In The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes
(1999) John Forester asks us as community practitioners to rethink how we
learn and act in practice. He invites us to listen with an intimate ear and an
analytic mind to the stories we tell ourselves and the stories others tell us and
to which we find ourselves listening. He also invites us to step outside the
formal settings we legitimize as ‘work’ and open our eyes to the wealth of
our conversations. These conversations are what Forester calls ‘participatory
rituals’, ‘encounters that enable participants to develop more familiar relationships
or to learn about one another before solving the problems they face’.
Developing a caring curiosity towards each other helps us to see people rather
than problems, stories instead of issues. Not only does this way of practicing
feel better, it is also better practice. As Forester notes, ‘Pushing for solutions
too soon – before affected parties have been able to listen to one another
– can end up taking far more time than preliminary participatory rituals
might’.