Why trust and agency matter for collective decision making
Omar, our initial Lead Convenor, introduces our new wildly ambitious goal - Participatory Melbourne and what we’re excited about embarking on together.
Where are we now?
Communities are at their strongest when voices are represented, perspectives are valued, and individuals are empowered to enact change. At Regen Melbourne, our reason for being is to get to the safe and just space of our place. Despite the surface level health of some of our democratic processes and institutions, we know there are plenty of challenges. These include but are not limited to:
Political division, mistrust in the democratic processes
Bureaucratic obstacles to enacting meaningful change
No clear pathway to move from ideas to action
Ambiguity around what “democratic health” means to Melburnians
Too often, we find ourselves mired in bureaucracy, politics, and lip service participatory processes. We see public consultations and community engagement processes that feel like they're only going through the motions. We see a lack of trust, a lack of connection, and a lack of agency. In our co-creation of the Melbourne Doughnut, we heard that getting to the safe and just space requires participation, agency, and an equitable political voice. And we created a collective vision, one in which a Regenerative Melbourne is enabled - where our economic and governance systems enable our visions to come to life.
Though a great deal of community resilience can be seen on a neighbourhood level, that does not always translate to decision making on issues that have the potential to enact systems-level change.
We know that “active citizenship", "community agency" and "participatory democracy”, all are elements that we aspire to incorporate in an attempt to redefine the greater good. But how do we reach a new paradigm that allows for decision making across sections of society while holding the tension between the individual and the collective?
We know there are limited avenues for individuals to participate in the direction of their society beyond election cycles, which often lack a great deal of informative depth and are victim to the short-term influences. In a time where we are faced with existential crises threatening our future, how can we ensure there are ways of thinking that move beyond extremes? How can we allow people to sit comfortably in the place between “me before all” and “all before me”? These are the paradoxes that need to be held in place while we move into the safe and just place for people and planet.
Where to from here?
When we think about collective decisions, we often blame - or congratulate - individual decision making. That is, how members of a certain community made a choice that either aligns with our own biases and/or the future of the city/planet. However, we seldom acknowledge the system influences on uncertainties, anxieties, and mistrust that heighten the mental load for someone to actively participate in designing the future of their place.
Regen Melbourne is grounded in research and action, so we are embarking on an ambitious experiment to explore what concepts, theories, and transformational activations are at play in this dynamic. This is where Participatory Melbourne comes in.
Participatory Melbourne is a collaborative initiative between the Coalition of Everyone, Swinburne University [Australian Leadership Index], and Menzies Foundation that's all about building experiments and scaling solutions that generate community agency, increase trust, create connectedness, and inspire active participation. It's about renewal of our long-held processes and beliefs, one that's rooted in the principles of community custodianship, collaborative governance, and democratic values that go beyond politics.
At the core, we recognise that change doesn't happen in a vacuum based on individual action, but rather as an outcome of large-scale connections. That's why we aim to use collective action to catalyse systemic change.
Participatory Melbourne is designed to add the following into the rich ecosystem of participatory actions in Melbourne:
We are co-creating a participatory movement which enrols diverse actors and aims to enact transformation beyond “feel good” activations
We operate with a systems view
Our three main partners come from different worlds (philanthropy, academia, grassroots movement), which provides rich tension to holistically explore the challenge
All this leads to a stronger mandate to convene and act
Building a sustainable, equitable future requires radical imagination. Participatory Melbourne is engaging individuals across different backgrounds, fostering opportunities for collaboration on ambitious shared projects. By encouraging spaces to imagine and explore alternative futures, we can break free from the constraints of problem-oriented thinking.
Participatory Melbourne is emerging as a collaborative initiative that seeks to generate community agency, increase trust, create connectedness, and inspire participation for action. We believe that by fostering empathy, promoting a sense of voice and agency, and recognising the unique perspectives and experiences of every generation, we can build a more regenerative, equitable future for all members of the community.
If you’d like to find out more about this project, you can read Sam Wilson’s article to learn about the research interests in this initiative. You can also listen in to Liz Gilles (CEO of the Menzies Foundation) and Kaj Lofgren (CEO of Regen Melbourne) discuss the initiative and what this means for us in this crucial moment.