Michal Kandler works for the Czech Agency for Social Inclusion as a participant expert and has extensive experience leading community developmeng processes in socially excluded localities. He lives in a small village in North Bohemia in the Czech Republic, where he is engaged in homeschooling, environmental protection and community activities.
In CA, Michal was introduced to participatory mapping and decided to try it out in his own village. He and a group of friends developed a plan to conduct listening conversations to uncover residents’ skills and interests and create new connections with villagers they didn’t know well. They prepared carefully for the mapping process: identifying aims and discussing their own motivations, creating an interview guide and running practice conversations among group members. This case study focuses on these preparations and briefly outlines the subsequent steps of introducing the participatory mapping project to the broader community.
Michal supports and leads community workers at the Czech Agency for Social Inclusion and is keenly interested in helping residents use their own strengths to improve their communities. Since 2017, he has lived in the small village of Jindřichovice, where he is part of a group of residents with a shared interest in alternative forms of schooling, environmental protection and community life. They are known as ‘alternatives’ by more conservative longstanding residents and are perceived as an insular group by some.
Jindřichovice pod Smrkem is a remote village in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic with 651 residents. The village was part of the Sudetenland until 1945, when the original German population was expelled. During the communist era Jindřichovice was resettled with Czechs and many historical buildings were razed. In the late 1990s, the municipality began investing in wind power and low energy housing. In the 2000s families with young children began moving to the village. Today, the village is a mix of post-World War II settlers, new arrivals who moved in after 2000 and a fraction of the original German inhabitants as well as new arrivals from Germany. There are several active civic associations in the village.
When Michal joined CA, he was introduced to principles of ABCD, participatory mapping and other approaches to community building. As he later explained, This experience expanded my view of community development, connecting it with active citizenship on the most fundamental level. A group of neighbors wants to do something – how can we support them?
Michal decided to pursue a new project, drawing on the inputs and inspiration generated by ABCD and participatory mapping, in his own village. Michal’s idea was to engage friends and neighbors in holding conversations with other residents to identify the skills, knowledge, experience and interests present in Jindřichovice. Some of his friends and neighbors in the village had previously expressed interest in sharing yard or construction equipment and when Michal initially mentioned his idea, they were receptive to learning about community members’ experiences and skills and sharing them through a database.
Michal thought the mapping could help residents identify specific resources, including potential community actors and informal leaders, and give them a space in which discuss how they might use these resources. Michal also saw the process itself as a very important way to strengthen relationships between his own circle of relatively new arrivals, longstanding residents and various groups on the margins, such as Roma or residents of an adjacent part of the village.
Michal invited friends and neighbors whom he thought would be interested to an introductory meeting about ABCD and participatory mapping. Ten people came, all of them residents who have lived in the village for 3-15 years who are part of the group known as ‘alternatives’. Michal shared a video of a talk by Cormac Russell to introduce ABCD principles and discussed the purpose and potential value of participatory mapping through structured conversations. Most of the group reacted positively, and about 5 people decided to get actively involved.
Early on, the group agreed that an important step was letting each person vocalize why s/he had joined the participatory mapping effort, even if it slowed down the process. They used an onion analysis, a tool that had been introduced during CA, to understand their underlying interests and needs in relation to the participatory mapping initiative. Michal explained why they considered this step so important: …each of us got engaged as an individual, a person living in Jindřichovice, and we each did the onion analysis to understand why we want to do this. Because each person realized that s/he is doing it for him/herself, it is about us, and it can have a big impact on life in our village. If it is done poorly, it can negatively affect life in the village, i.e. [people will say] ‘the alternative types are screwing things up in our village’. We are doing it as community members, not as professionals who come in and then leave.
After analyzing their motivations, the group members agreed that for them, participatory mapping was more about the process of facilitating contact between the different social groups in the village, which have little or only superficial contact with one another, than the information generated. As Michal noted: We have an idea of how we want to work with the data – report writing, etc. but for us it’s not just the information that is important – the process is just as or even more important to us. (…) even if we don’t find out anything essential, the conversations themselves are important while people are interested about each other. We have no idea whether it will be 50 or 500 conversations. There are 500 adults who could speak with us; 50 is the minimum.
Fostering collaboration across the village was another key goal for the group, he said: So that it connects people. Everyone knows someone, but we are missing collaboration across groups – mainly between new arrivals and long-term residents. We don’t want another project just led by us ‘alternative types’. The conversations themselves can play a role in greater interlinkages.
