Democracy across Europe has experienced immense challenge, change and uncertainty in recent years (Canal 2014; European Commission & Merkel; 2019) – from the rise of populism to decreasing levels of public trust in governance institutions and processes, to the war in Ukraine. Set against the backdrop of these issues, EUARENAS has been investigating how cities and urban spaces can strengthen legitimacy, identification and engagement within the democratic public sphere. Foresight is one of the research strands present in EUARENAS. This report and visualisation are the final outputs from this foresight work and synthesises the varied research activities’ core findings.

From the work, an understanding of the current state of play of local democracy has been used to create (largely preferred) future visions for local democracies in Europe. Some common elements of these future visions are:

• Sustainable, long-term thinking
• Valuing difference and diversity
• Embracing the natural environment
• Being pro-actively inclusive and dismantling oppressive structures
• Rehumanising our cities – value-based working that centralises humanity, empathy, trust and transparency

The report proposes the following recommendations for Cities wanting to strive towards more equitable local democracies:

1. Address structural barriers to participation
2. Build relationships of trust
3. Invest in formal and civic education
4. Make decisions for the long-term

A more equitable, inclusive local democracy landscape is not too far in the distance for us to conceive it being possible. In fact, the future is now – the seeds to create it are already being planted, they just need nurturing by:

• Scaling and mainstreaming existing pilot or niche practices that are working locally – whether that beparticipatory budgeting, citizen assemblies or other smaller-scale projects – so that these become thenew ‘status quo’
• Adopting test and learn approaches to promote experimentation and on-going learning – this will enableongoing innovation and be responsive to society’s needs
• Finding ways to celebrate and connect-up the small changes that are taking place – this will help people see that progress is being made, even when it feels like things are changing too slow

To download the full report, click here.

We’ve also worked with Artist Lizzy Doe to create a visualisation of the EUARENAS City of the Future. Click here for the web version. Click here for the print-ready version. Click here for the audio description.

As part of National Co-Production Week in England, we teamed-up once again with Curators of Change, Ideas Alliance, Camerados and many more fabulous organisations, groups and people to deliver the second Not Another Co-Production Project’s Learning Festival in Birmingham.

Over the last year, we’ve been working with folk from across the West Midlands, exploring how co-production and lived experience storytelling can be used in their work to create better outcomes for their communities. The Learning Festival is a chance for people involved in the Not Another Co-Production project to showcase some of their work, have conversations about co-production and of course, welcome people from outside of the project into the discussions.

We started the day with a ‘pre-event’ Conversation of Change, hosted with the Equality Trust that looked at the financial pressures and stresses that residents of Birmingham are facing. During the workshop, we heard different residents’ experiences – from the difficulties of accessing benefits and support, to the financial implications of being a single person. We discussed how these experiences related to our own and how we could make Birmingham a more equal city. The work is part of a larger programme of activity that the Equality Trust is leading on, working with Birmingham City Council to help them implement their social and economic duty.

Following, this the festival went into full swing – a community choir provided and upbeat opening to the event. Around the space, various community groups and local authorities had set-up stalls and activities, hosting conversations, creative activities and much more with the festival attendees. Central to the festival, was a pop-up Public Living Room which set an informal vibe to the event, and in which people could chat, connect and share. Food was flowing throughout the day… samosas, spring rolls, soup, pastries and cakes… and the informality was interspersed with scheduled activities such as arts workshops and the return of the ‘Confessions of a co-producer’ talk show in which attendees spontaneously became guests and chatted with the crew about co-pro.

Next year, the project is moving to North East London and we will soon be releasing a call for people to get involved… so until then, a massive thank you to the West Midlands folk for making the festival and the project happen, and cheers to all our attendees who came and contributed on the day. See you all again soon!

The Consortium Against Pain in Equalities (CAPE) from Dundee University and People’s Voice Media have been working with and using Community Reporting to help with research.

CAPE are conducting research into whether there is a link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and high levels of chronic pain in adult life in the most deprived communities and looking at the consequences of this.

