Bi-cultural facilitation: adapting a Citizens' Assembly for an Aotearoa New Zealand context

In recent years there has been increasing attention to deliberative public participation, such as Citizens' Assemblies. Deliberative environments allow us to understand and care for different perspectives as we work our way towards consensus. 

The 2023 report on ‘The Future for Local Government’ described why deliberation is important:

‘Local democracy needs strengthening. Voter turnout has decreased over the past few decades and engagement doesn’t meet the needs of increasingly diverse communities. Some improvements have been made in recent years but older, Pākehā people remain over-represented in elected members’ demographics. Broad citizen participation in local government decision-making is critical, and the use of citizens’ assemblies and deliberative and participatory democracy is vital as councils embrace their role as enablers of democracy’ (DIA 2023, p.11).

This article addresses one of the practical challenges of using citizen’s assemblies in Aotearoa New Zealand: the mauri of a citizen’s assembly not Māori. Deliberative spaces are not homogenous, they work differently in different contexts: the steps and stages, the principles that guide you are different. This raises the question:

How can we run a Citizens' Assembly in the bi-cultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand?

In 2023, Boffa Miskell supported the development and facilitation of the Wellington City Council Citizens' Assembly, that made recommendations for Levels of Service in the WCC Long Term Plan 2024.

I’m an Engagement Specialist at Boffa Miskell, and I collaborated with facilitator, Tihou Weepu on the hui design and facilitation. One element of our work was to consider how bi-cultural facilitation would help us use citizen’s assemblies in Aotearoa New Zealand. This article details key moves we made, before concluding to what extent this helped us to achieve a better outcome.

Who were we facilitating and what did we want their experience to be?

We were facilitating a mini-public of 42 people over four Saturdays. Participants were selected through sortition to represent the demographics of Wellington. Facilitating this type of diversity is still rare in Aotearoa New Zealand. We were also aware that certain groups (particularly Māori) have been marginalised from both our urban places and city-making processes for a long time.

So, whilst we wanted to include everyone, we knew some were starting off more empowered than others. Therefore, we decided to consider how to empower Māori participants. We talked about this as working ‘beyond the karakia’

Set up

Our first move was many cups of tea and whanaungatanga (relationship-building) between myself and Tihou. We spent time talking about the whakapapa (heritage and historical connections) of our work, and in particular how both of us have developed our practices in places we were indigenous to: myself in Scotland, and Tihou in Aotearoa – discussing how we worked in relation to place, and how we understood tikanga (customary protocols). We acknowledged a poem, ‘Brave Space’ by Beth Strano – rather than safe space – as how we would work together.

We had thought we would come to a set of shared principles (mātāpono) that would guide our work – but decided it was better to understand each other, and so work to uplift each other’s mana motuhake (self-determination/authority) during the work: ensuring we both felt empowered to respond to the room and each other as things unfolded.

Along the way we trialled translating principles from English to Te Reo – for things we both had a deep understanding of, and discovered first-hand how inadequate translation is as a method of connecting two cultures. However, we did decide on some key tools that we would use to guide the participants in how to work together. These were a mix of both our favourites.

Te Ao Māori First

Key to our approach was putting Te Ao Māori first. In practice, this meant:

Kaitaiki kōrero / Narrative Oversight

Tihou and I both have ways of telling stories to describe why we were doing each activity – so people really invest in the task. We explored together why an activity was important, what the purpose of the assembly was etc. Then Tihou would decide, most of the time, on a narrative to describe an activity to participants. The aim was to represent Te Ao Māori as the culture guiding the process and ensure that Māori participants were empowered by understanding what was happening. For example, Tihou drew on Māori creation stories of Ranginui and Papatuanuku to describe our time together: of starting in the darkness (Te Pō) and over time moving into the light (Te Ao Marama). The stories told described how hard it was to be in the darkness, and the struggle to reach the light together. This narrative helped all participants to accommodate the hard moments in the process and keep going together.

We found the use of Māori narratives and concepts supported Pakeha participants to be in a place of discovery and learning – rather than ‘oh yes, we know how to do this’. This was well supported by participants, and we noticed this led to more curiosity and creativity in the conversations that took place.

