Participation just isn't on the mind map

Why does a lot public participation fail? Doodling with some mindmapping software the other day brought home to me - again - that it may be because, for most people most of the time, that sort of exercise is literally off their mental map. Public participation, community consultation and stakeholder engagement are the stuff of programmes to develop social capital and community cohesion. Facilitators try and wow their public sector clients with their latest workshop techniques, and researchers gather them up into toolkits. I know, I've done it - but I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the business for reasons discussed in items here.
Nevertheless the idea of participation is one route into a number of civil society issues, and the other day I was doodling with some mindmapping software to tease out how they cluster. Click on the image on the left to see the result.
It then struck me that it might be interesting to redraw the map from the point of view of the participants - the people that facilitators try, and increasingly fail, to get along to workshops so that their institutional clients can tick the participation box on their funding bid. Click the image on the right. Various reasons are given for people's lack of interest in these exercises: fatigue through too many programmes; lack of trust in bodies; scepticism about whether anything will be delivered. The mindmapping exercise brought home to me that it may just be that participation is peripheral to the way most people lead their lives. They/we are mostly concerned with relationships - with friends, family, workmates, interest groups and so on. Public officials, politicans and their facilitator helpers are at the edge of vision, unless there is a big threat or opportunity..... new airport planned, neighbourhood renewal proposed, school threatened with closure. Then we get interested. But when we get the pamphlets, go to the meetings, do we find things explained in the same ways we might talk to our friends, family or team-mates? No - probably lots of jargon which puts the agency and the facilitator at the centre, not the participant.
I used Novamind for these doodles, and there's a listing of more programmes I found here.

Comments

[Michael L Umphrey]

This seems exactly right.

In my work with community leaders, I stress finding work that can be done first. I find people are much more willing to join work -- creating a neighborhood history book -- than they are to plan work or discuss work.

Who needs to endure another professionally facilitated process?