Facilitation for Change - a list of resources from Rhizome
We came upon Rhizome (spoken as: Rye-zoam) the other day, a facilitation and organisational development group, and were fascinated to read about their "non-hierarchical" approach to their business, and their rich set of change-making clients.
But we were particularly grateful for a page which sets out, very helpfully, the range of approaches they use in their facilitation services. We think that facilitation - defined as helping groups, community and organisations work better together - is a key skill of a new and better politics. One that doesn't impose a top-down grid or manifesto, but which builds on the ideas and aspirations of citizens where they are.
Here's Rhizome's list. If you have any more to add, please mail us here and we'll update:
- Training for Change’s Direct Education,
- Freirian experiential and participative learning,
- participative decision-making methods including
- consensus,
- Popular Education,
- Appreciative Inquiry,
- Crowd Wise,
- Open Space,
- Reflect Action,
- Theatre of the Oppressed,
- the Work that Reconnects,
- World Café,
- World Work/Process Work
More here. Note their working understanding of a rhizome:
A horizontal, usually underground stem that often sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Sometimes used by plants to store food.
A rhizome is a resource for new growth. It’s a store of potential, a store of energy, a way of growing, a way of connecting. Rhizomes make a plant resilient – harder to weed out. Rhizomes allow plants to weather the lean times. They can be uprooted, divided and replanted, only to come back all the stronger. Bamboo rhizomes can break through brick walls. Couch grass spreads by rhizomes and refuses to be tamed.
(Incidentally, as far as we can detect, this Rhizome doesn't have anything to do with the long-standing Rhizome art blog, nor to the concept of the "rhizome" as developed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. But that'll be rhizomes for you - spreading everywhere...)