After almost four years working for local government, I’m reflecting on my time there to help me close that chapter, and to share some of the things I learnt. The role was part community arts team leader, part community arts producer, part partnerships manager, and part venue hire manager.
BEFORE YOU SOW THE SEEDS, YOU NEED TO PREPARE THE SOIL
Community development arts workers have a way of working that’s based on a set of values. We’re the type to value process over product, lasting relationships over short term transactions, the collective over the individual, caring over controlling… I could go on and on! We try to bring a set of principles into action - like putting First Nations first, keeping things local, thinking about the environmental impact, working towards diversity in all forms, “bottom up” instead of “top down” decision making - just as a few examples. Often, we don’t know we’re using a community development approach - it just seems normal or obvious to us. But, let me tell you - what may be normal or obvious to us may seem like the most bizarre, backwards, risky, or even embarrassing concept to others.
A local government setting provides many challenges for workers adopting community development values and principles. That’s no surprise - it is a government after all - so bureaucracy and hierarchy are to be expected. I entered that space expecting that my approach might not fit in the box - but I hoped I could do some good work there regardless - and, maybe, just maybe, I could have an impact on the organisation too. I won’t go into the times my way of working (proudly) threw a spanner in the works, or list the strategies I developed in attempts to prepare the conditions for community arts to flourish in a new community centre and theatre. There were so many things to work on - and to be honest, there’s still so much more to do.
This process of preparing the conditions for community arts to flourish is what I mean by preparing the soil. It’s the groundwork required for a place to be welcoming, safe, and creative. Ideally, that’s started before the seeds of arts projects or funding opportunities are planted - but those arts projects can also play a role in preparing the soil. This collaborative groundwork is never finished, so as you work, there’s a lot of assessment that needs to happen to choose which seeds we’re ready to plant and which ones are for later. Many enabling factors need to line up before a place supports belonging, inspiration, care, connection - and all those things we hope that the arts might spark.
TAKING A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT APPROACH TO THE MOST UNLIKELY TASKS
There were plenty of tasks in my role that you wouldn’t expect to apply a community development approach to, from managing room hires, to reporting on activities, to supervising a team, to contributing to the what’s on guide. One thing I challenged myself to do though, was ask how can I make this task a part of the community development I’m trying to do? How can this task be part of preparing the soil? I’d squeeze stories into reporting documents alongside the numbers, find ways to talk about what’s happening not just what’s on, deliver messages to community members through face to face conversations, and facilitate old school town hall style meetings - all attempts at bringing people back into processes.
I know these are the smallest of actions, but these are those normal or obvious ways that allowed me to work closer to my values, even when completing what could have been the most administrative tasks. And, after a few years, I became part of the community. Even if the only thing we all had in common was that we shared space - this is enough to connect us. The rest can come from there.
THE RATIONAL AND THE NON-RATIONAL
Here’s a diagram I like - more so for its content than its graphic design. I’ll add the source when I find it!
The diagram depicts a system with rational and non-rational components. The rational is what you’d expect local government to be good at: structure, strategies, and processes delivered through planning, directing, and controlling. The non-rational half is what you’d expect community arts workers to be good at - relationships, identity, and information, nurtured by maintaining enabling conditions through trust.
The message is: things can only be effective when the human stuff is as well developed as the organisational stuff. This is not easy. Actually, it’s really hard. So hard in fact, that people may prefer to ignore the human stuff completely, and place their trust entirely in the organisational stuff, thinking that more planning, more directing, and more control can fix anything. THAT’S A TRAP.
Because the human system (non-rational) is the enabler that underpins the whole system, it is essential that this human system be developed and be robust and that a deep trust between team members prevails before the elements of the task domain (rational) can work together in an effective way. That is to say, outstanding performance is dependent firstly on the existence of strong personal relationships and trust and secondly on good strategies and processes.
Some of the skills I learnt in local government are around how to get some of that essential non-rational stuff into structures, strategies, and processes. This is classic advocacy type work, where you try to influence policy, assessment criteria, and other existing controlling things, so that the tools that usually exclude, can be used to start including, and building trust. This is a big red flag though - because the danger is you’re just making something oppressive appear less oppressive, OR, you’re just supporting the dominant centre to assimilate more diversity into itself.
Some days I felt like I was making something a little bit better, and on other days, I felt like I was just making things worse by being a part of the problem instead of being part of the alternative to the entire system. This is not a new ethical dilemma, and is part of the ongoing tension between changing the system from within vs changing the system from outside vs engaging with the system as little as possible (except for maybe extracting resources from it) and working on an alternative system instead.
How to work ethically in an unethical world is an ongoing question.
WHITENESS
I’m still reflecting on the ways I operated, as a white person, within an organisation dominated by whiteness, in one of the most culturally diverse neighbourhoods in Australia.
In this setting, I could observe my own fluency in whiteness - my ability to participate in, benefit from, and be respected by structures defined by whiteness. In my opinion, I was at the same time, employed for my ability to participate in that, as well as for my interest in changing that. I questioned myself, and the systems and attitudes that maintained the status quo of white supremacy. I felt uncomfortable / ashamed / disappointed not only with those systems and attitudes, but with my own response to them - my white fragility emerged in quiet ways. I wanted to avoid being complicit, and I also wanted to avoid being a problematic white saviour type. I don’t think it’s a fine line between those two things - I think there is plenty of space in between actually, where I can just do better. I find it useful to have an awareness of those extremes and try and catch myself when I’m approaching either. Feeling comfortable while navigating this is a warning sign.
Towards the end of my time in that environment, it was my tendency to keep the peace and work as a buffer between community and the organisation, or my team and the organisation, that I started to question. On one hand, I was trying to improve relationships and garner respect and support for the team and the community’s work (all part of preparing the soil), and on the other, I was attempting to stop shit hitting the fan, preventing the next shitstorm. But sometimes shit needs to hit the fan, right? Perhaps the next person in my role will be better at that.
QUEERNESS
Just quietly, community development is pretty queer. There’s a lot of not knowing involved, a lot of ambiguity and grey areas, and a lot of fluidity, love, inclusivity, negotiation, and imagination. At its best (I think), it’s radical, anti-capitalist, decolonising practice. It subverts power and norms and exposes alternative ways to be yourself, and alternative ways to be together. There’s also some hope in it. Honestly, my own queerness is what got me through. Queerness prepared me to reveal and hide myself as required for safety. Thanks to queerness, I can take a step back from what I was in, and see how I was tangled up in it. It’s how I can step away with some pride, some disappointment, and some hope all at once. It’s how I can let go and hold on at the same time. All of this is part of my privilege, which has helped me get through, and will help me look forward.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
I’m in lockdown at the moment, which is why I’ve had time for this reflection.
Firstly, I want to catch my breath. I decided to wrap up at work pre-COVID19, and like almost everyone, my plans for the second half of 2020 are in the bin. I’m very grateful during this challenging time that I can return to study for a semester to finish off my masters, and that I have some casual work.
I will return to my own practice - this time as a choice, unlike the first 10 years where it just kinda happened and I didn’t try anything else. I’ll return with a whole new bunch of understandings, a new appreciation for the less hierarchical and more collaborative ways that I’m used to, and a sense of clarity about why I do what I do. I do it to be human and expand my understanding of what that means. I do it for myself, as much as I do it for others. I do it because if we work together to prepare the soil, we might have a garden instead of a shitshow.