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In a nutshell...

This blueprint illustrates an example of a participatory workshop that uses the existing interests of citizens to help them articulate their perspective on pollinators decline and so to enter the public debate on the topic on their own terms. 

Purpose & objective: Get the conversation started! 

What’s the issue with pollinators’ decline? You might think that this question has a straightforward answer – e.g. threat to the availability of food. However, there is one important aspect to consider in any discussion, which is the terms in which it is carried out. Will the discussion be framed as a problem of economic productivity? Or biodiversity loss? Or agricultural practices and their health impacts? Or legal obligations? Or respect for nature? Or else...? Or encompassing all the above? Who are the actors involved in the issue of concern: ordinary citizens, farmers, big corporations, public institutions - pollinating insects perhaps? These questions are all embedded in how pollinators’ decline is defined but remain often implicit. Moreover, in many instances the discussion about the issue at stake takes place way above the heads of citizens. The analyses done across several EU countries reveal that such conversations often involve only the local or national authorities and stakeholders (like environmental NGOs, farmers’ and beekeepers’ associations, agribusiness companies). If this is something you also observe, then you might want to start with a process that helps citizens enter the debate on pollinators by bringing their own terms, along with their concerns and matters of care. A process of this type is not about taking decisions, nor about creating a nature conservation project. It is about articulating what is really important to whom, why citizens care about it, what they are worried about, where disagreement happens. As much as these are basic questions, they are the foundation for any further action. The terms of the debate shape the way we think about things, what we notice and what we don’t, how we approach issues, what we consider as feasible and desirable. And so, this blueprint is very much about citizens regaining agency over defining the issue. 

Format: Think about the future to understand the present! 

But how to kick-start such discussion? One way to do this is by thinking about the future. Why? First of all, because when we look into the future it seems bleak and inevitable – this is one meaning of eco-anxiety that more and more people experience these days. To see different possible futures in front of you, all departing from what there is now, gives a sense of possibility, even agency. Secondly, because future gives us a freedom to imagine how we think things could be, instead of brooding over how they are, so it’s a way to explore different aspirations and values, and what we care for – but also what we fear. There was an additional reason for choosing to talk about the future - the young age of participants, as young people have a particular interest in how the the world will unfold, having most of their lives ahead of them. 

Preparations

Recruitment & location: Go where citizens are!

This process is a good example of going where citizens already are. The main partner in the original pilot was a youth association with its own collaborative space, where young people can get free access to equipment as well as trainings in the creative sector. Thus, the club offered the space, and its members received in return a chance to learn something new. Recruitment of participants for the workshop happened amongst the members of the club. This means that participants did not constitute a representative sample of the youth population in South London, where the collaborative space is located, but were an ‘opportunistic’ selection of members of a particular community. However, this had important benefits - as club focuses very much on arts and culture, this approach allowed to recruit people who had no prior interest nor knowledge about pollinators. As such, it was possible to include perspectives of a group of citizens beyond the 'usual suspects' (those with prior interest and knowledge about the topic, as well as time to spare), something that is very often missing in public discussions. This strategy can be used for many other communities, using clubs and associations as the point of reference.

Defining the format: Ask participants how they want to be engaged!

It can be challenging to motivate people to participate if they have no prior interest in the topic. The best way is to address this is to find out what would make the process meaningful to them. As part of preparations, you can organise meetings to discuss the interests of the participants and what kind of process they would find relevant. In the case of the group from South London, they all shared a filmmaking passion, which inspired the final format of the process - a filmmaking workshop. Remember material deliberation? One of its principles is to use methods and tools that participants are familiar with and know how to use to express themselves best – this is one important way of make participatory processes truly inclusive and accessible.  

Team: Yes we can! (self-organise)

This process is quite special in that the core team can include only one person, who performs the role of organiser and facilitator. This is possible thanks to the choice of the format, where some of the activities can be led by the participants themselves due to their understanding of the methods used (in this case study - filmmaking techniques). Also, if the group is small (under 15 participants), all work can be done together. If you want to do this process with more participants, you will have to split into groups and so will require more facilitators. Finally, due to the activities and the medium selected, notetaking takes place as an integral part of the activities.

Partnerships: Decide with experts how to communicate technical information!

While the core team might be small, you will have to work with scientists to get more technical info on the topic using expert interviews. But the role of experts can extend further. In the original pilot, it's through these conversations that the framework called the Matrix of Futures (see below) was developed, which was then used during the activities with participants to prompt imagination of possible, desirable and undesirable futures. This framework is an example of a purpose-made sense-making diagram, which can help participants structure a wide range of ideas coming up during activities. 

To structure the expert interviews you can use, e.g., the 7 Questions technique (read more here on pp. 29-32):

1. What would you identify as the critical issue for the future regarding pollinators?
2. If things went well, being optimistic but realistic, talk about what you would see as a desirable outcome.
3. If things went wrong, what factors would you worry about?
4. Looking at internal systems, how might these need to be changed to help bring about the desired outcome?
5. Looking back, what would you identify as the significant events which have produced the decline of pollinators?
6. Looking forward, what do you see as priority actions which should be carried out soon?
7. If all constraints were removed and you could direct what is done, what more would you wish to include? 

Follow-up: Decide on the approach straight away!

