itinerant space

The role of community gatekeepers in building generative cross-community communication as a situated and inclusive participatory practice, 2018-2025
Nick Bell

This visualisation records the periods of time and activities, from 2018 (smallest concentric circle) to 2026 (largest circle), during which I have been working with community gatekeepers. Working with them either directly or as part of a decision-making process for working together, within a set of research projects situated in Hackney, North London. I chose to draw it very roughly in felt-tip pen, to quickly visualise the data and test the circular form of presentation. This is a back-of-an-envelope work-in-progress towards a more resolved visualisation I aim to publish in my PhD thesis, which will be a more colour-legible and accurate record of gatekeeper participation.

The descriptive texts that follow are colour-coded to the image (as much as a web colour palette can to felt-tip pen). Each paragraph is an account of an individual gatekeeper, or group of gatekeeper’s roles within one or more of the research projects.

Vicar – December 2018 to July 2025
The local vicar is ever-present in the neighbourhood where my design research practice is situated. Not always directly involved, he is an advocate for my work, recommending potential collaborators and participants. He introduces me to the local neighbour-run charity with whom my first projects are partnered. When he can see that my chatterhood project involving local Orthodox Jewish communities is unlikely to happen, he takes the opportunity to propose an alternative: for the chatterbrick voice recorders to be passed back and forth between members of his church and a neighbouring one threatened with closure. His approach to community organising is opposed to ABCD (Asset-Based Community Development).

Community Organiser – February 2019 to October 2023
The community organiser is my closest collaborator for four years. We plan and pilot Neighbourhood Asset Mapping workshop sessions that end with the arrival of COVID-19. With the local neighbour-run charity we devise an intergenerational correspondence project exchanging audio probes between local primary school students and retirement home residents isolated by COVID lockdowns. He is a keen advocate for my work connecting me to several community gatekeepers creating conditions in which three participatory projects happen. Tireless in forging contacts with the gatekeepers of Orthodox Jewish communities that get very close to producing a project, his networking leads directly to the use of memorybricks for dementia reminiscence by volunteers in a local community Befrienders programme. He supports an ABCD (Asset-Based Community Development) approach.

Schoolteacher – June to July 2020
I am connected to a local primary school teacher via the community organiser’s network. In online meetings instigated by the community organiser and hosted by a COVID-19 mutual aid group, we devise a contactless strategy to support neighbours perceived as vulnerable. The schoolteacher devotes an afternoon a week to coaching his Year 5 students in recording voice messages for elderly residents currently isolated in their rooms across three local retirement housing complexes. The students are also socially isolated. They are children of key workers who are the only students in school. Social Distancing prevents me from meeting with any participants – conditions that draw the schoolteacher deeper into the project. At the end of the project, he records a video in which his students express surprise at getting voice recorded replies back from the residents with whom they were paired. The teacher says his students will recommend the project to other students at the school.

Wellbeing Coordinator – June to July 2020
A Wellbeing Coordinator employed by a retirement housing provider supports and coaches elderly residents in listening to voice messages sent to them by primary school students. Like the schoolteacher, the Wellbeing Coordinator is drawn deeper into the project due to the Social Distancing measures that prevent me from meeting the participants of this intergenerational contactless sociality project. The Wellbeing Coordinator is the only person that some of the elderly residents see during the most socially restrictive periods of the pandemic. Residents find the custom-designed audio probes difficult to use and need a lot of support from the Wellbeing Coordinator to listen to the messages left for them and to record a voice message in reply. I am thankful to the Community Organiser for connecting me to the Wellbeing Coordinator just like he did with the schoolteacher.

