trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

“JUST BEGIN”A CASE STUDY IN CREATING EXPERIMENTAL SPACES IN ATIME OF TRANSITIONBarbara Heinzen, PhDCoordinator, Barbets DuetABSTRACT The Barbets Duet (named after tropical birds that sing in duet) is a twenty-yearexperiment to create the market mechanisms and institutional arrangements that will support peoplewho support the natural world. The founding partners are working with two knowledge systems –African and Western, traditional and modern – to create the social/ecological institutions they need toadapt to a changing world. This engagement has redefined the North/South relationship and itsunderlying assumptions, throwing new light on this difficult issue. The experiment began in sevenlearning sites in five countries (five in East Africa, one each in the United Kingdom and USA). It wasstarted by a small group of people who created scenarios stories describing the future of East Africa.This case study will describe the evolution of the Barbets Duet idea from this futures work to the earlyprogress of the learning sites. The results of these initial experiences will be used to see what policyproposals might be emerging from the experience of developing the concepts and practices of theBarbets Duet.1. Introduction and BackgroundLate January 2008 was not a peaceful time in Kenya. The elections held on 27 December 2007 hadended in violence that was horrifying, unpredictable and moving ever more fiercely across the country.Kofi Annan was in Nairobi leading a delegation of people negotiating an end to the bloodshed. Aroundhis efforts were frequent meetings of concerned activists and politicians who traded information,chronicled the spreading insecurity, and searched for some settlement that would avoid a protracted civilwar.In the middle of these troubles, I arrived in Nairobi from London and went to stay with Hilda andOby Obyerodhyambo at their home in Nkoroi, just outside of Nairobi. Two years earlier, in January2006, Oby and I had given a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts in London (Heinzen and96