UEP's Manchester-Salford case study informs Abi Gilmore's reflections on methods. In particular, Abi offers an account of a complex participatory project in Cheetham Park, Manchester which was a collaboration between the Manchester Jewish Museum, an artist-in-residence, University researchers, and participants from local community and stakeholder groups.
Communication Accommodation Theory Kaylyn Benton.pptx
Talking, walking & making
1. Participatory engagement methods and the co-production of
knowledge in Cheetham Park, North Manchester
Abigail Gilmore and Luciana Lang, University of Manchester
Understanding Everyday Participation Methods conference
26 May 2016
4. Development project for UEP research identified
Cheetham Hill
UEP ethnography and qualitative research highlights
parks as spaces for participation & cultural value, but
problem for policy makers, including Manchester City
Council
DIY Commons programme commissioned by Buddleia by
Torange Khonsari, Public Works; becomes Leverhulme
artist-in-residence with Manchester Jewish Museum
Researcher-in-residence scheme, team-building and
collaboration between PGR and PGT & cultural partners;
AHRC Connected Communities festival funding
Common interests in participation, engagement, audience
development andThe Commons
5. Commoning: the social practices of managing a shared resource
Located within sets of social relations “the object of a set of use
rights, multiple owned and embodying or reflecting the fact that
communities have many interrelated members with many
interrelated needs” (Hyde 2012: 19).
A verb not a noun “The activity of commoning is conducted
through labor [sic] with other resources; it does not make a
division between “labor” and “natural resources”. ..it is labor which
creates something as a resource, and it is by the resources that the
collectivity of labour comes to pass” (Linebaugh 2014: 13).
Conditionally inclusive and finite “Commoning is exclusive
inasmuch as it requires participation. It must be entered into”
(Linebaugh 2014: 15).
9. to develop a space for participation where participants could
identify and strengthen their connections to Cheetham park in
North Manchester
to trace the historical connections between the Jewish
museum and a local park, using methods which brought people
together using everyday cultural practices, mixing socially
engaged practice with anthropological and museological methods
to ‘safeguard the park’s future by celebrating its past’ by
developing social infrastructure for Cheetham Park, in response to
local governance & austerity
to foster participation in this social space (between the park and
the museum) and to increase participation in both the park and
the museum
Outputs included a website, a three-minute film, printed gazettes,
craft workshops, a series of four lectures, events in the park, and a
park activity with a local primary school
10. Arts & cultural management (Abi) drawing from critical cultural
policy studies and cultural management and on the ‘evidence based’
from UEP mixed methods; cultural planning drawing on resources
co-produced through public and community engagement and
knowledge exchange on the basis of the UEP research
Anthropological methods (Luciana) ethnography, walking, oral
histories and interviews – primarily participant observation, or ‘deep
hanging out’
Museological methods (Jeni) interest in artefacts and how their
entrance into/acquisition and position/curation within collections
articulates their wider social values and relations; use of crafts
making & film to explore and document these engagements
Social activism and engaged practice (Torange) – an architect
interested in social space and social infrastructure – using slow
engagement methods working with crafts and in public spaces to
engender conversations and reveal connections with space and site
11. talking - allowed the researchers to network, liaise, and negotiate
with stakeholders, and that involved talking on the radio, presenting
the project, inviting guest speakers to talk about local history, and
getting locals to talk about their relations with the park.
walking - helped to situate the park geographically within Cheetham
Hill and in relation to other local landmarks such as the museum and
the local school, and historically, as we walked around and talked
about the ruins of the park’s golden age, such as the band stand, the
water fountain and the park gates.
making - fostered a sense of collectiveness: by making crafts while in
the park; by making curiosity frames; by making a banner; making a
film out of stories; making music in the park; making tea; making a
fire; making a website; making friends; etc.
