Tulitha King

Category: Community Development

  • Why Markets?

    Markets are one of the oldest forms of commerce and trade and they are enduring.

    photo by Somi Jaiswal via Unsplash

    Canberra is full of local markets, though this is only fairly recent with the Capital Region Farmer’s Market arriving on the scene in 2004 and the Handmade Markets following soon after in 2008. These followed the original and gigantic Old Bus Depot Markets by over a decade! By my estimation these are the three largest markets on Canberra’s calendar and arrived well before some of the many others followed including the Southside Farmers Market in 2013, The Forage in 2014, the Night Noodle Market came to Canberra in 2015 (interestingly brought to us, and Australia, by the Fairfax group, and notably part of the Enlighten Festival) and the most recent arrival, the Haig Park Village Markets.

    Through the year all sorts of other markets crop up on the calendar including many Christmas Markets of either Scandinavian or the Eco variety, the Alliance Francaise Markets and even a new Christmas in July Market coming in 2022 with a French twist.

    I am a traditionalist and while I’ve poked my head in at many of the above my favourite is the weekly Farmer’s Market. I love it for its lack of pretension, its utter practicality, its simplicity and its simple service – with an aim to get produce directly from the producer to the consumer. It meets a need with no fluff, of which I am always wary and slightly cynical.

    Markets generally tick lots of great boxes including: incubating small business, supporting resilient food networks, reducing income disparity, building community, promoting health and active living, providing opportunities for creativity and collaboration and generally increasing the vibrancy and choice available in a town or city.

    My fascination is with what it is exactly that piques people’s interest and what draws them to something like a market. Is it the promise of discovering the unexpected? Exploring new territory – even though temporary? Gathering together like the tribal animals we seem to be? Having our senses overwhelmed or gently coaxed? Or is it that we’re subconsciously aware of the inherent good of a market (see above)? Nutting these things out can show us how to run great markets in the future.

    Market Cities recognises the value of markets, including these indirect benefits and their website houses a trove of articles, research reports and publications on the value of markets around the world, including as social hubs or ‘third places’ where people can almost rely on bumping into eachother, a form of social engagement that is not really recognised but seems to be deeply comforting. It is, perhaps, our ingrained tribalism.

    Independent sellers protect their markets with a fierce passion – fierce because that is what it takes to protect their industry and creativity from becoming strangled by the overwhelming financial and legal obligations that come with more institutionalisation. A market provides a point-of-sale that is affordable and easily accessed by both customer and retailer and this must be protected from commercialism at all costs.

    I’ve now had the privilege of being part of starting a new market in Canberra. One thing that it is important to recognise and encourage is: Allow time for it to grow. It is ok to start small. Something has to come first. Either the retailers take a risk or the customers take a risk. It can be hard to match each one up at the same time. Keep communicating with customer and your sellers, admit that it’s not going to be perfect at first. You have to build capacity – that is better than putting on a show.

    From little things good things will grow.

  • A Philosophy of Dialogue (Martin Buber)

    In this blog-series I explore the various philosophies which have shaped, are shaping or (imho) should shape community development work. Search for the tag: #CDPhilosophy to find all related posts.

    Martin Buber is one of the best places to start when it comes to Community Development Philosophies. His simple, but powerful Philosophy of Dialogue, consisting of the “I-Thou” relationship, is little known but essential to engage in when working with people, particularly diverse people who sometimes come together with apparently little in common.

    In fact the recent move of some toward gender fluidity can be seen to relate to this “I-Thou” approach. In many ways the call to change pronouns requests that people look beyond a person’s apparent gender to consider the nuance of a person’s being and identity. One can do this while maintaining gendered pronouns, but by bringing pronouns to the fore it does force others to consider thinking about the unique stories people bring into their lived experience.

    I believe that adopting a philosophy of “I-Thou” and developing a deep understanding of this approach is more powerful than asking others to change gendered pronouns as it is likely that adopting ‘they’, alongside ‘he’ and ‘she’ will just become a ‘third gender’ with little understanding of the intent behind it. There is also no way two, three or even four or five pronouns can capture all the variance of the human experience, therefore we risk not allowing our limited vocabularies to rightly accommodate true diversity if we stipulate that our language must be precise to the point of legal speech in daily life – and in fear of causing offence, language actually becomes a barrier instead of a doorway to understanding.

    Adopting a philosophy to inform the way one relates to other people (i.e. knowing why you do something) is more powerful than changing a behaviour due to common practice or because you have been told/asked to do so. A rigorously examined personal philosophy is transformative rather than prescriptive.

    So, what is the Philosophy of Dialogue? What does it mean to adopt an “I-Thou” approach?

    It is very simple really.

    It is coming to someone without any assumption of who they might be based on what you see in front of you, what you have heard about them or what you assume based on what you can see (e.g. their gender, the colour of their skin, their size, their obvious abilities, and so on). On approaching a person you approach to deeply listen, to allow time and space to truly connect as beings, to be open to sharing yourself (the “I”) and open to truly hearing and understanding the other (the “thou”). It is turning the objective “you” into the subjective “thou” and allowing the “I” to be seen.

    I hope you can see that this distinction is a subtle but powerful shift in approach. It is where Asset Based Community Development needs to begin, where a “culture of silence” is confronted and where a Critical Pedagogy can be established.