Inner City Inclusion
Danielle Cohen, Transition Town Stoke Newington
One evening in November 2009 a Transition Town Stoke Newington social was in full swing. Meanwhile, just streets away, a young man was murdered. The tragedy reminded me once again that we were struggling to broaden Transition’s relevance and appeal. TTSN’s relationship with the community and my position within that became an urgent inquiry for me.
Like many inner-city neighbourhoods, Stoke Newington experiences continued waves of migration and gentrification. It is in Hackney, one of the most diverse – and economically deprived – boroughs in London. In the seven years I’ve lived here I’ve often suspected that although it is becoming gentrified (partly, no doubt, by incomers like myself), it remains divided. Expensive clothes shops and organic cafes are juxtaposed with Turkish and Kurdish social clubs and ‘pound shops’. I wanted to explore how Transition, with its emphasis on building community, might tackle this reality.
As my inquiry unfolded through interviews with Transitioners, workshops at the Transition conference and a collaborative research group within TTSN, I became increasingly uncomfortable that for many of us inclusion was about ‘what we [as Transition] want from people, or us trying to co-opt them into our thing’. I was hearing little about how to achieve genuine two-way engagement. There was scant acknowledgement that hierarchical power dynamics might exist between relatively well-educated, mainly white and middle-class Transitioners and the people they were talking about including. Inclusion meant ensuring Transition Initiatives were open, accessible, attractive and welcoming to newcomers and proactively identifying and targeting particular ‘communities’. While all these things are no doubt crucial to inclusion, the implicit aim was to achieve a diversity of people in the movement, often implying converting or assimilating an ‘other’ people or community to ‘our’ Transition way: morally or intellectually superior to ‘theirs’.
Social inequality, and the power dynamics that result from it, can only be tackled if they are first acknowledged. That is why I believe it is vital that as Transitioners we remain open to questioning whether the inclusive Transition we envisage is the right one to pursue. I would argue that some visions of inclusion risk implying and perpetuating hierarchical power relationships, as they can be unwittingly underpinned by assumptions of assimilation and integration. As one of my co-inquirers in the TTSN inclusion group put it, Transition should perhaps not be seeking to include others but should be seeking to be included by them. The challenge, then, for individuals, for TIs and for the movement is to find a way of being open and encouraging diversity without defining the people we seek to include as ‘others’, perpetuating social stratification, denying inequality or claiming superiority.
This article is based on an MSc thesis, ‘Reaching out for resilience’, which can be found at www.inclusivetransition.wordpress.com
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thanks Danielle
7 January 2011 - 12:59pm — Steph Bradley(and Catrina) My sentiments exactly. As I walked around our country last year, seeing and meeting people, that was how I felt, more and more.
There is something here for me about the importance of "starting out" as being an inward facing process, establishing a sense of identity, and that can take time, but that there is a point at which this starts to become narcisstic and the skill is in recognising the signs and making the move to be outward facing if we would truly say we are passionate about community building, for only as outward looking can we seek to blend our edges with those of other groups.
This is not to say that we shouldn't continuously remember to be facing inwards as well, for if we do not, we risk mirroring what we have been doing, at least in western society, for a very long time indeed; trying to fix other people's problems without realising that we might be part of the problem, and trying to fix external problems without realising that they originate from within our own psyches first and foremost.
There is work for Transitionistas to be done in this area, and it lies, I believe, in the Inner Transition realm; what will we find if we look within ourselves, from prejudices are so deeply engrained we didn't even know we had them, and how do these reflect in our behaviour and attitudes (often unconscious) towards others? Once examined, and discussed openly amongst ourselves, (there is nothing like naming something to encourage it to dissipate,) we can turn outwards and engage in a healthy fashion, and as you say, join in with others rather than expect them to join in with us. People listen to those who speak the same language, and often, once they have been truly listened to themselves, they will be open to learning the new lanaguage too.
Inclusion and Diversity
8 January 2011 - 5:13pm — marisamelIt is important not to inadvertently put up barriers. This may happen if people are thought of as "those people", people on the outside of Transition. I'm tired of hearing people speak as though people of different cultures and ethnicities are so different from each other. We are all humans, and are all in need of the same basic rights and necessities. All humans are concerned with their health and well being, and desire access to fresh and clean food and water sources. We all have a need for affordable transportation, housing, heating, and cooling. People all want a secure future. These are all things that Transition can help with. The fact that people are even discussing being perceived as a "white middle class", "hierarchal power" makes me ill. Presentation is the key. How Transition presents itself to others, and how others perceive Transition will create success or failure.
People of different cultures and backgrounds have so much knowledge that pertains to the Transition movement. People from many countries live daily with "reduce and reuse" as a way of life because it is a necessity. They have balcony and rooftop gardens because they are necessities. They conserve water and electricity because it is necessary. Therefore, immigrants of these countries have firsthand knowledge as to how to apply these ideas and can perhaps help us to integrate them into our own way of life. It is now just a matter of obtaining their help. Once we achieve this, I believe a natural occurrence will happen and we and they will become us, the Transition community.
For example, in my community there is a large Chinese community. Many Chinese here have amazing food gardens, thriving with exotic herbs, fruits, and vegetables and these gardens were created with trellises and containers made from recycled materials. Their knowledge of how to create these types of functional gardens would benefit the Transition community. It seems to me then, that it is in our interest to approach knowledgeable people in our communities, and explain to them in brief summary what we are a part of and what we want to achieve. Then express that we are seeking people within our community with skills that would assist us in our goals and that we would be honoured if they would pass on their knowledge to us in whatever way is most comfortable for them. Perhaps they would be willing to hold some workshops or presentations. I believe that instantly people will feel a sense of pride in their knowledge and their culture. I think people will be eager to share in this way, and it will immediately tear down bridges. Obviously there may be obstacles such as language barriers, but I have no doubt that a person in the community, perhaps at a nearby university, would be willing to help. We need to start being resourceful.
This may help to get people on board once their interest is sparked in this way, but there still needs to be more. I think it is important that a Transition representative seek out leaders in other communities, cultures, and backgrounds, whether it be a nearby Italian community, or your local school for the deaf. We need to start approaching people and letting them know who we are and what we are about. Then we need to ask how they feel this movement pertains to them and their community and how they think we can all best work together to achieve common goals. I think Rob Hopkins says it well in his draft on Inclusion and Diversity:
The Solution
Building an Initiative that integrates all the strengths and concerns in your community means starting with everyone in that community and interweaving diversity into everything you do. In practise, it’s about a lot more than putting up posters in a few carefully chosen places. Rather than inviting people to your meetings and expecting them to come along, it’s about going out to other people and listening. It means finding out about the strengths, concerns and the passions that fuel the fire of everyone in your community and then together with your own ideas, using that as the building blocks for creating an inclusive vision that informs everything you do. The result will be a just, fair and infinitely more resilient Transition.
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