Participation in territorial development projects: the “territory game” as a local project leadership system, a collective communicative method and a governance tool.

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Participation in territorial development projects: the

“territory game” as a local project leadership system, a collective communicative method and a governance tool.

Sylvie Lardon

To cite this version:

Sylvie Lardon. Participation in territorial development projects: the “territory game” as a local project leadership system, a collective communicative method and a governance tool.. International Conference on the Cartographic Challenges : Movement, Participation, Risk, Apr 2009, Bergamo, Italie. �hal-01195164�

Cartographic challenges: movement, participation, risk (Bergamo, 23-24 April 2009)

WORKSHOP 2: PLANNING CARTOGRAPHY

Sylvie Lardon

INRA & AgroParisTech-ENGREF, UMR Métafort, Clermont-Ferrand [email protected]

Title:

Participation in territorial development projects : the territory as a guide in local development,, collective communicative method and governance tool.

The wide range of participative territory management systems that have emerged over the last decade under the request of methods and approaches for translating in practice the concept of participation. We have developed a local project leadership tool designed to promote interactions between actors, convergence in the positions they hold, and ownership of knowledge inputs. This tool, which we call the “territory game”, is a game wherein the actors express and debate their positions in order to build a shared vision of the territory, thereby facilitating collaborative decision-making and joint action (Debarbieux & Vanier, 2002). This makes it analyzable as an instrument for guiding the local project (Angeon & Lardon, 2007) that can be employed as a governance tool, since it creates communityship between actors and enables the emergence of a shared vision of the territory (Angeon & Lardon, 2008).

1. What makes the “territory game” original is the way it seeks to build a forward-looking diagnosis via a methodological series of spatial modelling-based steps (Lardon et al., 2007).

The main goal is to create interplays between different information processing methods while proactively involving the actors in order to generate a shared strategic vision of a given territory. The territorial diagnostics approach, which stems from organizational geography, is based on a grid of analysis borrowed from Brunet (1986). The approach, which is underpinned by an understanding of the fundamental elements of space, consists in formalizing pertinent spatial planning questions and sketching or even mapping out the forms of spatial organization observed through choremes (generated through graphical modelling).

These choreme maps act as the core focus for cross-comparing and integrating the knowledge generated throughout the territorial diagnostics approach (Lardon & Piveteau, 2005). The territorial diagnostics approach combines data compiled from existing statistical and cartographic material (“objective data”) with enquiries led with actors (“subjective data”).

The approach is underpinned by both internal and external spatial representations, which are treated as intermediates (i.e. support material for interactions between the actors) and frameworks expressing their interpretations (Lardon et al., 2001). The aim of the approach is to encourage the actors to follow a spatial-based reasoning translated into concrete terms via the gameplay system set-up. The “territory game” is a system employed to build a shared vision of a territory fostering the implementation of common projects. It comprises three phases of thought (collective or individual, open-minded or closed-thought) and debate. The system, which draws on the principles of graphical modelling, is a pack of cards produced by and with the local actors. It is based on an ex ante definition of the main structures of the territory and on a spot understanding of the dynamics at play. This first phase of the game is based on the fundamental principles of geography. The stakeholders brought together in a workshop-type set-up thus produce a model reconstruction of the diagnostic they have made of their territory and the key challenges involved. The second game phase consists in building territorial development scenarios based on the issues/challenges identified. It is the players who decide the boundaries of what is possible, listing and ranking their priorities in order to set out the main development drives they wish to impact for their territory. Finally, phase 3 of gameplay is to host debate between the actors on the actions to be led in order to carry

Cartographic challenges: movement, participation, risk (Bergamo, 23-24 April 2009)

through a first-choice scenario (reflecting the challenges selected) and to define a territorial development strategy. When played in this way, the “territory game” is a collaborative learning system that works through different dimensions: spatial (appropriation of identities, actors briefed on spatial reasoning), cognitive (expression of projections, reproducing local rules and norms, defining and agreeing on shared values) and relational (organizing how the stakeholders interact).

2. The “territory game” is not a role-playing game (d’Aquino et al., 2002), since the players are not required to reorient their input and their representation of the territory by regularly taking on the positions of a particular actor in the field, but instead act out only their own roles. The “territory game” is a game of expression enabling participants to set out their point of view and get as involved as their capacity for action and space of action allow. From this perspective, the “territory game” is no fictitious simulation where the players take on dummy roles. It is a real-life situation where actors get to directly stage their regular purpose or field of study. This does not mean that these relations between agents are devoid of any hierarchical authority or do not account for elite leadership positions. The key point, though, is that the principle of governance is essentially based on the tenets of participatory democracy, which supposes that the agents consider themselves ontologically equal. The issues of fairness or social justice also tie in with the issue of the representativity of the actors involved in the participatory system. The advantage of the “territory game” is that it promotes the principles of mutual understanding to enable the various players to arrive at a shared representation. It is to this end that the game organizes compromise between peers occupying different places and roles in social space. The “territory game” brings together a broad range of actors, whether they belong to the public sphere or the private sphere (State services, local government, development agents or members of civil society), who are made stakeholders. In short, the “territory game” remains a completely valid governance tool if it brings together ontologically equal actors, even if these actors do not share the same position, status, function, etc. This makes it a credible actor coaching system for enacting rules, norms, and the groundwork actions for founding consensus-built territories. The “territory game”, field- trialled with real-world actors, consists in working with stakeholder-actors to produce a territory diagnostic for perspective planning. The game is designed to facilitate the expression – or even the resolution – of the complex problems involved in designing and implementing traditional project territories to be transformed into community-built (project) territories.

There are three key properties that make the “territory game” employable as a support tool for territorial projects. (i) Each actor is recognized for their capacity for action and according to their space of action, and is able to be positioned within the global collectively- expressed project. (ii) Discussion and debate on the territory integrates the spatial dimension, in that the actors are situated and required to deliver in response to spatio-temporal constraints on the concrete implementation of the actions they propose. (iii) Working towards future perspectives as means of better directing present-day action opens the way to a wider sphere of possibilities and generates much more individual and community-wide room for manoeuvre. More that just a project leadership method, the “territory game” is action-support coaching, as it is also interactive spatial-based tool fully valid for deploying sustainable territorial development initiatives.