From frustration to understanding

May 27th, 2023
 

It has been four days now since my first workshop, and I have heard nothing. Frustration is beginning to creep in, matched with that sinking, anxious thought: I flew here for this. I am paying out of my own pocket. I am working extra jobs to cover the cost — and what if it all comes to nothing? 

 

Travel here is not easy, nor is it cheap. Every flight or ferry feels like a gamble.

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As the frustration and anxiety settled, a different feeling took its place: understanding. Without claiming to be an ‘expert’ in community engagement, I began to see how this silence might be the reality for many researchers. When you arrive as an outsider, you are often just another project. Another academic, another initiative, another voice asking for time and energy. I was not the first to walk through this door, and I will not be the last. For those I was asking to participate, I was one among hundreds: councils, charities, researchers, all seeking input. And how many of those projects had ever led to real change?

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I became acutely aware of my own position. I had no budget to compensate the organisation. I was not backed by government. I carried no immediate solutions. What I was asking for was not money or space, but time — a resource people rarely get returned to them. At best, my project could open a conversation, in the hope that someone, somewhere might take it seriously enough to seed material change. But under austerity, budget cuts and political stagnation across the UK and Scotland, was that even realistic? Or was I simply documenting decline, collecting stories that may never translate into action?

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And yet, this also deepened my resolve. If I could not guarantee change, I could at least work as hard as possible to ensure that the results were seen by those in positions to act. My task was not only to document but to frame the project in ways that made people receptive, to present the findings positively and constructively, so they might spark reflection on what could still be changed.

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Earlier, I had read a piece by artists at Creative Dundee. They wrote about how policy now speaks of sustainable public spaces, but in practice neighbourhoods are still reshaped by top-down placemaking, led by people who do not live there. Communities are only involved at the later stages, their contribution reduced to a token vote for or against proposals. No wonder engagement fatigue runs deep. People are endlessly asked for their time and ideas, only to see no change.

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Perhaps, then, the lack of participation in my workshop is not disinterest. Perhaps it is a defence mechanism. Why invest your energy in yet another project, when so many before have led to nothing concrete in your own neighbourhood?