Introducing the Unheard: from exploitation and oppression to interconnection and regeneration?

Earlier this year, the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) organised a workshop on listening to unheard voices in Climate Assemblies. In the workshop, practitioners and academics shared their inspirations and experiences in experimenting with methods to enhance the capacity of deliberative processes to consider future generations and nonhuman nature.

This article features insights from the workshop presenters on the necessity of this experimental work. Each contribution reflects on the mindset shift needed to de-centre short-term and human-centred implications, and what it means practically speaking to try and introduce previously unheard perspectives into a democratic deliberation.

The Need for Ecological Reflexivity
Martina Francesca and Sara Bigi, La Prossima Cultura

For people immersed in the culture associated with industrial-growth societies, separation from nature is a common experience. However, in a world characterised by a rapidly changing climate and depleting natural resources, it is more and more necessary to directly integrate feedback from natural systems, to apply ecological reflexivity to institutions, worldviews or technologies, to mitigate as much as possible the effects of the ecological crisis and adapt to the ‘new normal’.

This shift from an anthropocentric culture of detachment from nature towards a vision of interconnectedness is not only advocated by climate activists but is also endorsed at an institutional level, for example by the European Environment Agency.

Including nature in deliberative processes and collective decision-making is one possible way to foster a relationship with nature based on interconnection and regeneration, instead of exploitation and oppression. An important caveat needs to be specified: including nature in deliberative processes does not mean forgetting human beings and the structural barriers that make access to resources and privileges unequal.

Including nature in deliberative processes and collective decision-making is one possible way to foster a relationship with nature based on interconnection and regeneration.

The idea and practices for including nature in deliberative processes are based on the perspective of ‘collective self’, which relates to the notion of ‘ecological self’: our identity is not only dependent on ourselves as individuals but is also linked to, for example, the family; the community, society or culture to which we belong; humanity as a whole. We also belong to and interact with, the ecosystem or bioregion in which we live, the biota, the biosphere, and the planet as a whole.

Considering and integrating the perspective of nature into collective decision-making processes is a way to include the perspectives of various human and non-human entities that are affected by or experience the impacts of our decisions, knowing that these impacts ultimately fall on ourselves.

How to do this? Giving a voice to nature, and in general to non-human living beings, which in the prevailing Western culture are perceived as separate from us, is certainly not immediate: it requires a change at the cultural level. However, there are several possible ways of doing this: for example, through representatives or spokespersons, or by trying to put ourselves in the shoes of non-human living beings, somehow expanding our range of empathy, with the support of facilitators competent in accompanying this type of dialogue. This can take many forms, from guided meditations to activities involving the body and different forms of expression.

Many questions remain open from the point of view of facilitating this type of process: there is certainly still a need to experiment with different approaches and methodologies. But in doing so, it seems to us that we are collectively learning to delve deeper into our human qualities of empathy and care and tread a new path, contributing to the societal transformation we need in these uncertain times.

Deliberative Democracy + Future Design = HOPE
Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Kyoto University of Advanced Science

I want to design a society that future generations will thank us for. This is my motivation to start Future Design (FD). Climate change is progressing and biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles have passed critical points of no return. Are we leaving a hopeless future for our young and future generations? Rather, I want to design a society in which our futurability can be activated. We have a nature to “feel happiness by aiming for the happiness of future generations, even at the cost of immediate gain.” Let us call this nature futurability. Unfortunately, due to the short-sightedness of the market, the democratic system, and even the sciences, our futurability is not easily demonstrated in today’s society.

Therefore, I propose that one of the mechanisms of society in which our futurability can be demonstrated is the imaginary future generation. The source of this idea comes from the Haudenosaunee Indigenous nations (also known as the Iroquois). When making important decisions, they jump seven generations ahead and think about current issues from there. This led us to develop a new experimental game called the Intergenerational Sustainability Dilemma Game. We tested the effectiveness of imaginary future generations in the game in Japan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, and found that this mechanism was very effective.

When they become ‘imaginary futurists’ and engage in discussions, participants come up with creative ideas they have never considered before.