The interaction between the CAPE project, People’s Voice Media and the Community Reporter network has demonstrated how lived experience stories can be used as a valuable research tool. To contribute to this research, People’s Voice Media collected stories of people’s experiences of living with pain. At the heart of these stories have been many challenges, but also many opportunities. We’ve now pulled together these narratives and an animator has been commissioned to produce an animation.

The animation will be used in training settings to help practitioners and people supporting people with long term chronic pain to understand the importance of empathy and communication. Understanding individuals’ lived and living experiences of pain can lead to effective change for all. 

In all the collected narratives, being believed and understood were key. Many participants reported that a turning point for them in managing their pain had been when just one person believed them and showed empathy. Sometimes this was from a clinician, but many had found peer support invaluable, to know that they were not alone. Empathy is crucial for people living with pain, and it’s needed within all the interactions people have, from interpersonal relationships to statutory health and social care providers in addition to employers.

Key themes from the lived experience narratives included; work, access to information, advice and guidance and feeling able to do the things that most people take for granted like leisure activities.

These are often difficult because people living with chronic pain might only use their energy for essential tasks, like going to the chemist or doing the household laundry. It might also mean they feel excluded from leisure activities because they can’t do the same or as much as their friends, or perhaps their pain is just not understood by others.

Additional key points are around the prejudice and discrimination experienced by people living with chronic pain. It’s clear from these narratives that chronic pain affects every part of people’s lives, including intimacy and how people view themselves in respect of a relationship. These lived experiences demonstrate the various responses people receive when seeking help and understanding to manage their pain. Many had negative or indifferent responses from others.

Empathy is vital if we want effective and sustainable change in society and the services people access. We need to consider the challenges people face from different perspectives. Then we need to develop more inclusive and equitable solutions, and ultimately, work towards a better world for those living with pain. All this starts by putting ourselves in another person’s shoes and experiencing their emotions and struggles.

The narratives that PVM collects is one way to do this, by listening to individuals’ stories first hand and thinking about what we might do or feel if we were them. Empathising means we can acknowledge their experiences and validate their feelings. It can also mean recognising the barriers that stop people from accessing resources and opportunities.

Through empathy we can start to understand different groups’ lived experiences and develop solutions that are more inclusive and equitable.

Social media provides a window into current debates, social issues and topics that are relevant to communities. Whilst social media is not necessarily a reflection of society and, like traditional media, they are a distorted representation of current trends rather than a mirror image, they can still help us to understand what is happening in society. Social media accounts connected to social movements can provide us with signs of what issues and debates are pertinent to people (as opposed to institutions). They offer us a glimpse of emerging forms of citizen participation and action. 

Such content can be useful for thinking about the future. As part of EUARENAS, we used social media posts and aspects of the Delphi method to explore the future of democracy in Europe. Three national studies were undertaken in the UK, Finland and Poland, with a fourth study taking place with experts from across Italy, Hungary and Portugal. The results of this work, are summarised in this blog post. 

Signals for the future: UK

This study suggests that co-production – not faux-production – could be a vital tool for enabling participation in democracy, particularly for people who are currently excluded. To enable inclusion in democratic action, inclusive language is needed (e.g., language that is simplified, jargon-free and not academic). More so, there should be an emphasis on independent voices sharing stories and lived experience as part of these processes so that different perspectives and types of knowledge are included and valued. The work also highlighted a need to ‘join-up’ grassroots movements with more mainstream democratic organisations in order to progress agendas – at present people seem to be in their silos and progress is not as quick as many would like. Thus, an emphasis on calls to action is needed – not just awareness-raising.  

Signals for the future: Finland

The social media content demonstrated that there are rising demands for equality, inclusiveness, sustainability, and all-round approaches in democracy. However, there is a polarisation of political views on social media sites that work against this. They are being used as opinion-sharing platforms, rather than spaces for people to exchange ideas. The experts felt it is possible to reimagine how technology like social media can create spaces that promote dialogue between different perspectives. This connects to a ‘call for action’ within the social media posts themselves – a need for education on critical thinking was identified. This could support people to better understand and assess information and media content, as well as engage in public discussions and not become entrenched in their position/perspective. 

