What exactly is Citizen Power. At first the notion conjures up images of people on treadmills driving huge wheels linked to an electric generator. Whilst I am sure this would play well to Peterborough's green agenda I am pretty certain that this is not the way that this partnership wishes to express itself.
To find out more I followed the link to the RSA's website:
What is Citizen Power? - the site boldly asks, to which it continues to respond:
The Citizen Power programme looks at how citizen power can and should shape civic and democratic renewal. Based on theoretical argument, action research and policy analysis, the programme aims to develop ideas and practical policy solutions for cultivating civic activism and reinvigorating decision-making in the UK. The programme feeds into the RSA’s broader work on pro-social behaviour and community empowerment.
So far so good...
Citizen Power in Peterborough - it continues…
Citizen Power: Peterborough is a partnership between a pioneering, active think-tank
(RSA), an ambitious local authority (Peterborough City Council) and an influential national arts body (Arts Council). The programme represents a new approach to exploring how the renewal of civic activism and community action might improve attachment and networks between people, build local participation and cultivate public service innovation.
Ok.. so what exactly does is include?
Citizen Power: Peterborough includes the following projects:
• Sustainable Citizenship: the role of behavioural economics in combating climate change - the green agenda of course.
• Recovery Capital: how the personal, social and community capital can help tackle addiction and provide the support necessary for recovery - I hope we are going to deal with all kinds of addiction here not simply the stereotypical drug addiction. More on this later…
• The Peterborough Curriculum: improving educational opportunity for and the civic participation of young people by connecting what they learn in school with the place where they live - how about the idea of making school more relevant so that people actually learn something useful by the time they leave such as how to maintain a healthy balanced diet or how to bring up children?
• Civic Commons: creating spaces for political and social debate, discussion and local activism - I like this one - activism is my middle name.
• Arts and Social Change: the role of the arts in creating a sense of belonging and imagination in a place - I like this one too!
• Making Social Media Social: how social media and forge new senses of community and opportunities for social action
• Civic Health Audit: a new means of evaluating local performance based on civic health
So thats all well and good but dig a little further and you find the crux of the issue in my opinion. The notion of citizen power embodies the concept of self-reliance and self-sustainability. But read Sam McLean's scoping report carefully and you will see where the cracks start to appear. Most notably the report states:
We believe that the good society is one in which common values match the concerns of individuals in such a way that no member of that community is denied the opportunity to be respected and earn esteem for his or her contribution to the common good.
This is actually the opposite of where a healthy sense of esteem comes from and is commonly referred to as other-esteem as opposed to self-esteem. The concept that you can esteem yourself in the eyes of others is unsustainable and can only inevitably end in failure as you hand over control of your sense of well-being to the public at large. This addictive behaviour is in my opinion the single most important behaviour that Peterborough as a city and in fact globally that needs to be dealt with in order that we can truly live more healthy, satisfied and sustainable lives.
But I am not sure if that meets with the aims of this group or we are simply here to pat each other on the back whilst powering the huge treadmill of "sustainability".
Tags: addiction, sustaiability
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- Comment by Ronnie Shahmoon on November 1, 2010 at 2:02pm
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Wonderful Sam. Thank you for your comments.
First of all let's assess the Green Agenda. On the face of it must by default be good. But for me sustainability must embody all aspects of sustainability. In the case of the Green Agenda the aspect that is commonly forgotten about is that of cost. If it a particular scheme is not financially sustainable on its own then the effect is that funding must be sought for it from other sources - which almost inevitably will not be Green which is how they are able to pay for it. So is it really sustainable in that instance? My opinion would be not. So I am personally not happy to jump on any bandwagon just because it happens to be painted green; rather select projects which meet all the criteria including financial ones.
Coming to the point on esteem. It is simply not possible to "earn esteem" from anyone else. That cannot constitute a healthy sense of self-esteem. In fact it can really only serve to validate our own projected self-judgement which has the opposite effect. I absolutely agree that society in general provides a wonderful focus for self-reflection.
Although I don't live in Peterborough I have worked there for quite some years now and my impression (please correct me if I am wrong) is that there is perception amongst some of judgement of the town as not being as good as nearby towns (eg Cambridge). This is the kind of comparison which I find ludicrous. Peterborough is not Cambridge and Cambridge is not Peterborough. The attempt to validate one via the other makes no sense. Each has its strengths and each its weaknesses. Comparison can often lead to a sense of defeat in on trying to be "as good as" the other.
Recognition is essential for us absolutely. But what people think of us does not empower us. It only tells us what people think of us. What we think of ourselves is where the power comes from. So the way that other people's recognition can help is to reflect on what we think of ourselves. And from that we can start to build a healthy sense of self worth.
On the point of not wishing to conform I am afraid once again we find ourselves in deep water. The will to "not conform" is in itself defined by the action of conforming. In other words if I do not wish to conform - first I must know what conforming is - and then I must do the opposite. If I have decided that I will not conform to what the norm is then my actions are by default defined by what the norm is. In other words I still do not have a choice. If the norm is to turn right and I am non-conformist I must turn left. The only way to be free of that actually is to have little no regard the process of conforming at all. Which is the start of being individual.
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Comment by Sam McLean on November 1, 2010 at 1:02pm -
Thanks for your thoughtful post, Ronnie. It would be good for us to meet up and discuss the programme in more detail. But such a post requires a response!
I can see what you mean about 'citizen power' but that isn't what we mean by it. Citizen power is people having the capacity and responsibility to better self-govern for the collective benefit of the many and not the few. If it were a talk-shop for nice, middle-class types to pat one another on the back I wouldn't be involved in CPP, and neither would any of my team mates.
That said, is the green agenda not a worthy cause in itself?
You're absolutely right, the idea of self-government is at the heart of what we mean by citizen power; it'll be an increasingly important capacity for people and their communities to have if they are to meet the twin challenges of public sector cuts and weak economic growth.
But there aren't any cracks in the argument! I'm not arguing that our understanding of ourselves should be or is solely determined by the perceptions others have of us. That quote is making two different arguments:
First, that everyone should have the capacity and opportunity to shape not only their own lives but also collective, social outcomes. To recognise parts of ourselves in the place in which we live is a strong indicator of this capacity. This is, in my view, an important characteristic of the 'good society'.
Second, recognition from others (our peers, our partners, our family, our society etc etc) is absolutely vital to how we understand and value ourselves, whether we like it or not. The point, I think, however, is not to succumb to the urge to conform but to shape our lives and the world around us so we feel more 'at home' in it.
People aren't hermetic creatures - we're fundamentally relational beings. The argument is derived in part from Axel Honneth's work on the 'politics of recognition' and object-relations psychoanalysis as a model for understanding identity developement.
Re the website more generally, we are in the process of revising the web content - the projects and the language is evolving to better reflect what CPP is all about and what it'll deliver. This will be posted up very soon. These developments will also be outlined in a forthcoming document, which builds on the scoping report analysis.
I hope you get involved in the programme.
Best,
Sam
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