tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/community-organising-12019/articlesCommunity organising – The Conversation2017-11-06T19:22:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/840572017-11-06T19:22:19Z2017-11-06T19:22:19ZIn the ‘fearless city’, Barcelona residents take charge<p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> project, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
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<p>Almost every global city has a similar dynamic – a battle between the finance capital that seeks to make money from the city and the needs of the residents who seek to make the city their home. </p>
<p>Rarely do we see residents successfully push back against the power of finance capital. But for those wanting to know how this can be done, look to Barcelona. </p>
<p>I conducted face-to-face research in Barcelona and this story features in the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-1-making-the-impossible-possible/id1202828001?i=1000393176140&mt=2">first episode</a> of my new podcast series, ChangeMakers.</p>
<p>The 2008 global financial crisis was devastating for Spain. It had experienced a housing bubble, and the financial crisis turned quickly into a housing crisis.</p>
<p>In Spain, your sense of self is closely connected to owning a home. Franco created opportunities for people to own a home as a strategy to avoid revolution. Since the transition, parties on both sides have encouraged home ownership.</p>
<p>When the housing crisis came, the “Spanish Dream” came unstuck. Rising unemployment left many families unable to pay their mortgages and facing eviction.</p>
<p>Previously, if you were unable to pay your mortgage you sold your house. Now no-one wanted to buy those houses. People soon discovered how strict the foreclosure rules were – a little-known law allowed banks to evict if an owner defaulted on one mortgage payment. By 2017, half-a-million people had been evicted from their homes.</p>
<p>Enter the PAH, <em>Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca</em> – “platform for people affected by mortgages”. In 2009 a small group of housing activists and progressive academics came together to contemplate what could be done. They set up an organisation to enable people to deal with this situation collectively.</p>
<p>The PAH ambitiously planned to disrupt this eviction crisis. But this wasn’t an easy task. About 50 people attended the first meeting in February 2009.</p>
<p>In the first year, according to co-founder Lucia Gonzalez, the group first needed to provide a space where people could grieve for what was happening to them – and to shift from thinking they were a failure for potentially losing their house to recognising it was a problem created by bigger social forces.</p>
<p>The PAH also realised they couldn’t fix people’s housing issues one by one. The problem was way too big. Instead, they needed to create spaces where people could teach each other how to solve their own problems. </p>
<p>They held Monday-night assemblies where people who were more experienced with housing issues helped those who were newly subject to evictions. Through working together, people came to realise the source of their problems was public policy. And to solve their own problem, and the broader policy problem, they had to work together.</p>
<h2>Discovering the power of the public</h2>
<p>Then <a href="https://theconversation.com/postcard-from-spain-where-now-for-the-quiet-revolution-43779">15M happened</a>. Frustrated by what was happening to Spanish society, the <em>Indignados</em> – literally “the angry ones” – protested in their millions across Spain. The movement occupied Barcelona’s Plaza de Cataluna on and off for weeks. </p>
<p>15M – named after the day it started, May 15, 2011 – was a decentralised movement. As professor Joan Subirats from the Autonomous University of Barcelona told me in July, “there is no address [for 15M], there is no phone number”. It was a mass mobilisation, organised primarily using digital tools. In many ways it was a dramatic contrast to the intensive face-to-face organising work of the PAH.</p>
<p>15M lived in the town squares, and soon the PAH took advantage of those spaces. As Gonzalez told me, 15M “was a perfect storm”. The changemakers were able to connect the PAH’s deep organising work with the 15M mobilisation to grow their housing movement. </p>
<p>Carlos Macias joined the PAH around this time – he was invited to help “stop an eviction” where dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people would stand in front of threatened premises, risking arrest. The movement had come a long way once people lost their sense of shame and fear. Everyday people were prepared to take part in high-risk non-violent civil disobedience, and every time they won (and they won many times) they became emboldened changemakers.</p>
<p>But the housing policies that were the source of the problem had to be changed. To do this, they petitioned the federal government run by the conservative Popular Party to create a law to restrict the ability of banks to evict people who defaulted. They needed 500,000 signatures; they got 1.5 million. And much of the energy for collecting those signatures came from the mobilisations in the square.</p>
<p>They took the petition to Madrid and at the hearings one PAH leader, Ada Colau, famously accused a representative of the banks of being a criminal. It symbolised the crisis and propelled the PAH to national attention. </p>
<p>Colau became a symbol of the people fighting finance capital. The PAH, a community organisation, became the opposition in Spain, not just an opposition party but an opposition to the entire political class.</p>
<p>The PAH was unable to pass its legislation. The PAH then took a similar proposal to the Catalonian parliament. And there they succeeded. For a time evictions stopped, banks had to forgive the debts, finance capital was constrained. </p>
<p>And then the federal government appealed to the constitutional court and suspended the state law. They had lost again.</p>
<h2>Taking on politicians at their own game</h2>
<p>For some at the PAH, this became breaking point. For Colau and Gonzalez, they had tried every strategy they could imagine and it wasn’t enough. They began to think the unthinkable – should they create a political party?</p>
<p>These activists were the most unlikely politicians. They had openly talked about politicians as sell-outs or losers. For them politicians were either so centrist that they failed to represent the residents or so ideological that they failed to get elected. </p>
<p>Their frustration was that although, as Gonzalez said, “we had this big power in the street, the institutions were closed”. They debated among each other: could they build a party that was the political arm of the streets?</p>
<p>So they established a party. Barcelona en Comu was a coalition of five similar urban political parties in the city. Colau was the candidate for the mayor and a network of activists, several from the PAH, were candidates for the council. </p>
<p>The short story is they won. They won the most seats and Colau is now the mayor. It was a brutal battle, captured well in the film <a href="http://www.alcaldessa.com/en/">Alcaldessa</a>. </p>
<p>The team were seasoned organisers who used many of the strategies pioneered with the PAH. Yet the pressures of getting elected versus speaking your values, the pressure from the media, the patriarchal nature of the electoral machine in Barcelona and the all-consuming nature of party politics all featured in the battle.</p>
<h2>So what are the lessons from Barcelona?</h2>
<p>The legislative climate in Barcelona has undergone a radical shift. Banks and big companies like Airbnb have been fined, the process of evictions is slower and more consultative, and the city is building public housing. </p>
<p>There is a desire to locate the government with the experiences of the people. Colau conducts listening campaigns with residents, where she sits and hears residents’ concerns every other Friday. She <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-1-making-the-impossible-possible/id1202828001?i=1000393176140&mt=2/">has said</a> to Gonzalez (who is now in the national parliament):</p>
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<p>If it wasn’t for this (these listening sessions) I would be lost.</p>
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<p>But others note that change isn’t happening fast enough. As Macias notes, Colau promised 80,000 new public homes when she came to power but there are just 3,000 as of October 2017.</p>
<p>He emphasises that political parties can’t be the answer. Without the deep face- to-face organising work of the PAH and the mobilising work of many Barcelona social movements, any party, including Barcelona en Comu, could become detached from the people.</p>