Signals for the future: Poland

The study suggests that the financial crisis and the war in Ukraine make it seem less possible for citizens to engage in democracy. More so, the posts also displayed a sentiment of a lack of trust in any type of media and in governance structures – this was also expressed by the experts themselves. In a similar way to the findings from the UK, the posts and expert discussion around them identified that there is a lack of inclusive language on social media when talking about democracy. To engage with the general public it was felt that posts should be simple, not academic and gender-equal. Furthermore, like in the UK work, the posts highlighted a sense that talking was not enough, action needed to be taken – there was an urgency around this, perhaps ignited by the invasion of Ukraine. Finally, like in Finland, the social media content identified a strongly polarised “discussion” concerning democracy. This polarisation is something that local democracies need to address to build stronger communities and cohesion in the future. 

Signals for the future: Multi-location (Italy, Hungary and Portugal)

This study highlighted how local administrations need to mirror the bottom-up process of citizen engagement displayed by associations, neighbourhood committees and active civic initiatives. However, there is space to innovate in this arena. Participatory projects are focused largely on urban parks or the management of the green areas – these need to spread to all aspects of the community. It was felt that people who give time to such initiatives need to be recognised with rewards or pay back schemes. Finally, in terms of education, this work identified that support is needed to help people and organisations to utilise social media as an effective means of building campaigns. 

So, what are the key takeaways for building a better future for democracy?

1. Inclusive language – Remove the initial barrier to entering into this conversation by making language (text and visuals) more accessible and inclusive when discussing democracy and/or promoting initiatives. 
2. Collaboration as the norm – Breaking down the silos between different groups, organisations and institutions and embedding ‘alternative practice’ within existing systems to catalyse change.
3. Creating critical, curious minds – Using education and learning as a tool to equip people with the skills to assess content and information in the digital world, and develop the capacity to stay curious, seek to understand different perspectives and be open to changing their mind.

During Refugee Week in June (19 – 23) there will be significant events across the North of England where the personal stories of migrants and refugees living in the UK will be heard.

The stories have been collected as part of a Heritage Lottery project running in the North of England. The project is managed by Peoples Voice Media and aims to preserve and archive current stories of migration to the UK over the past 10 years.  From these stories there will be the creation of; an educational toolkit, a database of local new articles and an animation, to share with communities so people can gain a better understanding of the current position of migrants and refugees. These resources will give communities the tools to help to build communities of sanctuary.

Peoples Voice Media have been working with Refugee Women Connect in Liverpool, LASSN in Leeds, Global Link in Lancaster, Dragons Voice in Manchester, MAP in Middlesbrough and using peer-to-peer Community Reporting have gathered lived experience stories as well as undertaking archive research and collected local newspaper stories from the past 10 years. 

There will be 5 in-person events in each area Lancaster, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester to look at the stories gathered during Community Reporting workshops, as well as reviewing key themes from the archive research activities.

The aim of these events is to bring people together from each area; members of the wider local community, cultural and heritage organisations, to explore the findings of the workshops and research. The events seek to open-up a dialogue between different local people about the heritage of migration in their area, how that relates to their current thinking and perceptions and what can be done to better understand, learn from and preserve this type of heritage in the future.

The theme of refugee Week this year is compassion, and this certainly resonates with some of the stories we have heard from participants on the project who have found the British people very welcoming.

“I’m very happy because we met here very nice people, very kind people.’ Karina, Lancaster.

If you’d like to find out more, please reserve your free space by completing the Eventbrite booking forms below:

Monday 19th June: 12:00pm to 3:00pm – Lancaster

Tuesday 20th June: 12:00pm to 3:00pm – Middlesbrough

Wednesdav 21st June: 12:00pm to 3:00pm – Leeds

Thursday 22nd June: 12:00pm to 3:00pm – Liverpool

Friday 23rd June: 12:00pm to 3:00pm – Manchester

Or get in touch with Kath Peters at People Voice Media at kath@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk