Reena Tiwari

Symbolic estates: community identity and empowerment through heritage

Heritage is important for the social and cultural health of communities, whilst local stewardship of cultural heritage has the capacity to empower and recover cultural identity. This paper describes a recent project in Lakhnu – a small rural village in Uttar Pradesh, India – to restore a nineteenth century villa formerly used as the village school as an educational facility. In this discussion, we draw attention to the right of groups to manage their culture. The loss of cultural heritage is linked to a loss of identity. We argue that heritage projects have the capacity to empower communities to sustain their heritage and identity and provide useful places for social and material advancement through the concept of a shared ‘symbolic estate’. At Lakhnu, we plan to evoke grass-root conservation where local communities become the rightful stakeholders and decision-makers who are encouraged and facilitated in the realisation of their right to cultural heritage and to stimulate growth and build capacity for the community.

Desirable Dense Neighbourhoods: An Environmental Psychological Approach for Understanding Community Resistance to Densification

Abstract This article examines an environmental psychological approach to exploring the attitudes of urban residents towards what they consider to be a ‘desirable dense’ neighbourhood. Socio-cultural expectations of high-density developments are explored through an analysis of residents’ perceptions of what constitutes a desirable high-density environment. The article presents specific findings identifying influences on residents’ attitudes to urban densification derived from three case studies of designated transit-oriented development (TOD) areas located in the Perth Metropolitan Region. It was found that community resistance towards future higher-density developments is rooted in the current socio-cultural context of the area. Community resistance may be driven by the physical quality of developments (such as building heights, overshadowing), however, deeper concerns are allied to the uncertain social outcomes that are the product of new development. A dominant cultural characteristic such as a disinclination to socialise with diverse people is found to be a negative response to dense neighbourhoods in all the case studies. This characteristic is more evident in populations of high socio-economic status. These areas are usually close to the central business district (CBD) where many infill high-density developments have been proposed.

Navigating Community Engagement

What it is about community involvement that attracts some professionals to adopt ways of working that embrace the community members as partners? Which aspects make community work rewarding for a professional, and more importantly, successful from a community member’s perspective? The theoretical constructs—community engagement, capacity building, and community empowerment—will be discussed in order to demonstrate how theory and practice are relevant to the development of ways to be involved in communities. A framework that we consider is of value has evolved that enables us to map or describe the attributes of community based projects; that is, an approach which aims to move beyond simply bringing people together from a variety of disciplines, to one which is transdisciplinary and applicable across cultures and genres of projects. Although a transdisciplinary approach is not new in itself, by making it explicit as an aspiration, we highlight the possible limitation of those projects that only bring together differing contributors at core moments for their expertise, without reflecting or planning for the potentially new ways of conceptualizing and of actioning what needs to be done. Such interactions are discussed in relation to participation and engagement. By constructing a project as transdisciplinary, all people—including the community—are ongoing contributors, who are able to wander into others’ discipline-specific arenas and vice versa.

M2 Models and Methodologies for Community Engagement

1. Navigating Community Engagement Dianne Smith, Reena Tiwari and Marina Lommerse Part I: Narratives on Models, Methodologies and Methods 2. An Ethnographic and Collaborative Model of Inquiry: Activity Centre Project in India Reena Tiwari and Yatin Pandya 3. Capacity Building and Community Development: a Community Dialogue on Equality in Rural Uganda Debbie Singh, May Lample, Mark Jones and Jaya Earnest 4. Urban Neighbourhood Regeneration and Community Participation: an Unresolved Issue in the Barcelona Experience Carmen Mendoza-Arroyo and Pere Vall-Casas 5. The Port Resolution Project: Developing Community Built and Managed Visitor Accommodation Typologies Damian Madigan and David Morris 6. Applying a Practical, Participatory Action Research Framework for Producing Knowledge, Action and Change in Communities: a Health Case Study from Gujarat, Western India Clancy Read, Jaya Earnest, Mohammed Ali and Veena Poonacha 7. Inspired by Nature: Building Community Capacity Through Creative Leadership Denise DeLuca 8. Connections: Academics, Architects and Community Pro-Bono Projects Sarah McGann and Barbara Milech 9. Fremantle on the Edge: a Community Collaboration Anne Farren and Nancy Spanbroek 10. Transparency and Interdependence Salvatore Di Mauro Part II: Unfolding Challenges and Removing Barriers in the Community Engagement Process: Opportunities for Transdisciplinary and Translocational Applications 11. Capturing the Diversity and Commonalities of Community Engagement Reena Tiwari, Marina Lommerse and Dianne Smith 12. Joining Communities: A Role for Reflection Dianne Smith 13. Reflections on Working with Communities and Community-based Projects in Bangladesh Mokhlesur Rahman and Bob Pokrant 14. Action Preparedness Tool for Community Engagement Clancy Read Part III: Community Engagement and Capacity Building: a Transdisciplinary Perspective 15. Transforming Community: Opportunities for Transdisciplinary Application Marina Lommerse, Dianne Smith and Reena Tiwari ABOUT THE EDITORS ABOUT THE AUTHORS INDEX