For this type of process - one rooted strongly in the interests and activities of participants - it is good to define together with the participants the format of the outputs already at the beginning. In the case study, the question was: What would happen to the films that participants would make? What format should they have to be relevant to a wide audience and trigger a broader conversation? By asking these questions you are not rushing through the stages. You are simply designing the process iteratively, sometimes starting from the outcomes and then moving backwards, defining the activities and tools that will get you there. Does this remind you of something? Yes, this is also the principle in the Theory of Change. In this case, the approach allows to design a process that would have the biggest reach and so the best chance to trigger conversations among the wider group of citizens. 

Event roll-out

Noticing: Dosing not dumping! 

The workshop starts with a series of activities through which the participants can assess their knowledge about the topic and learn more about it. This can include an interactive quiz, watching videos, reading, exploring online materials - and then a meeting with the pollinator expert. This order is important, as through the initial activities participants can formulate questions to ask the expert. This also allows for a progressive disclosure of information, where participants can also decide how deep they want to go with their explorations and which topics to focus on. 

Noticing: Not all knowledge is technical! 

Moving on from the acquisition of technical knowledge, the next step is to enter the domain of perspectives, opinions and arguments to understand how the issue of pollinators decline is presented and discussed in the public space. This is a version of stock taking that is done with participants themselves. It can include scanning the social media platforms participants use in their daily life (and ones where they can post their final videos). This way they can understand how people already talk about pollinators as well as what are the main topics, actors and concerns that shape the way the issue appears in the public space. In conversation with this content the participants can start making their mind about the issue and articulating their perspective: What do I care about? Why? How does it concern me? It is an important part of the process, as for those with no prior knowledge about the topic, being asked to provide their own opinion straight away could be intimidating. 

Taking care for your hive: Don’t forget the warm-up! 

After the learning phase - and before moving to making sense of it all - the group moves to activities that aim to get them in the right state of mind for more creative work. For instance, participants can play a game about imagining random futures. In this activity, they race to pop balloons, each containing a picture. Then, based on those pictures, they invent a story about the future. This activity is about getting people to start looking at things in terms of stories and thinking about the future, imagining the possibilities, loosening up assumptions about how things will turn out. This exercise is also a great energiser. You want to consider it especially in between static and more analytical tasks such as the preceding and following ones. 

Sense-making: Imagine what could be! 

You can use the Futures Matrix - as an example of a sense-making tool - to structure and condense all the reflections and information that came up during Noticing, and as a way to kick-off the discussion. The Matrix plots four different ways in which our society can develop in the future depending on the relation between two sets of variables, which in this case were, on the one hand, affinity to nature vs. technological control, and, on the other, top-down vs. bottom-up approach to implementing change. Strat the discussion with these two questions: 

• Which future do you think is the most plausible? 
• How would each of these futures look like in concrete terms? 

Participants’ ideas are collected on post-its and located on the Matrix based on how well they reflected the two sets of relations along the two axes. 

Co-design: Make it real! Make it material! 

Imagining future worlds is the first step, but it might lead to very general answers. To make these worlds tangible, invite participants to develop prototypes of objects that one could find in these worlds – later, the prototypes will serve as props during the film-making activity. The hands-on tinkering provides little glimpses of the world to better elaborate its wider vision. This approach pairs reflection with hands-on creation to ensure that a more general vision including challenges and solutions grows from particular objects.

Co-design: Get your feet in the future! 

What videos would you see on social media in the future? With this question, the participants are encouraged to imagine, for each of the futures developed in the previous steps, what videos people would post. In this way, the world of tomorrow is imagined through the lens of a future observer who would share their experience on their social media. Because of this, the frame of the discussion is naturally directed towards the impacts that the events would have on the people who inhabited those worlds and how they would react to them. This helps steer the ideas towards the roles and experiences of citizens, whether in being impacted by or addressing the challenges. 

Co-design: Cameras in hands – let’s roll! 

At this stage, participants create the actual videos. If your participants are already well versed in filmmaking, they can proceed largely on their own. But to make such a process more attractive and rewarding, it is advisable to work with a professional filmmaker (or photographer, storyteller, dramaturg, painter... – whatever the medium you happen to be working with), who can provide the participants with more advanced tips, progressing them on their path of personal and professional development. Involving a professional is even more important if participants are now very familiar with the medium you're using in the workshop. This kind of training might be the best thing to give back to the participants in return for them offering their time and effort to a participatory process. 

Follow-up: Sharing is caring! 

The final videos constitute both the outcome of the process and its follow-up as they can be shared with a wider audience to invite a broader conversation on the topic. In the original pilot, this approach proved successful, as the videos have been watched more than 7000 times. They also received likes and prompted comments and questions from interacting people. The format and the use of a social media platform helped reach out to a type of audience that was very diverse in terms of interests and background - again, far beyond the 'usual suspects'.   

Closing: Reflect on air! 

Finally, to further disseminate results and increase attention to the issue, reflection on and evaluation of the process were done through a podcast that was made available online, here for you to get the first-hand insights. 

Credits

This blueprint is based on a process developed by designer, researcher and futurist Finn Strivens. It was originally implemented in London in 2020, with the participation of 11 young people, aged 16-21, from Young Creators UK, a non-profit organization that works towards cultural activation of young people.

All photographs © Finn Strivens.