12. Oral histories – as process and for ‘product’ (data)
Talking and managing relationships, the distinctions
between ‘networking’ and ‘hanging out’
Networking & managing relationships: WaiYin; Growing
Manchester; Sow the City; Living Streets; Zest Healthy
Living Network; Greater Manchester Local Record Centre;
Reverend David Gray; Rainbow Surprise, Northwards
Housing Association; St. Chad’s Primary School; council
representatives and councillors ‘
Photo and object elicitation – using MJM collection and
social memories to encourage testimonies which help us
understand everyday participation in the park, e.g the film
13. Luciana: locating the park and the museum in local cultural
geographies
Bird walk & walk with Sow the City to discuss possible orchard site
St Chad’s & the Walking Doctor/Living Streets
Overcoming threshold anxiety? facilitated participation & audience
development
15. Making crafts while in the park;
Returning the park to the familiar, or staging nature - making tea;
making a fire;
Mirroring historical making practices – e.g. making a banner;
Making music in the park, reflecting parks’ participation histories
Long history of the utility of crafts in community engagement and
integration – e.g. Richard Sennett on settlement houses, and Addams
late C19 programmes:
“Hull House contained a floating residential population of people from
the streets, combined with more permanent, university-trained
tenants; the latter, influenced by Ruskin’s beliefs in the unity of hand
and head, taught courses in bookbinding, or they stage-managed
plays, or ran the youth-club…to rouse people from passivity the organiser
has to focus on the immediate experience (Sennett, 2011: 53)
18. Crumpsall History Society using the Manchester Jewish
Museum space as a direct result ofTorange’s residency
Consideration of threshold anxiety in relation to both the
park and the museum: audience development for MJM, or
rather raised confidence of the institution in programming
for different communities
Importance of time as resource – impact not immediate;
always ongoing
Development of networks – and social capital (Luciana
andWaiYin)
Environmental theme in the political agenda now
associated with the park – this was not the case previously
Evidence of participation – Manchester Parks
Strategy…but a long way to go
21. Feeling at odds with being an agent for community
engagement
Tensions regarding temporal dynamics: time-
consuming networking in a short-term project
conflicting with long-term participative observation
Different expectations/stances regarding top-down
and bottom-up approaches which ties in with the
'threshold anxiety' felt by people who wouldn't want
to be involved in a project with Manchester Jewish
museum
Different priorities given to the need for the park to
qualify for membership in an ecological network
22. Familiarity and naïve optimism with project methods
Project too ambitious in time-scale and resources
needed to recruit people and manage relationships
across wide range of stakeholder groups
Concerns about achieving outputs and legacies and
reporting them – producing ‘product’ (data, evidence,
documentation)
Frustration that multiple perspectives in project didn’t
align – shared interests do not always mean shared
outcomes
23. Different degrees of participation (from spectatorship to co-
production):
Participatory arts/‘Socially engaged practice’ as a methods tends
to focus on “process, not product” - makes distinction between art
which people may engage with and work which is made with
people (the engagement is the artwork – Ranciere, Debord &c).
Drama and theatre also has long traditions of methods for co-
production, design and participation
Growing acceptance that these processes can be designed to
produce social outcomes which happen to/with participants.
Museums outreach and engagement about working with and
reaching into communities for audience development often with
specific outcomes in mind.
24. Top down? Not bottom up – no locally based arts and crafts
people in the community, expectation that the university could
provide resources including experts
Different expectations about parks – expect authority to take
control of the park (e.g. compared WaiYin – more commons,
different, council owned)
Question of where knowledge can be held, curated and
whether acquisitioned into museum collection
“Commoning is a radical concept because it is not just about
policy: it is a personal and collective experience that challenges
prevailing economic narratives. It insists upon the active,
knowledge and participation of people in shaping their own lives
and meeting their own needs” (Bollier, 2016:7).
25. Outcome-focus disquieting to Luciana (less so Jeni)
as was not associated with normal research process
Ethnographic methods are doing research but not
necessarily 'making knowledge with'
Outcome of intervention always intended - but
naive in expectations from short project
However outcomes from project may still arise...
Pathways are established through stakeholder
engagement.
Tensions between different expectations of
methods allow this reflexivity