As a result, several local governments and companies in Japan have begun to put it into practice. When discussing the future from the present, as is usually done in Deliberative Democracy (DD), one inevitably gets bogged down in the present. Policy proposals rooted in the ‘now’ become the focus. When they become ‘imaginary futurists’ and engage in discussions, participants come up with creative ideas they have never considered before. They feel the joy of thinking as imaginary futurists. After the discussion, they will naturally start thinking like imaginary futurists in their daily lives. They will naturally be able to cooperate and collaborate on projects that they were previously at odds with. Even the way they approach their work and their way of life will change. In this way, they will be able to activate their futurability.

The first city in Japan to implement FD was Yahaba, a small town with a population of 28,000. Mayor Takahashi declared the town a Future Design Town in 2018 and created a top-level plan to design the town’s future using FD, implemented it, and is now starting to create the next plan using FD. The Japanese Ministry of Finance heard about this. They see FD as a social mechanism, and in 2022 they created the Future Design Team and are holding FD workshops for children, students, and adults. The main goal is to make FD a platform for various ministries. FD is gradually spreading in the Netherlands and the United States. The new equation we want to achieve is DD + FD = Hope.

Transformative Experiments for Citizens’ Assemblies
Yves Mathieu and Judith Ferrando, Missions Publiques

Missions Publiques’ journey through 25 years of local and transnational Citizens’ Assemblies reveals a stark reality. Despite diverse socio-cultural backgrounds amongst participants, the same questions and framing produce similar answers and proposals on climate. So what happens if we change the framing?

We propose a transformative element for Citizens’ Assemblies: dialogues with future generations and nonhuman living systems. We have experimented with different ways of integrating these processes into democratic deliberation, and we are still testing and improving them.

These efforts do not claim to speak in the name of or represent, these entities. We aim to broaden the scope considered by assembly members: through decentring the here and now, participants introduce new arguments and new priorities. This helps members to gain clarity on the dizzying questions: what do we really value? What and why are we ready to change, to abandon, to create, for our collective future?

We have also been inspired by the Haudenosaunee wisdom of Seventh Generation Insight. We consider the impact of our decisions on the life of the seventh coming generation, who will be 30 years old 210 years from now. We invite assembly members to enter a non-fictional dialogue with fictional humans from this future generation. We encourage participants to formulate questions that resonate deeply with them in relation to the assembly’s topic. We then guide them to a virtual conversation with a couple of future human beings. After this conversation, they return to the present and bring their key messages into the deliberation. This is a guided visualisation, which takes at least an hour, ideally more.

Decentring the here and now helps members to gain clarity on the dizzying questions: what and why are we ready to change, to abandon, to create, for our collective future?

Nature is not a landscape or a resource. Flora and fauna are not just objects or ecosystemic service providers. Recognising the personhood of nature has changed court decisions and constitutions – why should it not inspire changes in our democracies, and influence public policies? Our experience has shown us that by finding new connections and emotional ties with the living system in a Citizens’ Assembly, new arguments and visions are generated.

One approach we have trialled is to invite participants to connect visually with a natural place they appreciate and to start a conversation. By taking 30 minutes for such a moment, members come back with new ideas, and a different vision of justice criteria, including justice for the living system.

We have also experimented with role-play: persona cards representing non-human entities are used to diversify the viewpoints. We used this in the design of an assembly in France on water management, and it provided a renewed vision of the conflicts in water management programs.

The citizens are ready. Are the decision-makers open enough to introduce in their leadership those new perspectives? Experimentation is the best way to develop the next generation of Citizens’ Assemblies!

Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) whose workshop inspired this article.

About the authors
Martina Francesca is a group facilitator and participation expert passionate about social and cultural transformation.

Sara Bigi combines her experience of community living and group facilitation towards social change.

Tatsuyoshi Saijo is a future designer who hopes that Future Design will become a platform for society.

Yves Mathieu and Judith Ferrando are co-directors of Missions Publiques,
an agency specialised in citizen participation. Created in 1998, its mission is to improve
dialogue between citizens, stakeholders and decision-makers, for better collective choices
and decision-making.