<p>Barcelona’s story is that radical urban politics are possible. Especially in a crisis, representative strategies like forming new political parties perhaps are a strategic choice for urban movements. Barcelona is one of many places around the world where this is happening. </p>
<p>At the <a href="http://fearlesscities.com/">Fearless Cities</a> conference in Barcelona in June 2017, hundreds of city councils and social movement activists came together to explore the connection between electoralism and activism.</p>
<p>But it is unwise to presume that an urban political party can work on its own. No politician is above the pressures in public life that constrain and minimise radical action, as Colau’s record of delivering public housing shows.</p>
<p>If residents are to take over the city, multiple sites of social change are needed. This includes new political forces and potentially new political parties. There is also a need for organisations that work deeply in communities, like the PAH, dealing with crisis and connecting new leaders to political action – what I would call “organising strategies”. </p>
<p>And there is also a need for mass mobilisation, as we saw with 15M, where people from across social sectors and causes come together to advance a people-centred vision for the city.</p>
<p>But, helpfully, Barcelona provides inspiration for new political strategies in Australia. With our housing bubble, our inflated prices, with people excluded from the housing market, we may one day experience a crash. The organising strategies used in Barcelona may then become frighteningly relevant. </p>
<p>Even without a doomsday analysis, it is interesting to contemplate that perhaps new political parties – urban parties dealing with the urban politics of housing, transport and jobs – could be an innovative way of dealing with our own political malaise.</p>
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<p><em>You can listen to the first Changemakers podcast <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-1-making-the-impossible-possible/id1202828001?i=1000393176140&mt=2">here</a> and find other episodes <a href="https://www.podcastone.com.au/program?action=viewProgram&programID=8031">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Tattersall is the host of the ChangeMakers Podcast, which tells stories about people trying to change the world. She is also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney as part of the Organising the 21st Century City Project funded by the Halloran Trust. Previously she co-founded GetUp!, founded the Sydney Alliance and authored ‘Power in Coalition’.
</span></em></p>We rarely see residents of a city successfully push back in defence of their needs against the power of finance capital, which seeks to make money from the city. But Barcelona shows it can be done.Amanda Tattersall, Post Doctoral Fellow, School of Geoscience & Host, ChangeMakers, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/767192017-05-22T09:13:45Z2017-05-22T09:13:45ZProgressive politics can win in a post-truth world by making myths of its own<p>Much has been made of Donald Trump’s wanton deployment of myths in the place of facts in recent months. To the dismay of his opponents, challenging these myths with rational evidence or “fact checking” simply <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/23/why-fact-checking-doesnt-change-peoples-minds/">does not cut through</a> to his supporters. This disheartening truth-myth gap is playing out in reactionary politics everywhere, as anti-immigration and anti-Islamic sentiments (among other things) surge across the Western world and beyond. </p>
<p>Visceral and often unfounded narratives seem to resonate with the sentiments of large swaths of the global populace – and no amount of social scientific data seems able to dispel the myths. All this points to a fundamental problem: humans don’t make good statisticians and we’re rarely inspired to act on the basis of facts alone. What we’re good at is making myths. We are wired with an ability to combine ideas and observations into meaningful narratives – factually accurate or otherwise. It’s what gets us out of bed in the morning. But since the Enlightenment, we’ve been taught not to trust myths. Instead, the rationale goes, we should act solely on the basis of evidence. </p>
<p>This attitude has become a core tenet of politics too. Whereas mainstream political parties once derived their legitimacy from the ability to spin a meaningful narrative about where their country is headed, they now increasingly turn to social scientific methods to observe what people want – or at least, the wants of voters in decisive constituencies. They make the same calculations when formulating policy. This approach is thoroughly alienating, not only because it makes for dull politics, but because it ultimately enables a university-educated elite to ignore the real concerns of ordinary people.</p>
<p>Empirical, calculated politics just doesn’t work – and those seeking to stem the tide of reactionary politics across the world neglect the power of myth at their peril. Despite all our training not to trust these instincts, we still yearn for something deeper, and this is why electorates are so susceptible to almost anyone who can offer a story with some meaning. And once a myth takes hold, no amount of rational evidence is going to change our minds. </p>
<p>Instead, those on the progressive side of politics need to realise that myth can only be countered with myth. Myths of division can only be forcefully met with myths of solidarity. Rather than simply debunking the “alternative facts” of reactionary politics with fact checks, it would be better to develop counter-myths: of diverse people living together in harmony and fighting side-by-side for social justice.</p>
<p>The good news is that even in these reactionary times, plenty of progressive groups out there are already putting myths of solidarity to work.</p>
<h2>How it’s done</h2>
<p>One excellent example is <a href="http://www.citizensuk.org/about_us">Citizens UK</a>, who try to empower ordinary people to agitate for change in their neighbourhoods, cities and nations. They do so by working from the ground up, drawing on the ability of local institutions to assemble people into various actions, from street demonstrations to listening campaigns, that hold governments and businesses responsible for the difficulties faced by ordinary people.</p>
<p>This undiscriminating focus on what the group’s organisers call “relational power” means that any organisation can be involved in the struggle – a church, a mosque, a school, a trade union. By bringing these diverse groups together, Citizens UK is able to overcome divisions in society to exert pressure in the service of change. </p>
<p>The work of online activists matters too. Myths of solidarity pervade the Twittersphere: <a href="https://twitter.com/faithmattersuk?lang=en">@FaithMatters</a> cites cases of Jews protecting Muslims from attack and Muslims defending Jewish cemeteries. <a href="https://twitter.com/PulseofEurope?lang=en">@pulseofeurope</a> demonstrates people all over the continent rallying together to celebrate Europe’s common values. Even though the individual cases they point to are very real, neither account claims to reflect the worldwide norm; they simply offer exemplars, glimmers of hope.</p>
<p>The effect is cumulative. As people of all religions and none work together in common cause, they realise that only by working with others can they really challenge the status quo, and that what divides them is far less significant than what unites them. As people begin to glimpse of a different way of living together, each small action fuels the next – and in time, today’s actions will become tomorrow’s myths.</p>
<p>With small contributions to actions like these, whether on the streets or online, people can slowly begin to challenge myths of division with myths of solidarity. In a post-truth world, it is myth, not truth, that will set us free.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Stacey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rationality doesn’t bring people together to make change happen – but powerful stories do.Timothy Stacey, Postdoctoral Fellow, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/616992016-07-10T16:44:40Z2016-07-10T16:44:40ZHow clearer strategy and precaution could make mining better for all<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129526/original/image-20160706-12743-esc7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mining companies are keen to get to work in underdeveloped, deeply rural parts of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mining in South Africa is beset with controversy. The 2012 <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> was an extreme expression of this – but dangerous conflicts can arise even before a mine is commissioned. Mining proposals are often <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-05-04-wild-coast-mining-conflict-xolobeni-escalates/#.V3zL1Lh97IU">opposed by</a> neighbouring communities and can be <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-07-villagers-call-for-chiefs-head-over-plan-to-mine-their-land">hugely divisive</a>.</p>
