Training exercises

The following training exercises have been used in action research inspired by the Community Economies Project.

Community Partnering Project, Australia

Photo essay by retrenched worker in Latrobe Valley,
Australia

Recruiting and training community researchers
Three Community researchers were employed part-time over a period of 8 months. Training focused upon valuing people and their assets as a step towards development of community economies.

Seeing people as the primary resource in a community or region
Training used with marginalized and disadvantaged people in the Latrobe Valley to redefine 'community assets and capacities'.

Identifying secondary resources that can contribute to building community economies
Training on how to research the associations, businesses and physical resources that can provide a base for new community-based enterprises.

Generating ideas for community initiatives
A process for conducting community 'ideas' workshops.

Turning ideas into reality
How community initiatives can become real live community projects.

Connecticut River in the Pioneer Valley of
Massachusetts, USA

Rethinking Economy Project, USA

Weekend interview training for community economy researchers
A diverse group of community researchers recruited from the Pioneer Valley were trained over one weekend to conduct interviews with people in their own networks on alternative and hidden economies. The training materials were designed to communicate the difference between the mainstream conception of the economy (with its focus on market transactions, capitalist firms and wage labor) and our more inclusive vision of the economy as a set of disparate activities dispersed across the landscape.

Community economy researcher at the training
workshop

1. Introductory exercise-your community
2. Economic (and other) desires
3. Three questions
4. The economy/non-economy boundary
5. Economy in the news
6. The mainstream vision of economic development
7. Disrupting the mainstream vision
8. 'What's my line?'
9. Thrown into the pot: practising the interview
10. Debriefing the community researchers

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