Yesterday, I talked about how we started up the Transeuropa Network. In this post, I’m going to discuss one of the themes proposed at that meeting — social Europe.
Social Europe was seen for some people a problematic label, in particular in post-communist Eastern Europe where the very word “social” has very negative connotations.
Was there another way to frame the debate? Was there a way to deconstruct it and move away from ideology towards understanding what people really want out of life in a less politicised context? And to forget about the historical baggage it brought with it?
Could we talk about the “good life”? And ask what that means to people. Could we ask very simple questions about life, building them in a pyramid structure — What is a decent day? What is a decent week? What is a decent month? What is a decent year? What is a decent life? What gives meaning to your life?
We then wondered why different countries within Europe have different approaches to social policy. Could we compare and contrast similarities and differences?
Could we do this through the lens of the position of the “worker” in different countries post financial crisis?
We thought through the festival we could solicit visual dialogue throughout Europe through the different city groups to the questions. And so that’s why many of the activities in the Festival explored issues in visual ways.
One very interesting idea that came out was how we could really talk about the human aspect of the austerity measures in Europe.
How the cuts affect individuals, their families, their lives. What the human story and the human cost is.
That’s because we felt that the discourse on social policy was always too technical. In the spirit of the Network being a grassroots, we wanted to look at the problem from a bottom up perspective and start with people and their concerns.
So what can we learn?
Focus relentlessly on the people you need support from
It is easy to forget that your members or volunteers will have important insights to contribute on how you could really convince them to get involved.