<p>This sort of conflict can escalate into violence unless the state and companies take a strategic and precautionary approach.</p>
<p>This was illustrated by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/25/australian-mining-company-denies-role-in-of-south-african-activist">murder</a> in March 2016 of Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe. He was part of a broad group of locals opposing a titanium mine proposed by <a href="http://www.mineralcommodities.com">Mineral Commodities Limited</a> at Xolobeni in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.polity.org.za/article/cm-murder-of-xolobeni-community-leader-2016-03-24">responses</a> to Rhadebe’s murder fail to grasp two underlying problems. The first is that the state and mining companies don’t always effectively implement progressive environmental management policies. The second is that neither the companies nor the state seem sufficiently committed to avoiding conflict.</p>
<p>This needn’t be the case. The government, mining companies and communities can be brought together by a thorough assessment process before any ground has even been broken. Historical precedent shows that these processes can help.</p>
<h2>How it can be done</h2>
<p>South African <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/legislation/actsregulations">law</a> requires project-level assessments before mining activities begin. These typically take mining as a given. They also tend to fall short of a broader strategic assessment of diverse alternative land uses and development options, and how these relate to each other and to local communities’ preferences. </p>
<p>In 1999 one of us was part of a consultant team that developed one of South Africa’s first strategic assessments for a mining project. It came in response to a <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/south-africa/mining-paradise-caught-between-rock-and-heavy-">proposal to mine titanium</a> near <a href="http://www.centane.co.za/">Centane</a> in the Eastern Cape. The proponent, Iscor, recognised the controversial nature of the proposal and, to its credit, saw the benefit of such a strategic assessment. </p>
<p>Our job was not just to react to the proposed project plan but to take a broader view. We looked at mining as a development option in Centane, compared it with other options and examined whether it could complement land uses like agriculture and ecotourism.</p>
<p>Our report recognised a number of mining’s potential benefits, especially with regard to job creation, and the construction of roads and other infrastructure. But it also highlighted two very important risks. One focused on how the pristine estuary would be affected and the other concentrated on the very real risk of conflict – or even violence – if mine planning proceeded.</p>
<p>The provincial government set up a committee to assess the report and make recommendations. It paid close attention, particularly to the risk of conflict. This contributed to the project not going ahead in the end.</p>
<p>The point of such processes is not necessarily to stop mining. Rather, it’s to assess in a comprehensive, measured way how mining will interact with the local context and other development options. It also gives communities an opportunity to discuss their preferences in an open-minded way. Creating such a strategic platform can help facilitate, at least to some extent, <a href="http://reference.sabinet.co.za/webx/access/journal_archive/10231765/243.pdf">public participation</a> based on people’s underlying interests rather than on entrenched positions relative to a specific development option.</p>
<h2>Strategy through policy</h2>
<p>Since 1999, the South African government has recognised the need to take a strategic approach to balancing development opportunities and environmental management. The country played a pioneering role in developing the <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/documents/strategies/integrated_environmentalmanagement_eim">theory and practice of strategic assessment</a>. Local practice up to 2007 has, however, been described as largely ineffective and little more than the “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195925507001370">emperor’s new clothes</a>”.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/eiams_environmentalimpact_managementstrategy.pdf">2014 National Strategy for Environmental Impact Assessment and Management</a> seeks to place this tool on a firmer footing. It posits an ideal situation in which strategic environmental assessments “are utilised … with clearly defined sustainability objectives”. There have been several recent examples of such assessments in line with this new policy.</p>
<p>These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/mediarelease/cabinet_gazetting_redz">renewable energy development zones</a>;</li>
<li>the <a href="http://www.ska.ac.za">Square Kilometre Array</a>; and</li>
<li>proposed <a href="http://seasgd.csir.co.za">shale gas mining (fracking) in the Karoo</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, as these examples illustrate, conducting a strategic assessment – even if it’s done well – is not going to do away with the fundamentally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/02/frack-controversy-south-africa">controversial</a> nature of something like fracking in the Karoo. The point is that it provides, at least potentially, a transparent and well-informed platform for deliberation among different stakeholders. The administrative and political decision will then need to defend itself with reference to this deliberation, consistent with the notion of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Public-Reason-Society/dp/0415624681">public reason</a>.</p>
<p>These sorts of strategic assessments also ought to be used to guide decisions on mining before controversial proposals create conflicts between deeply vested interests and community concerns. But this potential is, by and large, not being fulfilled.</p>
<p>It is not obvious why this is the case. One likely reason is that many municipalities and provincial governments lack the interest and skills to implement strategic environmental planning. This is particularly likely in the poor, rural municipalities in which controversial projects like the Xolobeni and <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/anthracite-mine-fatally-flawed-1910804">Fuleni mines</a> are proposed. </p>
<p>A second possible reason lies with the national Department of Mineral Resources. It still sees itself primarily as a promoter of mining rather than a facilitator of mining within an overarching need for sustainable development.</p>
<h2>A duty to avoid conflict</h2>
<p>In the Centane example, both the mining company and the provincial government recognised the need for a strategic assessment. They also recognised the danger of community conflict. Both Xolobeni and Fuleni are lacking a strategic assessment. There also seems to be no real recognition of the precautionary duty to avoid conflict.</p>
<p>The state’s duty to avoid conflict and violence, and to avoid environmental degradation, is clearly established. A key principle situated in this nexus between human rights and environmental policy is the <a href="http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html">precautionary principle</a>. Precaution entails careful and democratic assessment of potential harm in advance of action, and a willingness to consider a range of options that includes no action. Proponents – not the public – are expected to shoulder the burden of proof, and to adopt precautionary measures to minimise risk.</p>
<p>Companies’ responsibility in these respects is also being clarified in international “soft” law. The <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf">United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights</a> insist that companies have a responsibility to avoid human rights abuses in their operations and in associated activities. Such human rights due diligence requires companies to develop <a href="http://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/Economy_ConflictSensitivityBusinessHumanRights_EN_2016.pdf">conflict sensitivity</a>. This also ought to involve a precautionary approach.</p>
