Forrest Sparks is a Participatory & Systems Design Practitioner that consults for the NYC Civic Engagement Commission. This office leads the People’s Money project which is a participatory effort with the residents of NYC to decide on how to spend $5million. He has a MFA/ MS is Transdisciplinary Studies, and Public and Urban Policy from Parson. He calls himself a “relationship-first” researcher, and leverages participatory and systems based methodologies to galvanize for cooperative and libratory futures.
Thesis overview
Goal: To understand the ways participatory policy research is being done, and to understand what the possibilities may look like in utilizing restorative frameworks and creative interventions to make the research better, and even healing for participants.
Outcome goal: Research and outcomes that are more effective and democratic
Process goal: Design processes for research that empower and provide healing to the participants.
Vision:
Create processes and methods for restorative research
Shift research beyond participatory towards collective healing
Enhance participatory research through restorative frameworks
Questions:
Warm up:
What do you love about what you do?
Consultant - independent contractor. CEC needed capacity for this type of project
Participatory budgeting and expanding it to be more deliberative process. long form. did thesis on deliberate democracy
writing reports now
wellbeing wealth
each council district can run their own participatory budgeting but not every one did
alternative forms of economics and design of participatory policy making
look up citizen assembly
sortition
how do you create processes that don’t create power dynamics that harm communities
democracy RND
diversifying how we decide on things but also how we get educated
High level:
Is what the NYCCEC does policy research? How is it innovative?
idea generation session to learn bout city budgeting and write down ideas
synthesize information
ballot will have 6-10 ideas
randomly selected 20 folks but accurately represented the borough to make mini publics
over 4-5 sessions learned about all the ideas and were shared data and insights about the topics
need to subvert who makes policy in order to create civic trust
need to create the infrastructure for this
Tell me about the reporting
entry survey and exit survey
how much do you trust CEC
how engaged are you with civic affairs
how do you see yourself participating further
getting video of the process and expanding mindset around participation on government affairs and policy making
What does community building look like in a research setting? Have you witnessed this?
What are some methods that you are interested in exploring, but have not gotten the chance to? What are the barriers to doing them?
feel like a kid in a candy store. doing what he wants and set them up for the future
having to convince people of these methods and ideologies
learning the language of the people who don’t understand what you do
barrier to initiating- awareness and buy-in, hitting on agendas and paint points, also costs money
how to make people in power give up some of their power to get things done
Can research be a form of restoration? What could researchers do in order to create restorative environments for participants?
Should that be a priority?
yes building civic trust and community empowerment is good for democracy
Wrap up:
What would your dream democracy look like? How might that happen? Are there things currently moving us towards your dream?
imagine having a citizens council to set agendas
how to create a process where instead of a politician make choices
in this idea, there is no elections just randoms elections of citizens that are accurately represented
want to reimagine what democracy could mean
Other:
What are the barriers you face as someone working to change the way research is done within government?