Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Communitas Philosophy 6
In recognising organisations as communities, we can then draw from systemic and ecological theories on the one hand, and from established principles of innovative community work on the other. Over the last few decades, such principles have been developed, quite disconnected from each other, in projects and approaches such as:
- co-operative enquiry (Heron, Reason, Rowan)
- Open Space technology
- social laboratories and group experiments
- self-directed learning communities (e.g. South West London College, City University)
- Future Workshops (Zukunftswerkstaetten after the futurologist Robert Jungk)
- Conflict Resolution models
- the tradition of community building workshops
- World Café structures
- Paulo Freire’s Forum Theatre and associated community consciousness raising techniques
- Deep Ecology group work (Joanna Macy)
- group work with multi-cultural diversity and polarisations around gender, race and other cultural identities
All of these traditions have something to contribute in exploring the question: What makes for a thriving community ?
Posted by Michael Soth in