<p>Both the state and mining companies need to be more proactive in demonstrating their duty of care. Indeed, some community activists argue that the mining companies are actively fomenting conflict and violence. In the Xolobeni case, they are openly concerned that the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-30-xolobeni-hawks-take-over-probe-into-bazookas-slaying/#.V2APwlf-0rU">police are not impartial</a>.</p>
<h2>Assessments are crucial</h2>
<p>These grave concerns will need to be investigated. But even if they turn out to be baseless, the government and the proponent companies are neglecting their duty to avoid conflict. Rhadebe’s murder means that things have gone too far already in Xolobeni. </p>
<p>It’s our belief that both the Xolobeni and Fuleni mining proposals should be put on ice until carefully facilitated strategic assessments have been commissioned. These should cover the environment and human rights, and establish locals’ vision for their own areas. Information from such assessments can help to evaluate and even reconcile conflicting development scenarios. </p>
<p>More regular use of regional and precautionary strategic assessments to inform controversial proposals is the least the state and mining companies can do to honour the issues raised by the late Rhadebe and his peers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ralph Hamann is affiliated with the University of Cape Town, but parts of this article are based on experience working as a consultant. He receives research funding from the National Research Foundation, the UCT African Climate and Development Initiative, and the UCT Graduate School of Business.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Hill is affiliated with the Environmental Assessment Practitioners Association of South Africa.</span></em></p>Mining proposals are often hugely controversial in South Africa and can even lead to violence. Better strategic assessments based on participation and precaution would help.Ralph Hamann, Professor, Research Director, Research Chair, University of Cape TownRichard Hill, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Assessment, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/463112016-03-29T09:26:58Z2016-03-29T09:26:58ZNo garden? Five creative ways city dwellers can still grow their own<p>With more people than ever living in cities, how do we reconcile our need for fresh fruit and vegetables with the challenges of life in an urban environment where the time and space for gardening are limited?</p>
<p>Thankfully, there are many ways to grow your own fresh produce in the city, which go beyond the traditional solution of the allotment. Here are just five:</p>
<h2>1. Create your own window farm</h2>
<p>Here’s proof that you can grow food in the smallest and most urban of settings. Window farming allows you to grow plants vertically inside your house or flat with the roots resting in water with added nutrients, a system called hydroponics. There’s no need for outdoor space or even any soil. </p>
<p>These “farms” can be as complex or simple as you like and there are now more than 45,000 window farmers around the world <a href="http://our.windowfarms.org/">collaborating</a> to find new ways of growing food. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111522/original/image-20160215-8211-1fk6zh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Save space by going soil-free.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25031050@N06/4575272044/">Jon Kalish</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Guerrilla gardening</h2>
<p>At its most basic, <a href="http://www.guerrillagardening.org/">guerrilla gardening</a> involves the cultivation of land that you have no legal right to use. As such, it’s about much more than growing fruit and veg, since projects tend to have broader aims to do with reclaiming public space and transforming derelict or neglected parts of the urban landscape. </p>
<p>At its best, it is a creative and inspiring example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/look-out-behind-the-bus-stop-here-come-guerrilla-gardeners-digging-up-an-urban-revolution-29225">direct action</a>. Think of “seed bombs” used to transform a demolition site into a haven for pollinating insects, or lavender and sunflowers being added to a traffic island under cover of night.</p>
<h2>3. Join a community garden</h2>
<p>Unlike allotments, community gardens are focused on doing things together with others. They’re perfect for people who don’t have the time or skills required to work an allotment on their own, and the the camaraderie of working together and learning from more experienced gardeners provides huge social benefits beyond the food they produce. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93163/original/image-20150827-381-1hrxva2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Gardens Community Garden in Haringey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/communitiesuk/4839980259">DCLG</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Community-supported agriculture</h2>
<p>So-called “CSA” projects are still relatively new in the UK but the idea behind them is simple: to create a direct connection between farmers and consumers and take back control of the food system from supermarkets and large corporations. Some schemes are similar to existing veg box delivery services where you simply pay to sign up and receive regular vegetable deliveries in return. </p>
<p>However, others allow you to be much more than just a “consumer” as you spend time working on the farm in exchange for produce. In this way, you can get some fresh air and exercise while learning new skills and meeting like-minded people. From the farmer’s perspective this also means a guaranteed market and extra help on the farm. Interested? You can find your local scheme <a href="http://www.communitysupportedagriculture.org.uk/">here</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93166/original/image-20150827-372-1y0rdwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You can be a ‘producer’ as well as a consumer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=B8sOyxD8YeiTRO9Ze0ynZA&searchterm=community%20garden&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=138371300">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Urban foraging</h2>
<p>Do you like the idea of finding your own food but you’re not keen on gardening? No problem. If you know where to look, urban areas also offer plenty of opportunities to find good food for free. </p>
<p>Parks, cemeteries and neglected canal towpaths often offer lots of edible species, from the relatively common blackberry and elderberry to more unusual tasty treats that you can use to spice up your meals. For example, hedge garlic – or <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/fi-bird/jack-by-the-hedge-a-readi_b_7048814.html">Jack by the hedge</a> – can be a fantastic addition to salads, while hawthorn berries and crab apples can make a fabulous jam.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116038/original/image-20160322-32312-1a48hif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Found in shady urban wastelands, ‘Jack by the hedge’ is delicious in salads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Saltmarsh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, you need to be careful about <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-five-of-the-uks-most-poisonous-plants-33970">possible contamination or misidentification</a> but, if you’re unsure, why not see if your city has a forage walk that you can join? That way, you can learn first-hand about what’s safe to eat. </p>
<p>Shops, supermarkets and restaurants also throw out lots of perfectly edible food every day. An increasing number of people are foraging in bins for bread, tinned beans or even beer. This hunt for ready-made food is known as “skipping” or “dumpster diving”. Like many of the other methods described here, it’s not just a means of feeding yourself but a political act that highlights the wastefulness of the global food system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Whittle is a member of The Green Party. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils or other public funders.</span></em></p>Essential reading for green-fingered urbanites and guerrilla gardeners.Rebecca Whittle, Lecturer, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/444182015-08-23T19:51:23Z2015-08-23T19:51:23ZPreventing violence: maybe communities know better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89286/original/image-20150722-31195-q5vlmp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A boy contemplates the guns handed in during an amnesty for gang members in Panama City. How do communities respond to violence?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/panama-amnesty-no-lasting-solution-to-gang-problem">InSight Crime </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A child in Rivera Hernandez is <a href="http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/status_report/2014/en/">85 times more likely</a> to be murdered than a child in Australia. Rivera Hernandez is a community in Honduras. It is just an example of the many communities around the world where crime, domestic violence and child maltreatment are killing millions.</p>
