Communities are important actors in their sustainable futures but they are complex. There are some who speak louder than others, some who feel left out. Yet we need to be able to hear from a diversity of community members if communities are to be key actors in their sustainable futures. So those of us who work in supporting communities need to uncover this complexity and work to ensure diverse experiences and ideas are heard.
Conversations with communities is a way of doing this.
Conversations are part methods, part interpretation, all collaboration. They incorporate deeply qualitative understanding with attempts to co-create as much as we possibly can. Conversations are both a set of ideas and a set of practices.
These conversations result in deeper mutual understanding and when we combine these with a flexible practice we discover opportunities that support transformations to sustainable futures for communities and their landscapes.
More about this through my Blog (here), our Collaboration Spaces and on my social media. Let’s start our own conversations.
