Design for Healing
Everyone brings their own diverse histories and interests into public interactions, whether or not they recognize it. Public conversations need to allow for room for wounds to heal.
Publics and societies are made up of individuals. And each and every person has a story and a personal history. Each person has been shaped by their own life experiences, struggles, pasts, and desires; their family’s history and culture; and society’s history and culture.
What this means for civic and public life today is that everyone brings their own diverse histories and interests into public interactions, whether or not they recognize it. These histories and traditions tie people together, and their legacies can be painful to bear. No one arrives to public life from a neutral place. Our collective histories and traditions aren’t neutral either.
Designing new social and civic processes for healing means three things. The first is that new public processes need to be sensitive. These processes and the facilitators must recognize that some groups of people or individuals have been hurt in the past by these same processes they are now being engaged in. Some of them may be hesitant to participate or voice their concerns; they might think that their voice will be ignored or that in the end, it won’t amount to any real, meaningful change.
Secondly, designing for healing means creating space for reconciliation. When the human body needs to heal, it usually means that it has an open wound, or a part of it is broken or in pain. In order for the body to work together at its full strength, that part of the body will first need to heal.
Just like with the human body, in societies, different people and groups can and do cause one another pain and hurt. At times, planning processes have also ostracized and ignored certain populations. The work of engaging in a democracy requires each person and participant to make peace with one another before moving forward. There can be no progress in a democracy if its citizens are unable to work together.
Third, designing for healing means designing with the intent to move forward. Sensitive civic processes recognize that previous efforts at engagement may have had built-in biases or prejudices. Sensitivity means we admit these failures and avoid repeating them. One of the best ways to redesign these civic processes is by listening to the stories and histories of those who have been hurt in the past and asking how to recreate those processes, in a way that meaningfully accounts for their needs and interests.
Designing civic processes for healing paves the way for a society to progress toward a more equitable, collaborative, and just future in a meaningful and realistic way. The public’s wounds must heal before it can move forward with true rehabilitation.
Originally published at themove.mit.edu on July 9, 2018.