<p>International organisations like the <a href="http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01306/web/interpersonal-violence-prevention.html">World Bank</a> and the <a href="http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/en/">World Health Organisation</a> invest millions of dollars in violence prevention. All these organisations have good intentions. They also have big plans for quantifying the problem and for expensive and sophisticated solutions. </p>
<p>In the early 1980s, Manfred Max-Neef described his journey falling out of love with economics. He said <a href="http://www.daghammarskjold.se/publication/outside-looking-experiences-barefoot-economics/">in one of his books</a> that “economics had an obsession with abstract measurement and quantifiers”. He lamented that it had:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a tendency to oversimplify, as reflected by efforts to assume technical objectivity at the expense of losing a sense of history and a feeling for social complexity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Needs are created and articulated in fancy terms. Real people in communities are not part of this process.</p>
<h2>Meeting the real experts</h2>
<p>For the last six years I have immersed myself in the field of violence prevention. I met renowned experts from international organisations and universities. I participated in beautiful and costly seminars and conferences, which were opportunities for face-to-face discussions with investors and scholars. </p>
<p>I was also lucky enough to spend a lot of my time talking with families and children in San Joaquin, a <a href="http://courcyint.com/component/k2/item/64382-panama-more-arrests-no-trials-more-gangs.html">“dangerous” community</a> in Panama City. Gangs in <a href="http://laestrella.com.pa/panama/nacional/realiza-operativos-joaquin/23841433">San Joaquin</a> are among the cruellest in the region. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o1VA3RJaZM0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This documentary focuses on the life and resilience of the women in the high-risk Panamanian neighbourhood of San Joaquin.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even though most members in this community have not finished secondary school, our conversations immediately captured my attention. They talked like the real experts. They were full of energy and motivation for designing simple solutions, if only they were given the opportunity. </p>
<p>Some mothers, for example, said they needed to have their children with them while they were working. One of them provided for her family by selling mangoes outside the school. She said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People say I am a bad mother because I have my child by my side while I work. He is good. He sits quietly and does his homework. If I leave him by himself at home, he will go to the park and meet older men who are a very bad influence for him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Can we help mothers from this community get organised to design an after-school program?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89266/original/image-20150722-31241-14bkacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children in Honduras are 85 times more likely to be murdered than children in Australia, according to the World Health Organisation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mission_honduras/3324369729/">Mission Honduras/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Community-based participatory research (<a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2009.184036">CBPR</a>), action research and bottom-up approaches – as known in the academic jargon – are not new. They are very popular in many fields. However, the way CBPR is practised still faces ethical challenges.</p>
<p>In most examples of CBPR, solutions are still <a href="http://heb.sagepub.com/content/31/6/684.short">driven by “outsiders”</a>. They are the initiators of ideas and they use their own methods for building “inside capacity” – as if capacity didn’t already exist. Some might argue this is a form of microscopic recolonisation in which powerful experts make decisions that will ultimately affect communities. </p>
<p>Tensions between outsiders and insiders are common, which is reflected in low engagement and solutions with limited sustainability.</p>
<p>Would it be easier to prevent violence if we catalysed change from inside communities? Only if we talk in communities’ own language and learn to establish horizontal rather than top-down dialogues will this be possible. It is crucial that we remove “technicisms” that don’t allow true collaboration between outsiders and insiders.</p>
<h2>Community projects are proven but all too rare</h2>
<p>Projects truly driven by communities are rare. Could this be the reason, after all these decades of research and public investment, that we haven’t had much success in preventing community violence?</p>
<p>One successful example is the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J125v10n04_06#.Va7JFfmqpBc">Hmong Women Project</a>, conducted in the late 1990s in a large Midwestern city of the US. The overall aim was to explore the impacts of gender, race and class on the experience of domestic violence of women of colour in the US. </p>
<p>After encounters with different communities in this city, researchers discovered that the Hmong were the only sizeable group in the target area at risk for domestic violence. This was due to their history of displacement after the Vietnam War. Yet no services were available to them. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LxkHSJQYbB4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino features members of the US Midwest’s Hmong community.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As they approached the community and consulted members, researchers recognised that domestic violence could trigger memories of traumatic experiences in the Vietnam conflict. They became aware that the discussion of domestic violence was considered threatening to women and that their “outsider” status added significantly to this threat. </p>
<p>As a consequence, the specific issues targeted by the project were negotiated with communities. Objectives quickly changed from “domestic violence support” to designing support for street safety and emotional well-being.</p>
<p>This process catalysed community action. A group of Hmong women designed a support workshop for other members of the community. The workshop used <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoice">Photovoice</a> to help participants whose first language was not English. This helped them to easily document their daily lives through photography. </p>
<p>A year later, several Hmong women expressed an interest in establishing a non-profit organisation to respond to the multiple needs of women in the community. This example was reported 12 years ago. In the paper, the authors do not say what happened to this “insider idea”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89299/original/image-20150722-31230-hotl64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hmong people of Minnesota have rebuilt a community that was struggling after being displaced by the Vietnam War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/40960220@N04/5595477741">flickr/Ramsey County Minnesota</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Apply inside knowledge to local problems</h2>
<p>I don’t know exactly where the project took place, but I suspect it was Detroit because of the authors’ academic affiliation. Does anybody in closer touch with this community know the evolution of women organisations in Detroit in the last 12 years? A quick online search of Hmong women in the Midwest also shows great achievements by one community in <a href="http://www.mnhs.org/hmong/hmong-women-timeline">Minnesota</a>. </p>
<p>I like to believe that these achievements were driven by similar efforts to increase community empowerment.</p>
<p>In order to have impact, solutions do not necessarily need to be evaluated with sophisticated quantitative designs or disseminated in the academic world in fancy conferences. Each community is unique. Solutions should not be diffused globally and imposed in other, different communities just for the sake of having a “worldwide expert” in the field. </p>
<p>Solutions that are driven by communities are collaborative and horizontal, and use sound methodologies that are accessible to those inside. Researchers are just instruments for feeding back results to communities. This process needs to happen in communities’ own language so that it leads naturally to inside action. </p>
