Typologies of Participation

Participatory engagement often leads to community participants having ownership of a direction, course of action or decision, and its implementation, where previously power groups, such as governments or corporations may have had sole carriage and ownership. This can cause tensions between the groups seeking participation and the participatory decision makers, who may have significantly different interests or opinions to the former. In addition, the greater the degree of participation in the decision making process, the higher the level of perceived ownership of the decision.

Participation

(Image reproduced from gravis.org.in)

Participation is to take part, share and act together. In some forms it brings together multiple stakeholders and their views to a) help build consensus and b) help future decision making processes. It can:

• help build capacity, skills and motivation to contribute to sustainability
• empower communty groups, especially those with less power, to contribute to decision making
• recognise and involve indigenous groups and their knowledge.

Participation is different to consultation: consultation related to sharing information but not necessarily decision-making powers, and participation involves a more active level of engagement between groups and can give participants more significant control over decisions.