Open Space Technology as a community development tool

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear Daniel,
congratulations on your training (where did you receive it?) and good 
luck with your work.
My roots are also in community work, in community organisation. When I 
started to work in that area back in 1965 I felt that this approach will 
definitely renew the world if not the entire universe and put my whole 
heart into it.
In 1996, some 30 years later, I ran into Open Space (at a training in 
the UK led by Harrison Owen and Romy Shovelton)and had exactly that same 
reaction that Harrison described in his response to you.
However, I and my colleagues steeped in Community Organisation had 
realized for some time that "empowering the people" was a silly 
hierarchical notion: People are empowered. And here is where OST plays 
an ever growing part with its underlying principle of nurturing the 
unfolding of time and space for selforganisation. Within that process I 
and you and apparently loads of people, groups, systems, organisations, 
neighborhoods, schools, networks...manifest their empowerement 
formulating their passions and taking action.
So, OST is not a tool for community development or for productive 
communication or for superior performance or for peace but an approach 
for the unfolding of selforganisation in which all those grand things 
CAN (and often do) happen.
I myself have been involved in a number of OST events which focused on 
neighborhoods (community developement, community organisation, urban 
development, city planning)and I am sure that hundreds of colleagues on 
this list have too...and possibly research has been conducted in this 
area. If you have specific questions for your research, post them on 
this list and be prepared to be surprised.
The data base on Open Space events
> http://www.openspaceworldscape.org
will present 46 events (out of 507 listed) if you choose the field 
"community organisation".
If you go to "Events" in
> http://www.boscop.org/
click "Search" and enter "Gemeinwesenarbeit" (the German word for 
community work) in the field "Branche/Tags" some 17 events(out of 362 
events) pop up, 9 with an English title...from Belarus,Serbia, Sweden 
and the rest from Germany.
Am curious what your research will turn up with!
Greetings from Berlin
mmp



Daniel Noriega wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> My name is Daniel and I have recently completed my training to conduct Open 
> Space gatherings. I'm really excited about using this tool in my job, 
> mainly working with people from culturally and linguistically diverse 
> background.
> 
> After completing the training, I realised OST addresses a lot of the 
> principles that form community development, and I would like to write an 
> essay on that aspect for my studies.
> 
> Has anyone done any research on OST as a tool for community development? 
> What are your thoughts?
> 
> My personal definition of Open Space is "about empowering people to act in 
> what matters to them".
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Daniel
> 
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-- 
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
mmpanne at boscop.org
www.boscop.org


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