principles Theme 4: Participatory practice as a relational process

to stories with deep attention and with the ethics of care. It means focusing on how we relate to one another, how we act towards one another, how we care for one another, create a feeling of safety and trust, and welcome each other’s perspectives. It is about deep listening and seeking understanding. Since, when we talk, the words we use can potentially be divisive, we need to be careful of how we communicate our thoughts and feelings and also of how we convey our values through our actions. These values run counter to current trends whereby those who hold power try to create a required distance between people through encouraging anger and division, fear and culture wars. However, by embodying and acting with the intention of holding these values, we model and co-create an alternative way of being. Of course, cultural norms about how to enact and talk about love will vary in different societies and groups, and thus in how the value of love might manifest, whatever the context. Nonetheless, the intention in participatory practice is always the same, to move the value norm from the love of power to the power of love.

Theme 4: Participatory practice as a relational process

Transformational culture work is always relational; it is not transactional. Real diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging work is not about a checklist. It is about relationships. (Aiko Bethea, 20202)

… this is participative universe, nothing lives alone. Everything comes into form because of relationship… Even reality is created through our participation on relationships. We chose what we notice; we relate to certain things and not others. Through these chosen relationships we co-create the world. (Wheatley, 1999, quoted in Wahl, 2016: 143)

As already alluded to, participatory practice is a relational process. The dominant story that puts economics and consumption at its centre creates a particular type of relationship, and it is an unequal one. Indeed, as we have argued, there is no value put on caring, equal, reciprocal relationships at all, despite the fact that they are the glue that keeps things functioning and sustains social cohesion. Society is currently structured to downgrade relationships and prioritise the material, or ‘things’. It also promulgates the primacy of competition over collaboration. This is both a misleading mindset and an unsustainable ‘reality’. The richness of our lives is determined by the quality of our relationships, both between ourselves and with the environment around us. But this is barely acknowledged in some areas. Take scientific papers in the so-called health sciences, for example: they are stripped of the relationships at the centre of the healthcare process. Yet, as we know from our experience of the recent pandemic, a hug, a smile, a pleasant word from another person is fundamental to our well-being, as is our relationship with nature. Participatory practice is a manifestation of the relational: co-creation,

co-learning and critical pedagogy. It promotes genuine authentic relationships and represents the strong link between individual responsibility for ourselves, for each other and community well-being.

Participatory practice in cameo

The Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB) works with, among others, immigrant and refugee families suffering domestic violence in Edmonton, Canada. Working with the many different cultures that make up the diasporas that have come to Canada, health brokers act as cultural brokers with the many service organisations supporting families in the city. Because they are from the communities they serve, they can work with families in a way that reflects cultural norms, and they do so through participatory practice. Within the African communities the dominant cultural norm of the concept of family differs from the Western norm. So, the MCHB practices when working with this group are grounded in the collectivist cultures of that region, whereby the family is highly valued. The practices that are adopted aim to encourage family safety and harmony. They also address the need to be respectful and flexible when developing relationships. In working with families, presence is integral in establishing and maintaining relationships. However, they also adapt their practice to be culturally sensitive to individual interpretations of family customs in terms of the role of husband and wife, while encouraging the valued collective decision-making by the extended family and mediation through elders within the community that is the social norm. It is a delicate path to tread given that social norms in the host community of Canada as to the role of men and women are often different.

Participatory practice is embedded in the cultural brokers’ way of working and grounded in a collectivist culture. In every encounter it is considered important to create a sense of self-worth with appropriate validation so that families and individuals feel listened to. Their entire approach is non-hierarchical, in which learning from each other’s lived experience is seen as contributing to collective wisdom. Whatever community-based initiatives – whether research projects, intervention programmes or community development projects – the MCHB are involved in, including those addressing family violence, all are considered to be interconnected and part of the overall work towards a common end goal: helping immigrant and refugee communities attain optimal health and well-being for