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What is Community Organising?

Working with established institutions within a community to identify self-interest and work together to build broad-based coalitions that can campaign for and win change, and hold leaders to account.
Non-partisan and seeks to work with people in power from any political party.
Community organisers work with leaders in organisations and work to develop leaders within those organisations with the goal of creating strong institutions that have staying power in communities.

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Organising

The world as it is

The world as should be

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Relational Organising

Community Organising involves building public relationships with others.

Public relationships can include private details about your life

Understanding the relationship between public and private life is an important personal, cultural, and social change.

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Public-Private Selves

Public self: what people can see about us.it can be things we choose to show or things we cannot help showing.

Private self: what people cannot see about us.

What is public and private will change depending on the context that we’re in

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Public-Private

Private

Public

Personal

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Task: Public Private

Public

Collective

Private

Individual

What about you?

Ethnicity
Religious Belief
Nationality
Sexual orientation
Dietary restrictions
Age
Marriage Status
Salary
Gender
Immigration Status

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Public and Private

	Private	Public
Who	Close Family Intimate Friends More similar to you	Work, School Wider circle of friends More Diversity Congregation
Nature	Unbounded Intimate Permanent Unique Emotional	Terms, boundaries Note intimate Changeable Common Less emotional
Based on	Blood Love Self-Sacrifice Long-term reciprocity	Common self-interest Quid pro quo Shorter-term reciprocity
Aim	To be loved	To be respected

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Self-Interest

Self-interest represents the things that you want out of your life, the things that you want to see happen to you, and the things that you want to avoid.

Recognising your own self-interest and the self-interest of the with whom you’re working is crucial for being an effective researcher and organiser.

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One-to-one Conversations

The relational meeting (one-to-one) is a short (30-45 minute), memorable, one-to-one, in person conversation meant to uncover, explore, and share the animating stories, core values and motivating interests of each conversation partner. The goal of a 1-1 is to figure out the “why” of the person you are talking to by inviting them to tell you what motivates them, carries meaning for them and connects them to the community they live in.

https://ntcumc.org/Relational_1_to_1_Handout.pdf

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Task: Stick Person

Institutions

What do I want to change?

What makes you angry?

How do I spend my time?

How do I spend my money?

Hopes and Aspirations

Key Moments

Important Relationships

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Task: Stick Person

Draw your stick person with the things that you think make you who you are.

Think about the public-private nature of the different things and what you would like to say about yourself.

Have a one-to-one with three people about your stick person. Limit the conversation to 5 minutes with each person talking for half of the time.

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Cycle for change

Power

Relational Power

1 to 1s

Self-Interest

Research Action

Evaluation

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Organising & Academic Research

Community organising is one way to pursue impact in your research.

Research with community groups and aligning with their priorities is key to developing real partnerships.

Developing research questions and approaches becomes a meaningful two-way process of developing self interest.

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Infographic https://superdivercity.com/talk-about-faith/

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Narrative and Religion in the Superdiverse City

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Conclusion

Participatory research involves the interaction of public-private selves, but for ourselves and our participants.

Community Organising as a method for social change is effective because it accounts for the interests of all stakeholders.

Academics who engage in community work can focus their research in meaningful, impactful ways.

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