Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

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invited or allowed to attend who could not guarantee to stay the whole
time – no matter how important the excuse – and the academics were not
allowed to present papers; just like everybody else they had to get in the
queue to talk.
At the end of each day and at the beginning of every second day, one or
two different people from different reference groups were asked to produce
a ten minute synthesis of what they saw as the pivotal ideas and the
same was done at the beginning of the second, third and fourth meeting
about the meetings before. Finally, over a period of four months, the synopses
of the principal points and a résumé of the different statements, questions
and arguments went around and around among all who took part until
a consensus was reached on a number of questions and not on others. This
became the final document which again was circulated until all were in
agreement that is was a fair reflection of where things had got to. All those
who took part were identified in the document, as were the views that
were raised (Camarotti and Spink, 2001 b).
The first meeting was really chaotic. The academics became furious that
they could not just butt in and talk whenever they wanted to and got even
more furious when they were told to finish what they had to say because
somebody else wanted to speak. They saw their purpose in life as systematizing
the experiences that was their view of dialogue; they were quite
happy to have people from the different experiences participating, but there
were limits. Those involved in the experiences attacked the academics as
being over theoretical and out of touch but were also very nervous about
describing what they did because “it seems so simple”. The NGO workers
got confused and did not know on whose side to place themselves and the
local government staff and community leaders were concerned about practical
conclusions... in other words, nobody connected with anybody. Some
people could not take it, others could; yet others saw it as a challenge and,
fortunately, more wanted to join in. By the final meeting, major discussions
were taking place over two to three hours with everybody being able to talk
two or three times and – more importantly – listen to what was going on. It
was not a breakthrough, but it was a glimpse of what is possible.
Since then we have carried on with our town meetings – albeit of an invisible
and extended town – and have been able to engage some of the international
agencies, students, trades unionists and others along with colleagues
from the first cycle and always, always, many experiences and people who are
engaged in original innovations. In the last one nearly 100 people took part
over two days and the square was now five to eight rows deep on all sides. In
discussion was how the public sector can intervene locally in producing fairer
and more just trade relations. Amongst those present were two Brazilian State
Governors, representatives of self-managing workers collectives, European fair
trade agencies, NGOs, academics, local government staff and many others. Ten
experiences were fully debated and many more brought into the discussion.