The use of creation as a narrative framing was a red thread throughout the workshops. We used the idea of Te Pō, Te Mārama: participants using an open palm to signal ‘being clear – and in the light (te marama)’ and a closed palm as ‘being unclear – and so in the dark (te pō)’. We would check in with participants throughout the assembly – in a small group, and whole group. We also encourage people to use the signal at any time they needed. This helped us to be more aware of each other, and to provide a visual signal rather than stopping a speaker in their tracks.

Whanaungatanga / Inherent Collective Relationships

Tihou also emphasised the importance of whanaungatanga, as more than a process of knowing names. We spent longer than previous citizen’s assemblies on getting to know each other. By knowing each other the participants took up more responsibility to each other during the deliberation, enabling us all to be more authentic and included in the conversations.

We spent most of the first day workshop focused on whanaungatanga – getting to know each other, setting up tikanga together and understanding the kaupapa we were working on. This continued during the second day. Tihou led these activities, providing both Māori leadership of the assembly and a Te Ao Māori way of thinking about what we were doing together.

The extended (by pakeha standards) time establishing our shared foundations meant that participants were more able to self-govern during deliberation: they understood better where each was coming from and could counsel each other to stay in scope and take account of the diverse lived experiences in the room in forming their recommendations.

We also noticed the care it established for individual needs– holding each other’s babies, and ensuring that kai was available and suitable, understanding how to include people with disabilities – or just having a challenging day. Moving between activities was smoother – and participants had more compassion for the constraints on WCC than we expected. Overall, it humanised us all.

Wānanga (Discussion/Workshop)

There is a strong tradition of deliberation in wānanga which we drew on. In the ‘brave space’ that Tihou and I established between us, I could ask questions about how wānanga was different and the same to deliberative processes I was familiar with. It was important that we didn’t just say, ‘you do deliberation, so do I – we therefore we are the same’. Instead, Tihou and I talked together throughout our work together, being curious about each other’s experiences of guiding conversations. This learning by doing helped us to navigate a space in between our cultures in a way that we hope better honoured the principles of Te Tiriti.

We shared an understanding of the rhythm of the day, drawing on the wānanga experiences of Tihou. This included time to reflect as we had kai together, coming down from the challenge of any hard-to-hear perspectives and so working more effectively to weave different kōrero together into one single set of recommendations that were presented to WCC at the conclusion of the assembly.

This was key to the assembly’s success e.g., how the recommendations took account of people in the room, how they would speak up and challenge each other, how they would amplify each other’s voices where they thought it was necessary – and also ask people to step back at times.

Manaakitanga / (Venue Context Atmosphere / Ambiance)

We held the citizen’s assembly at Two Fifty-Seven, a venue that is working to integrate tikanga into their space and practices. I often say to clients that the venue is our co-facilitator; so we chose this venue for the way the space held space – with contemporary Māori artwork, their Māori host contributing to the opening and closing of the space and the care with which kai was provided. Mana whenua also led a whakatau to signal the opening and closing of a space in which we would deliberate together.

At key moments we asked people to acknowledge the challenges we were facing. We would take a moment to speak from their head, heart and puku. This helped to uncover concerns and queries in the room – and ensure the space was more authentic, and inclusive. It also helped WCC to calibrate their feedback to concerns, and for us to know how to resolve them.

Whakamihi / To Greet and Acknowledge

Another key practice we used was to mihi each other – acknowledge what each was bringing to the assembly. This was something we did both when it happened, and as part of the closing of every day. By showing appreciation for each other,it also helped the participants to see different ways individuals were valued.

In conclusion, over a cup of tea after the event we discussed how we had helped but did not resolve the challenges of the mauri of a citizen’s assembly not being Māori. Māori, and Pakeha participants spoke positively about our approach to co-facilitation. From Tihou and my collective perspectives, we gained a lot of value from working with each other and would advocate for bi-cultural facilitation in the future. I am curious what would happen if instead of a citizen’s assembly, we started with the idea of a wananga – or, depending on the Kaupapa: a focus on finding a new bi-cultural form that acknowledged both deliberative traditions.