download this tool here.
Connect by Number was a tool developed during the second half of the semester. The driving intent was the question: What role does the designer play in relation to a community? I was interested in questioning how can a designer address power dynamics and hierarchy while offering their knowledge and expertise in a way that respects and acknowledges the knowledge and expertise that the community already has. The design of this tool was inspired by simple games like paint by number and mad libs both used to encourage play. After further feedback, this tool evolved to encourage “Inclusive contracting” which eases the discomfort of placing a designer within a community. The tool grew from one centering the designer’s desire to be placed to how the community can place the designer.
Reflection on ABCD
Pt1: If done “correctly” Asset Based Community Development fosters community, makes the intrinsic extrinsic, and finds ways to bridge people, groups, and places. The premise of ABCD is the analogy of a glass being either half full or half empty, but what this analogy ignores are the factors that contributed to this predicament. What ABCD creates in personal power, community enrichment, and connections, it lacks in its ability to acknowledge the systemic inequities that caused these “deficiencies” or “emptiness” they choose not to acknowledge.
The desire to gloss over the need within a community is an amiable subversion of the traditional needs assessment. When glossing over the root of need, its history, and the attached personal turmoil it ignores pivotal factors of the community’s journey thus far. Providing space for a community to express their pain and hurt can be just as empowering as discovering their gifts.
Pt2: ABCD is rooted in community responsibility. What can be done for those around you? What “should” be done for your community? This begs the question of where ABCD fits into today's society. The culture around community responsibility has shifted, and the desire to help thy neighbor has morphed into “worrying about your own”. How can ABCD modernize its gaze on community and what individuals feel they owe their neighbors? As our culture leans towards individualism, bespoke culture, and openness to individuality, what role does community fit into those identities?