entitled the Art of Participatory Leadership. Upon reflection I think it is interesting that some of the practitioners are moving from the nuetral language of calling, hosting, and conversing to the L word.
Leadership. It is a concept I struggle with in my work. To lead suggests a direction, a goal, a set of values. Yet many of us involved in collaboration shy away from leadership, worrying that to lead is antithetical to the concept of collaboration. Some of us attempt to offer our skills and resources to communities, because we believe that community-driven solutions work better. "We have tools to help you with your goals," we say. At least that is often where I am coming from. Of course all of our tools and processes are laden with values. To assert no values is a value in itself.
The Art of Hosting folks practice a wide range of participatory tools that are very much in line with the principles of CBPR and other participatory methodologies. The do this in the service of changing the world for the better. Moving toward transformative rather than incremental change.
I think their move from hosting to leadership, might stem from the insight that there are specific ideas that they value and they want to promote those values through the processes they share. I have had that insight recently. When in Omaha this winter I was challenged by a workshop participant that the policy analysis methods I was teaching could be used for anything - good or bad. That is a really important criticism.
So in my work I am thinking about two questions:
1) How to design a collaborative process for policy design and advocacy that is a true synthesis of traditional policy design processes and participatory action strategies?
2) How to bring a discussion of inequality, and race and gender in particular, into this work?
These are the questions that I want to lead others to think about. The processes introduced by the Art of Hosting folks gave me a chance to put these questions to others. That is the genius of it. Getting people to think on your hard questions, while you help them think on theirs. Inspiring each other to work together in things we, collectively, care about. You should check them out.