An Ethnographic and Collaborative Model of Inquiry: Activity Centre Project in India

This chapter proposes an ethnographic and collaborative model of inquiry for executing community scale architectural projects that facilitate capacity building opportunities for all stakeholders involved in the process. Taking on the role of an ethnographer, the designer/architect/researcher is able to locate her- or himself within the time and space of the community. In the process he/she is able to form an insider’s perspective on issues and challenges. Working collaboratively, the intention is to create a horizontal power relation between different stakeholders. The model is described in general terms, then illustrated by a case-study—an Activity Centre project for an Indian slum settlement—then discussed in terms of its capacity building outcomes.

Embedded poetics and surrounding politics of a coastal squatter settlement

This article explores the poetics of built environment at Wedge, a squatter community located on the Western Australian coastline, and uncovers its surrounding politics. Built and un-built patterns at Wedge are chaotic, organic and ambiguous, and yet there are glimpses of a poetic order within the decayed fragments from within its vernacular built form. The article explores this poetic order and further un-layers the politics of the place by revealing the desires of different stakeholders involved in its ‘planned development’. Are the poetics at Wedge under threat from the nature of the political game being played here? Is the very act of ‘ordering and planning’ this place going to result in a loss of its cultural significance, and the creation of a place based on the conflicting desires of the various stake-holders?

Gentrification in new-build and old-build transit-oriented developments: the case of Bengaluru

Indian cities have seen substantial investment in building metro systems, with a few cities operating full-fledged metro. In the case of city of Bengaluru, the influx of public investment on transit and favourable zoning incentives are attracting around 26% of housing investment in transit-oriented developments (TODs). This paper examines whether such a large-scale influx of public and private capital is leading to gentrification in TODs. The findings indicate that the new housing projects in TODs are causing new-build gentrification, but the old build existing housing remains ungentrified. Towards mitigating gentrification issues, the paper recommends inclusive and equitable TOD strategies.

The death of strategic plan: questioning the role of strategic plan in self-initiated projects relying on stakeholder collaboration

ABSTRACT This paper is an outcome of the authors’ involvement in a community development and capacity building project which commenced in 2010 in a small village in North India. Using a collaborative and participatory approach, the specific nature of this project influenced the development of objectives, the planning process, role planning and role allocation for different participants, and the subsequent actions. No structured strategic plan had previously been developed, nor was one constructed at the initial stages of this project. The lack of a strategic plan did not impact negatively on the project outcomes. This paper questions the need and value of the traditional strategic plan for projects requiring the participation throughout the multiple stakeholders. The paper asks: Has the strategic plan lost its relevance in today’s changed planning context?

Transforming Community: Opportunities for Transdisciplinary Application

This chapter discusses how individual authors in Parts I and II of this book have understood and investigated the idea of community. We look at whether and how their definition of community is dependent on location and the nature of their projects, how their views changed through reflection and interaction with community members, and what constitutes capacity building in different socio-cultural contexts. The projects discussed capture a multitude of ways to interface and interact with communities, of modes of interaction, empowerment or engagement, of varying scales and complexity and socio-economic circumstances, as well as of physical locations across the world. The transformative experience is valid, not only for local users/residents in the project, but also for the associated civil society, the policymakers, the professionals, the students and other social actors involved. The case studies described in the chapters in Parts I and II are reflected on in terms of the concept of community as a discipline in its own right, which builds capacity in a transformative experience that brings physical, social, economic or environmental change. We revisit notions of co-creation, capacity building and transformation, and identify transdisciplinary understandings of community engagement. The editors have arrived at the notion of community as a discipline and the increased value of recognizing community engagement as a transdisciplinary practice.

Capturing the Diversity and Commonalties of Community Engagement

Models and methods of engaging communities are greatly influenced by scale and the type of project, by the nature of the communities that are shaped by their locale, and by the disciplinary perspectives of the researchers. Are there any common threads that can be untangled from this web of diversity within which researchers, communities and projects operate?