The group debated how to introduce residents to their participatory mapping initiative and the group’s motivations. Should they each share their own personal motivations, or present a unified list? They later decided to share these aims at the start of each conversation:
1) make contact with other residents, get to know one another and connect those who have something in common
2) promote exchanges of services between neighbors (paid and unpaid); e.g. help for neighbors, odd jobs for other residents
3) map human resources (who can do what) and material resources (tools, equipment, facilities, etc.) for mutual assistance and community activities
4) take responsibility for a safe and healthy environment (not waiting for someone else to address issues for us)
5) create an opportunity for all local citizens to take part (not excluding anyone)
The group also agreed that each of them could add his or her personal reasons for joining the effort – such as meeting people outside of their usual circle of friends or creating new exchanges of services between neighbors.
The group set about creating an outline for the conversations with suggested questions and a question sequence. They intended it as a rough guide, giving each group member the freedom to choose his/her own style and how closely to follow the outline. They also began creating guidelines on how to prepare and lead the conversations.
Questions:
Next the group members began holding mapping conversations with one another for practice. They felt it was important to experience both roles: leading the conversation and asking questions, and listening to and answering questions. After each practice conversation, the two people gave feedback and talked about what they had learned.
They quickly found that comfort zones and creating an atmosphere of trust were problematic. When he posed questions, Michal saw that for some people, the questions could be too direct and personal: During my first conversation, I asked, “What are you best at? What would your mother say you are #1 in?” This was too intimate. Women said they couldn’t compare themselves to others. Then, when it was his turn to answer questions, he internalized this lesson: (I learned) that it is difficult to answer, to think deeply about not only what I am good at, but also how I can contribute to the community, and that it is difficult to open up.
At the same time, Michal found that sometimes, trust enabled deeper connections: This is one of the most difficult aspects and sometimes we achieved it – when the person said something that s/he wasn’t sure about, revealed something, a hidden potential that they wouldn’t just tell anyone. Going beyond our usual scripted answers to reveal deeper sides of ourselves. Also, we felt we would uncover the greatest potential where the person realizes something (a gift) on his or her own. Sometimes we managed to get that far, sometimes we didn’t. To get beyond the person’s usual repertoire, CV, but to get to something the person would like to do, but that s/he thinks other people will not be interested in. This seems like the ultimate point. When people might say something they have never told anyone else.
During the practice conversation phase, the group also debated how to move beyond their own circle to conversations with other residents. There was a recommendation in the ABCD asset mapping guidance material to stick to people you know, and this reasoning made sense, they felt. Michal explained that they sought to maintain the rule that we only do conversations with people we know, so that we know how to speak to a particular person, so he feels comfortable and we can go deeper. It is much harder to build trust with someone I don’t know well.
But some group members wanted to lead a structured conversation with people they don’t know for the very purpose of getting to know them. The group finally opted for a snowball technique to go beyond close allies to gradually reach people in other social groups in the village while maintaining an atmosphere of personal trust. Michal explained: The Krompach process [note: a mapping initiative in a different village] was a guide but we decided we didn’t want to do it like that – that was more superficial – they went door to door asking for people’s activities, gifts, etc. – we realized we want to go deeper and be more personal. Therefore we want to have conversations with people we know, which is a challenge because our team is a bit of a bubble of ‘alternative’ types. The idea is that each person in our team will choose a few people from other groups whom they know but who are outside of our bubble. They will lead conversations with them, and then those people will (hopefully) lead conversations with other people they know, which should get us further and further from our own bubble. We see it as an organic process, using the snowball method.
The idea was to roll the snowball at the end of each conversation by asking if the other person would like to lead a structured conversation themselves, and offer the option of having one of the team members along for support. By enabling anyone to lead a structured conversation, the group sought to share power and spread ownership of the mapping across the community. The group members had discussed and accepted the risks that this approach would bring. One said: One risk that we decided to accept is that if we let it out into the community like this, it may go in directions that we cannot predict. e.g. What if some people say ‘we want to get rid of gypsies’, a Neo-Nazi group may emerge.
After discussing various options, they decided to prepare for structured conversations with other residents using an aquarium approach where two of the group members would act out a conversation, including the mistakes, and others could observe and comment.
