SCHURINGA, Leida

(Dutch)

Title of contribution:

Integral Participation

Where & when:

Play Room.
Friday, May 29th, 2020
11:30 – 13:30

Presentation: Integral Participation

In this article I describe different forms of participation in society using Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics. We can look to partipation from the different value systems. It means quite something else! For instance, in Purple, it is about participating in the own community, in Blue in traditional organisations and in Green becoming active for the whole world.

People may participate in groups, in their neighbourhoods and in society at large. They may contribute by performing paid work or volunteering. In neighbourhoods, people may be involved with housing planning, designing playgrounds, traffic, green provisions, youth facilities, new energy solutions and so on. Being involved in these activities can contribute to social cohesion and integration. In practice, we can distinguish three main categories of participation:
– Horizontal participation, focused on involving different (groups of) residents and increasing the interaction between these.
– Vertical participation: taking part in the formal decision making processes of (governmental) institutions
– Individual development: people participating in society

Then I will focus on new integral forms of participation to include citizens in political decision making processes about urgent societal issues like migration and climate change. A good example is the Citizens Assembly that was launched in Ireland in 2016, preparing new abortion legislation. Also in The Netherlands these kind of councils are developing.

About Schuringa Leida:

Leida Schuringa is an Integral Master Coach, author of methodology books and articles applying Integral theory (Wilber) and Spiral Dynamics on urgent societal issues like migration and climate change. At this moment she supports community development projects in Malawi and community work with Roma in Czech Republic. She is a board member of the Center for Human Emergence (CHE) in The Netherlands.