<p>The real experts are therefore communities themselves. Shall we listen and invest in them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anilena Mejia is an employee of the Parenting and Family Support Centre (PFSC) at The University of Queensland (UQ). </span></em></p>Many communities struggle with crime, violence and abuse, but they are not all the same. Those that look to local expertise for solutions offer hope in a world where success in preventing violence is rare.Anilena Mejia, Research Fellow, Parenting and Family Support Centre, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/371012015-02-11T02:23:04Z2015-02-11T02:23:04Z‘New politics’ announces itself in Queensland and beyond<p>The “new politics” of 21st-century Australia is much clearer after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-wins-queensland-election-but-lnp-refuses-to-concede-37329">extraordinary result</a> in the Queensland election on January 31. Australia’s new politics consists of three elements that they will re-write the textbooks. These elements are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the franchise business model applied to political party processes;</p></li>
<li><p>the community development model applied to political and policy decisions; and</p></li>
<li><p>the central role of gender politics, replacing the class and interest-group politics of the past.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Practice is re-inventing theory in Australian politics today. Labor’s electoral success in Queensland, ousting a one-term LNP government with a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/elections/qld/2012/">massive majority won only three years ago</a>, follows the ALP’s ousting of a Coalition government <a href="https://theconversation.com/victorian-election-labor-triumph-or-coalition-disaster-or-neither-34364">after one term in Victoria</a>. Attention has turned to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-ails-abbott-is-but-a-symptom-of-disease-of-government-today-37048">travails of the federal Coalition</a>, which is struggling to govern beyond a single term.</p>
<h2>Franchise model comes to politics</h2>
<p>The lessons are clear to all who follow politics closely. The old model of a centralised presidential-style campaign built around the party leader is finished. </p>
<p>Victorian Premier <a href="https://theconversation.com/victorians-look-set-to-elect-unlikely-premier-no-3-34431">Daniel Andrews</a> and Queensland ALP leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-annastacia-palaszczuk-queenslands-likely-next-premier-37023">Annastacia Palaszczuk</a> are the least likely leaders. Both acknowledge their inadequacies and express massive gratitude to their local and community supporters. </p>
<p>Andrews <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-29/daniel-andrews-delivers-victory-speech-to-party/5928494">emphasised</a> the key role of ambulance personnel and trade unionists in mobilising local people for effective local campaigns. Palaszczuk and her victorious colleagues talk of local contests, communities and issues.</p>
<p>This lesson will be hard to swallow in editorial offices and interest-group boardrooms, but the lesson is clear. The ALP has found a way to win in the 21st century that does not involve top-down party autocrats’ single-handedly running the campaign from head office.</p>
<p>Ironically, when the ink is barely dry on books by commentators like <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/149038">Paul Kelly</a> claiming the ALP brand is tarnished, Labor has won handsomely.</p>
<p>The key is that the ALP has found a new way to conduct party politics. It is a franchise model adopted by new successful (and some failed) companies in business in the last 40 years. The franchisor provides a framework, some branding, finance and logistical support, but the effort and the decisions are made locally by local candidates and local people. </p>
<p>The model does not require a presidential leader or self-appointed factional strongmen. The ALP has worked its way through the factional numbers men and come out the other side with a new form of party politics.</p>
<p>Ironically, it is the very relationship with the union movement, much criticised by Kelly and others, that has helped Labor find the franchise model. It started with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorkChoices#Political_reactions_and_consequences">campaign against “WorkChoices”</a>: the ALP and the union movement worked in their own separate spheres but with an agreed process and set of outcomes in mind.</p>
<p>The separate nature of the ALP and the union movement, along with the diminishing power of key unions (AWU, ETU etc) to dictate to parliamentarians at state branch level plus the complexity of the issues, has made franchising a natural and easy model for the ALP. The party has no alternative but to work collaboratively with the union movement. </p>
<p>Having pioneered it against WorkChoices, the ALP has now exported the franchise model to its local electoral divisions in the party structure. This is what we have seen in Victoria and Queensland; the franchise business model applied to political party processes.</p>
<h2>Local communities get a say again</h2>
<p>The community development model complements the franchising of party politics, because this model calls for grassroots decision-making. The model is one of radical local engagement and empowerment in the messages that are adopted and transmitted, shared ownership of decisions by all those impacted and consultation, consultation, consultation. </p>
<p>In Victoria and Queensland, Labor enlisted the support of local trade unionists to talk and engage with local community members and candidates. They conducted intensive talkfests to test the mood – a “people’s barometer” – before any local position was adopted. No more can campaign headquarters lay down three key messages and impose iron discipline to have these adopted across the party.</p>
<p>Community development does not support the great man theory of political leadership, nor does it privilege the economic or the technocrat expressed as somehow wiser than local people. Political leadership as exercised by John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Campbell Newman and probably Tony Abbott is incompatible with the engagement and empowerment of local communities.</p>
<p>No doubt community development in political and policy decisions reflects the revolution in our personal and social lives <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-tony-abbott-you-cant-dismiss-social-media-as-electronic-graffiti-36819">brought about by social media</a>. We need “friends” to share our personal and social experiences and we now need grassroots empowerment to make political and policy decisions.</p>
<h2>Gender revolution breaks down patriarchy</h2>
<p>The third change is even more substantial than the first two and perfectly compatible with them. This is the unstoppable gendering of our politics in the 21st century. Julia Gillard was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/julia-gillard-hits-back-at-a-long-history-of-sexism-in-parliament-10071">midwife of this change</a> and Palaszczuk is the beneficiary. </p>
<p>Again, the ALP has been the first to grasp this revolution. This is not because they thought it through, but simply because gendering is the underpinning of the franchise model of party politics and the community development model of political and policy decisions. This is because these two models break down patriarchal institutions – parties, public service departments, news media and interest groups - and empower the female half of the population.</p>
<p>The patriarchy knows what is happening but can do nothing about it. Kelly, in his updated introduction to his recent book, Triumph and Demise, calls Julia Gillard’s claims of being discriminated against in politics because she is a woman, “nonsense”. </p>
<p>But in the 21st century, the “nonsense” is the sweeping top-down institutional judgements of the political and interest-group establishment who have not found a way to maintain their own power in institutional form and embrace the empowerment and engagement of people on social media. The world has changed.</p>
<p>The Queensland and Victorian election results have created a new politics that leaves the party hierarchy, the top-down powerbrokers and many old men, especially in the Coalition, confused and disoriented. The ALP is the first political party in Australia to run the new models and the result is sensational electoral success.</p>