Soon they were ready to begin conversations with people outside of their group. Michal felt that would be a good moment to check in with a mapping expert to discuss questions that might arise in ‘real’ conversations. The group members were aware that unlike the practice conversations conducted with one another, where familiarity enabled them to go quite deep, the external conversations would be different and touching on some topics might be beyond the comfort zone of residents whom they knew only slightly or not at all.
It is worth noting that the group was still unclear on what to do with the information that would be generated. They decided to present the mapping as a process with no predetermined outcome, i.e. that it would be up to the community to decide whether to create a database of the generated information or to use it in other ways.
Then, abruptly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February brought the mapping to a standstill. The check-in with the mapping expert was postponed as Michal’s group turned their full attention to helping incoming refugees from Ukraine. Suddenly their recent practice in identifying assets became a real benefit: they found it very easy to find resources within their own group to arrange housing for 4-5 refugee families, a warehouse for materials, and Russian interpreting.
Busy with the refugee aid efforts, they delayed launching conversations with people outside of their group. However, they did continue with practice conversations within the group and by early May they had completed 10 of them. They also continued to meet every week.
Another obstacle came into their path: municipal elections scheduled for September 2022. The group decided to postpone further work on the mapping until after the elections so that their efforts would not be perceived as a pre-election campaign. Michal said: The main goal was to connect people between different groups, not only ‘alternatives’ and the majority, but also Roma and people in outlying parts of the village. We want to interconnect people from these various groups and thus holding structured conversations before the election seems too risky as it would likely be perceived as election campaigning. We want to resume asap after the elections. The plan is that during September we would prepare our next steps, have a consultation with [the mapping expert] and then after the elections we would jump back into it.
He added: Many of our group are involved in politics (…and) we were concerned that it could get political. So we will resume after the elections; we worked intensely on the preparations for 2-3 months and did 10-12 practice conversations with one another. That gave us a lot of information about one another and also tips for how to lead a mapping conversation.
The municipal elections in September 2022 were indeed a pivotal moment in the community. The women’s party initiated by some of Michal’s friends won two seats on the village council. One of the newly elected women became the Deputy Mayor, in charge of the village’s social and cultural agenda, and also had the deciding vote on the council.
Michal reflected on the significance of this change: From my point of view, I see now that you can do a lot in a village when you put a few people together, or interconnect people from different groups. In the run-up to the elections, we were careful to make sure the mapping wouldn’t be viewed as an offensive action against the former mayor.
In addition, a new mayor was selected who reestablished a tradition of meeting with local associations once a month to share information about upcoming events (e.g. balls, clean up days) and coordinate dates. He also began a monthly meeting with residents. The new council began initiating more community activities as well.
In November, the group resumed their meetings, took stock of their situation and planned their next steps. They now viewed the project as having three phases:
They would start Phase 2 by attending the mayor’s monthly meeting with local associations in January 2023 and introducing the mapping initiative. The idea was to ask each local association’s representative to participate in a structured conversation led by a group member. The next step would be to invite the representatives to lead conversations with members of their associations – either by themselves or with a group member.
Involving people from associations was seen as a crucial intermediary step before opening the mapping to the entire community. Michal explained why: We are concerned that if we went public without that middle step, it would be viewed as just an activity of our group of ‘alternatives’. We want to connect with the leaders of other bubbles so that it is more of a shared project. We also want to consult the process with them, present our plan and still have the space to incorporate their feedback, which should help spread the ownership of the mapping project to these other groups.
The underlying theme was building trust, as Michal noted: This phase is mainly about trust building. If we skipped this phase, we think there would be a big risk that the mapping would be connected just with us and longstanding residents wouldn’t trust us.
At the same time, as Michal noted, the group realized that By involving the local associations, we think we will reach most of the people in the village, but not everyone. How to reach a wide swath of residents in Jindřichovice, including those that might be too easily missed or overlooked, was a question they tackled creatively. Three women in the village, who were launching a mobile social service for immobile elderly residents, planned on mapping these individuals’ needs. The group saw an opportunity to link the two mapping efforts, as Michal explained: We think that once we have some gifts listed in our asset mapping, we can connect those gifts with these people’s needs and vice versa, find out about what gifts these individuals would like to share with others in the village. Through this connection we should be able to reach isolated residents on the margins.
The group also presented the mapping initiative to the village council, with the expectation that they would lead conversations with council members. In turn the new mayor offered use of 4 municipal information boards, where the group could post the results of the mapping, and use of the municipal café to hold community meetings to share the results.