Charedi community gatekeepers – October 2021 to October 2023
Working alongside the Community Organiser and the Vicar, I spend two years inviting Charedi individuals to take part in an intercultural communication project connecting Charedi women with a group of Christian women at the Vicar’s church. A Charedi flower seller is happy to participate in the project, but crucially not as a gatekeeper to recruit Charedi participants. The Community Organiser makes several approaches to Charedi women holding managerial roles in local Charedi charitable institutions he considers as potential gatekeepers. One person responds positively to the chatterbrick voice recording device calling it ‘kosher tech’, but this doesn’t lead anywhere. For the last five months of our search, we alter our strategy. We seek to engage Charedi communities in intra-, not inter-cultural communication between two of the many Charedi sects, and not with the group of Christian women. We get audiences with Charedi women in responsible positions in respected Charedi institutions. One person recommends our project to a local volunteering organisation that provides support to individuals in the Charedi community. We follow up this lead. It takes us away from Charedi communities, but it turns out to be more fruitful. We have grown to accept that the Charedi communities are not interested in chatterhood because they are blessed with a well-funded network of Charedi charitable organisations through which they run many well supported projects. We conclude that over many years they have become self-sufficient and are not in need of what we have to offer.

Befrienders Programme Manager – October 2023 to July 2025 [NEON YELLOW]
A Befrienders Programme manager at a volunteering organisation has appropriated the chatterbrick voice recorders, re-branded them as memorybricks, and is using them to prompt reminiscence between dementia sufferers. She organises a team of volunteers called Befrienders who are matched up with individuals – usually lonely, isolated, vulnerable adults – to support them one-to-one in-person or over the phone. The Befrienders Programme manager gives memorybricks to each Befriender. Befrienders use question prompts I write to get their Befriendees reminiscing about their lives. Befrienders operate the memorybricks to record Befriendees telling life stories which are then handed to other Befrienders who take them to their Befriendees as a prompt for further reminiscence. Befriendees get to hear from other Befriendees in a similar situation to themselves. The Programme manager sees the memorybrick recordings as not only good for Befriendees, but also as a tool for recruiting more volunteers into the programme.

Parishioners at church 1 – October 2023 to July 2025
Six women, parishioners at the vicar’s church (1), nominate themselves as participants in a contactless cross-community communication project called chatterhood. The six parishioners invite six women – parishioners at a church (2) a mile away threatened with closure – to exchange one-to-one voice recorded messages on a chatterbrick, a voice recording device they share. The instigators enter chatterhood with their own agendas as to how they intend to use their contactless one-to-ones. All are interested in using their exchange to build a connection with another woman of similar age and through that bridge the two faith communities at a moment when the break-up of one appears imminent. Two of the instigators succeed in persisting with their weekly exchange of messages for a whole year. Beyond the year-long duration of chatterhood, I continue to attend both churches each Sunday morning as if I was still ferrying the chatterbricks back and forth. Over a period of 18 months a level of trust has built between me and the congregation of church 1 out of which further participatory practice can grow.

Parishioners at church 2 – November 2023 to July 2025
Five of the parishioners at the church (2) threatened with closure accept their invitations and begin an asynchronous exchange of voice recorded messages they hand to me to pass on to their ‘chatterchum’ at the morning service every Sunday. The behaviour of three of the invited parishioners makes me think they are not participating to please themselves, but to please me. However, one of them strikes up a connection with her chatterchum that lasts a year, the duration of chatterhood. Beyond this time, I continue to attend both churches each Sunday morning as if I was still ferrying the chatterbricks back and forth. Over a period of 18 months a level of trust has built between me and the congregation of church 2 out of which further participatory practice can grow.

Befriender Volunteers – November 2024 to July 2025
Befrienders are another layer of gatekeeper facilitating one-to-one asynchronous dialogues between socially isolated adults with dementia – Befriendees. The memorybricks add another dimension to their volunteering work, offering a different activity and dynamic to each encounter with their Befriendee and open up the one-to-one to another voice; that of a person in a similar situation to each Befriendee. The Befriender-Befriendee connection does not then only consist of a service provider – service receiver relationship. It is not expected that Befriendees develop a connection with other Befriendees through listening to each other’s life stories. However, if Befriendees express an interest in doing so, each Befriender, in consultation with the Programme Manager, can facilitate it, potentially reducing the social isolation of each Befriendee, and extending the reach of Befriender gatekeeper practice.