<p>A crucial question, however, is this: can the ALP govern, as opposed to campaigning, in a way that is compatible with the new politics?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Other articles in The Conversation’s ongoing series, “New Politics”, can be read <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/new-politics">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randal G Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The “new politics” of 21st-century Australia is much clearer after the extraordinary result in the Queensland election on January 31. Australia’s new politics consists of three elements that they will…Randal G Stewart, Lecturer in Public Sector Management, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/307552014-08-25T04:22:32Z2014-08-25T04:22:32ZReasserting the public interest from Australians’ kitchen tables<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57109/original/2vv5rrxz-1408665655.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Last year's election of federal independent MP Cathy McGowan as a result of Voices 4 Indi's kitchen table campaign was a spectacular demonstration of the potential power of this model of community engagement. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=774557502589599&set=o.443440975703357&type=1&theater">Voices4Indi/Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Grassroots common sense and decency lie at the heart of two growing movements to reassert the voice of the people in the management of our local and national affairs. <a href="http://transitionleader.net/wp-content/uploads/Kitchen-Table-Conversations-Manual.pdf">Kitchen table conversations</a> and community organising could perhaps help to reinvigorate Australian democracy.</p>
<p>We need to ask: who speaks for the “public interest”, shorthand for the welfare and wellbeing of the general public? </p>
<p>The interests of the giant corporations and the mining industry are well articulated and lobbied. For various reasons, our representatives listen assiduously to them. But who speaks for the future welfare and wellbeing of our children? We need to invest in both kitchen table conversations and community organising to restore some balance to the political equation.</p>
<h2>Pioneering successes in Australia</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.see-change.org.au/">SEE-Change ACT</a> recently sponsored a “Kitchen Table Conversations” workshop led by Mary Crooks, the executive director of the <a href="http://vwt.org.au/">Victorian Women’s Trust</a>. The trust has been influential in three programs that have successfully employed this model in recent years.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/1999/cro99176.pdf">Purple Sage project</a> in 1998 resulted in 800 groups across Victoria meeting to discuss their aspirations and concerns about what was happening in that state, then under the leadership of Jeff Kennett. Some commentators have concluded that the Purple Sage discussions <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s31489.htm">played an important role</a> in the Kennett government losing what had previously been considered to be an unloseable election.</p>
<p>The Women’s Trust then modified the method to explore water policy. The <a href="http://www.watermark.org.au">Watermark</a> team worked with water experts to produce succinct summaries of the technical issues. These were used by hundreds of groups across Victoria who met on several occasions and fed their conclusions back to the team. </p>
<p>People from thousands of households around Victoria were thus involved in active discussions about water policy. This resulted in a community-owned, state-of-the-art report, which has influenced policy around Australia.</p>
<p>Then, last year, the electorate of Indi in Victoria <a href="http://www.voiceforindi.com/report_info">embarked on a kitchen table campaign</a> to focus attention on the genuine concerns and aspirations of the people, as opposed to the issues that federal politicians were promoting. This was the election that <a href="http://www.cathymcgowan.com.au/the_story">brought out Cathy McGowan</a> as an independent candidate. She won the seat with a swing of 9% against Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella in an election that elsewhere the Coalition won handsomely.</p>
<h2>How does the kitchen table model work?</h2>
<p>The kitchen table model is a process in which a volunteer host invites eight or nine people. They spend two or three hours in a discussion around either a general or specific question.</p>
<p>There are a few basic ground rules. Everyone gets to have their say and the group listens with respect, whatever their views on the subject. A scribe prepares a summary of the discussion, which is passed on to a co-ordinating group.</p>
<p>The conversations may take place in homes, cafes or clubs. They may be among neighbours, friends or acquaintances. The question that drives the discussion can be as broad as “What is important to you about the next five years in Canberra?” or as narrow as “How do you respond to this two-page summary about current Australian policy on irregular boat arrivals of asylum seekers and refugees?”</p>
<p>These are socially enjoyable discussions that involve people sharing themselves and becoming empowered by their enhanced understanding of the issue and the views of their fellow participants.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_OpOkVeY_d0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Latrobe Valley is one of many communities to adopt the kitchen table model.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tackling the imbalance of power</h2>
<p>In a 2010 book, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9279.html">Blessed Are the Organised: Grassroots Democracy in America</a>, Jeffrey Stout wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The imbalance of power between ordinary citizens and the new ruling class has reached crisis proportions. The crisis will not be resolved happily unless many more institutions and communities commit themselves to getting democratically organised and unless effective vehicles of accountability are constructed at many levels of social complexity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Stout’s comments also apply to Australia today.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57110/original/hdhkjb5w-1408666553.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barack Obama devoted nearly one-third of his memoir, Dreams From My Father, to what he learnt as a Chicago community organiser.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Community organising has been an identifiable profession in America for decades. Barack Obama began his working life as a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/us/politics/07community.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">community organiser in Chicago</a>. The central feature of community organisation is the brokering of alliances between organisations such as faith groups, trade unions, schools, environmental advocacy and civil society groups.</p>
<p>The organiser helps to build trust across groups through facilitated dialogue sessions. The alliance acts as a public interest group to lobby governments on issues of broad public concern.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/">Sydney Alliance</a> is Australia’s most developed example of this kind of community organising. It has three full-time organisers and is beginning to make waves on issues of state and metropolitan importance.</p>
<p>Many organisations including NGOs, faith groups, unions, environmental groups and professional lobbies claim to speak for the welfare and well-being of the general public. But they seldom speak with one voice and pool their resources to effect or oppose policy change with anything like the single-mindedness of, for instance, the <a href="http://www.bca.com.au/about-us">Business Council of Australia</a> (BCA). Groups like the BCA play a key role in defending the interests of the corporate sector.</p>
<p>Perhaps Australia needs a new non-government structure to coordinate debate and act on a range of pressing issues in the public interest. The “business as usual” lobbies are co-ordinated, cashed up and have a highly sophisticated mechanism to spring into action whenever a whiff of reform is in the air.</p>