The group members distilled the key learning points for leading listening conversations:
People will want to know the purpose or intended outcome of the mapping. The group opted for an “open outcome”, as they wanted the community to decide how to use the information from the conversations. At the same time, each group member was free to say what s/he would like the outcome to be or why s/he is taking part in the mapping.
Holding a conversation in the home of the resident who is answering questions provides a safe environment, and they see things around them that spark ideas about what gifts they can share. Some group members felt that an at-home conversation was possible only with residents they knew, while others had positive experiences holding a conversation in the home of a resident they did not know.
The group confirmed that the outline would serve as a rough guide for the conversations, not as a rigid structure.
The person leading the conversation would send the other person his or her notes to give them a chance to check, edit and/or add to the notes.
In parallel, Michal came to several new realizations about the roles of local residents, professionals and institutions in community building:
For Michal, who is a civic participation professional, experiencing mapping in his own village as a neighbor, a citizen, a resident, was key. He said: What helped me the most was trying it in Jindřichovice as a citizen, not as an expert from the Agency. I think whoever wants to seriously learn about ABCD should try it out him/herself in the community in which s/he lives. As a neighbor. You can’t hide behind your professional role, you have to step out of your role and do it as a neighbor. Otherwise you are always in your professional role and it will not be true and people won’t believe you.
The focus on local resources transformed Michal’s professional approach: As experts we are used to starting from the other end, with what people don’t know – but it is better to turn it around and start with what they do know…and then work from there. As an expert I couldn’t imagine this before, I was used to ‘we are helping to teach them to be self-sufficient’ instead of starting with what they already know and waiting till they ask for help with what they don’t know. I think this is most difficult for professionals; to abandon one’s prior stereotypes about how we should support or intervene in communities.
Michal also revised his view of how institutions should support citizen engagement: community development is about the people who live there, about the neighborhood, and the institutions are important, but they support it, they don’t do it for the citizens. They complement what is going on. And it can be done without institutions – like the Norway brochure about ABCD – it was by residents. For example, here in Jindřichovice we have 3 municipal employees; they won’t create a community that can fulfil all of the residents’ wishes. We shouldn’t wait for them. This is a challenge – to come into a community and say, ‘super that you want something, but we won’t do it for you.’
By that point, the group had done 11 structured conversations. They held a community gathering to share news from the process and engage more people. Only a few neighbors showed up, and some of the group felt that the gathering came across as very formal. Reflecting on their priorities with the mapping expert, they realized that wanted to emphasize connections over information gathering: after one year the most important thing are the one-on-one conversations. The list of assets is a bonus and we don’t want to push it. Neighbors began seeing the list as the main result.
The group decided to take a slower approach and focus on informal ways to foster connections. Michal realized that the process was not going to go that fast, I need to let it mature, it’s taking much longer than I thought.
One group member explained their new idea: We want to try a sort of “Neighbor, come have a chat” method where you invite people to come over for a coffee and a chat. We want to slow the process down and open up connections with each other organically.
About once a week one of the group members had a conversation with someone from a different social group. In parallel, they organized a second community gathering – a neighbors’ dinner – as an informal evening with no agenda. They invited the 15-20 people who had been engaged in conversations up till then. One group member said: The dinner gathering was very informal and very pleasant. It was more spontaneous, and the intention was for neighbors to get to know one another. Relaxed.
In line with the slower pace of the process, Michal’s view of his own role had also evolved away from the professional to the personal. He said: I see myself as more as a citizen, as part of the community – a different role, not as a manager or community builder, not such an active role. We are still in the beginnings of the mapping process and we are organizing sessions with residents, small neighborly events e.g. dinner, we need to take it in a more organic way, not pushing so much. It may take years, it may be more natural for our community.
Later in the spring a third neighbors’ dinner was held. In some members’ view, the aim of the gathering was unclear. People’s reaction was ‘I came to hang out with neighbors, and I was assigned some tasks, and I don’t want that’.
At the same time, the group’s plan to hold conversations with all of the association representatives, and to “snowball” the conversations to association members, did not go forward, as some group members now lacked the capacity to take part.
Among some group members, there was a feeling that the process had faltered for a number of reasons, including:
At their last meeting, the group concluded their work on the mapping initiative. Most of the core group had to pull their energy from the initiative to other areas of their lives. However, at the meeting, a team did emerge to plan the next community-wide meeting, which had been a regular feature of the village in recent years where people discuss what community activities they would like to focus on. There is hope that the energy to build community will continue in that forum.