Build With, Not For

"Build with, not for" is an emergent concept found across disciplines, country borders, and generations. Both the exact phrase and similar words that invoke its meaning have been -- and continue to be -- wielded to describe democratic practices that don't shirk the work of sharing power. To better explore this omnipresence and highlight the many humans who do “build with” work, I’ve (hi!) started up a wire of mentions and impressions. Got something I should add? Email me here. To learn more about "build with" in governance & the civic tech movement, check out BuildWith.org.

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Executive Director of Code for America, Jennifer Pahlka, advertising a federal job opening on Twitter referencing “build with, not for”.

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'We have assessed [abuse at work] anecdotally, but we don't have hard numbers," Zandt said. "'We also don't know what people actually need. I'm not about to go in and say, 'This is what you have to do now that you have said you have been a victim of this violence.' We want to collaborate and build with, not for."

Deanna Zandt, co-founder of ShineSquad, quoted in The fight to end sexual harassment in progressive politics by Mashable

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Building News With, Not Just For The Community by Molly de Aguiar, writing for NiemanLab’s annual “Predictions for Journalism”

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Susan Crawford writing about overcoming the digital divide in Chicago:

“Community foundations around the country need to support intermediaries that can reach deep into neighborhoods and work with, not for communities”

...citing Smart Chicago and Laurenellen McCann’s #buildwith approach.

Full text here.

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MARKET STREET PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL: “DESIGNING WITH AND FOR COMMUNITIES”.

A collaborative competition to design new ways of using public space in San Fransisco. April 2015. Their website notes their “with and for” approach and includes the following:

As a placemaking project, the Festival is driven by community needs and desires – we looked for project designs that do the same. Selected projects depended on the ability to listen to and respond to the community’s feedback, the inventiveness of the design, and the team’s ability to prototype and execute the proposed project.

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“...what the writer as termed the pedagogy of the oppressed, a pedagogy which must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or people) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity.”

-- Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Portuguese: Pedagogia do Oprimido). 1968.

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We are here to organize. If you want to build with us, we will not tolerate patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia ever! Ever!

Charlene Carruthers, Black Youth Project 100, organizing on Black Friday during a march down the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, Illinois, demanding justice and accountability for Laquan McDonald and other victims of policy viloence. November 27, 2015.

Video available here, via Facebook.

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“...international agencies involved typically aimed to work for rangeland users, but not with them. But there were even more fundamental flaws in the approach....”

-- Ben Ramalingam, Aid on the Edge of Chaos. 2013.

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Contributed by Ben Edwards.