<p>Community organising and kitchen table conversations could perhaps provide the infrastructure for a future Public Interest Council Of Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Douglas is a director of Australia21 (<a href="http://www.australia21.org.au">www.australia21.org.au</a>) and a member of SEE-Change (<a href="http://www.see-change.org.au">www.see-change.org.au</a>). Both groups are developing kitchen table initiatives and Australia21 is exploring structures that could better articulate the public interest.</span></em></p>Grassroots common sense and decency lie at the heart of two growing movements to reassert the voice of the people in the management of our local and national affairs. Kitchen table conversations and community…Robert Douglas, Emeritus Professor National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/300512014-08-25T01:50:28Z2014-08-25T01:50:28ZCommunity organising aims to win back civil society’s rightful place<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56897/original/743ptq4q-1408517056.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Sydney Alliance's founding assembly in 2011 filled the Town Hall with people eager to put community back into politics.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://citiesandcitizenship.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/coalition-building-in-city-sydney.html">Kurt Iveson/citiesandcitizenship.blogspot.com.au</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the Second World War, <a href="http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-return-of-karl-polanyi">Karl Polanyi</a> wrote that the public arena is made up of three interconnected sectors: the market, government and civil society. He argued that democracy thrives when these three are in balance. </p>
<p>If only that were the case today. Since the late 1980s, the global influence of the market sector has increased and, at the same time, civil society has decreased. </p>
<p>This can be felt every day in Australia’s cities. We see it in declining investment in community infrastructure – everything from a <a href="https://theconversation.com/driven-to-despair-in-australias-outer-suburbs-1435">lack of public transport</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-isnt-housing-affordability-an-election-issue-17371">unaffordable housing</a>. </p>
<p>First in Sydney, then in other Australian cities, as well as across the world, civil society organisations – like churches, schools, unions, community and religious organisations – are rebuilding the power of civil society using community organising. </p>
<p>Community organising is a way of working that trains and builds citizen leaders inside community-based organisations. Community organisers argue that in order to fix our cities we need to fix our democracy. That means we need to build strong and vibrant civil society organisations that act for the common good.</p>
<p>Chicago-born <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky">Saul Alinsky</a> was the grandfather of community organising. He first organised immigrants and industrial workers into a diverse coalition named the <a href="http://bync.org/about/">Back of the Yards Neighbourhood Council</a> in the late 1930s. Alinksy created the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Areas_Foundation">Industrial Areas Foundation</a> (IAF) to spread this success.</p>
<p>Today, community organising coalitions can be found in more than 60 cities in countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.</p>
<h2>The Sydney experience</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/">Sydney Alliance</a> translated community organising to Australia. The alliance was built slowly between 2007 and 2011, with a focus on one-to-one meetings across a remarkably diverse array of partners. These include the Catholic Church, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Cancer Council, the Uniting Church, Arab Council and the nurses’ union, among others.</p>
<p>Partner organisations fund the Sydney Alliance and supply the people who lead it. These leaders are supported by a small team of community organisers.</p>
<p>Community organising borrows from traditions as diverse as <a href="http://www.socialjustice.catholic.org.au/social-teaching">Catholic social teaching</a>, the <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Caring_For_Others/Caring_for_Others_101.shtml">Jewish self-help tradition</a> and union action. The alliance’s extensive community organising training uses texts as diverse as the Bible and Greek philosophy, then mixes those traditions with the experiences of social coalitions like Sydney’s <a href="http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/green_bans_movement">Green Bans movement</a> and modern-day heros like Gandhi.</p>
<p>The alliance’s first campaigns were local. The first victory was in Liverpool, in south-western Sydney, where community leaders from religious, union and community organisations advocated for the creation of “15-minute drop-off zones” outside six medical centres in Liverpool City. </p>
<p>In Glebe, churches and unions teamed up with the Glebe Youth Service to create local jobs for young indigenous men and women living in Glebe’s public housing estate. In 2013, this culminated in a 350-person assembly where Mirvac CEO John Carfi agreed to create an <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/workingstart">apprenticeship program</a> for local men and women at the Harold Park Housing Development.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56896/original/653b7qg6-1408516723.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sydney Alliance uses community organising to restore the voice of civil society in our democracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://wsptu.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/sydney-alliance-moves-ahead-with.html">Western Sydney Public Transport Users Inc.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the 2015 NSW state election looming, the alliance spent 2013 running listening campaigns across the city. This work produced our election agenda, which <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/sydney_alliance_launches_its_election_agenda">was launched</a> on March 26 at Sydney Town Hall. About 1500 leaders from the alliance’s 49 partner organisations came together to commit to running public campaigns that could improve transport, housing and job opportunities.</p>
<p>The proposed solutions included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>dropping the extra <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/airport_fare_cap_a_step_forward_for_casual_workers">charges on the airport train line</a> to reduce congestion and <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/transport">make public transport accessible</a>;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/housing_targets_faqs">setting targets</a> for affordable community and <a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-poor-in-australia-what-has-happened-to-public-housing-9853">public housing</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>funding a pilot employment support worker program to reduce youth unemployment by helping people from disadvantaged communities get and keep jobs;</p></li>
<li><p>making every train station disability- and pram-accessible by 2020.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The alliance will hold a campaign of suburban assemblies in Sutherland-St George, Western Sydney, North Shore and Nepean. The campaign will climax with a 3000-person Accountability Assembly – most likely at the Opera House. The NSW premier will be invited to tell the assembly what he has done to progress each of these issues after 100 days in office.</p>
<h2>Making leaders and building relationships</h2>
<p>The Sydney Alliance is an advocacy organisation with a difference. Its primary purpose is to help thousands of community members develop into community leaders.</p>
<p>We say leaders are made not born: the alliance <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/training">provides training</a>, teams and mentoring that can gently and intentionally support people from all walks of life to take on leadership roles in public life. </p>
<p>The alliance is creating remarkable relationships between Muslims and Christians, unionists and Catholics, schools and synagogues. It is also breathing new life into those organisations, by providing them with a means to not just talk about the things that worry them but do something about it.</p>
<p>A similar organisation is growing in Brisbane called the <a href="http://www.qldcommunityalliance.org/">Queensland Community Alliance</a>. There is also interest in community organising in places as diverse as Adelaide, Melbourne, Auckland and Newcastle.</p>
<p>Civil society may have its work cut out for it, but in Sydney and Australia it is making a comeback.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Tattersall has a background in union and community organising and is the founder and director of the Sydney Alliance.</span></em></p>In the wake of the Second World War, Karl Polanyi wrote that the public arena is made up of three interconnected sectors: the market, government and civil society. He argued that democracy thrives when…Amanda Tattersall, Honorary Associate, Department of Geography, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.