Participation, social architecture and collective architecture

Participation, Reciprocity, and Empowerment in the Practice of Participatory Research

Main Ideas – Carl Wilmsen, “Participation, Reciprocity, and Empowerment in the Practice of Participatory Research” (2015)

Core argument: Empowerment in participatory research depends on reciprocity, mutual trust, exchange, and benefit between researchers and communities.
Problem: Participation alone can be tokenistic or extractive when researchers retain control or fail to share power and outcomes.
Tension: Researchers often seek theory and publication, while communities seek practical change. Managing this requires negotiation, trust, and relationship-building.
Two axes:
- Participation – from manipulation to community control.
- Reciprocity – from one-way extraction to mutual exchange.True empowerment occurs when both are strong; low reciprocity leads to extraction even with high participation.
Entanglement: Empowerment and extraction often coexist, research can empower in some ways while still serving academic interests.
Lasting empowerment: Comes from communities gaining skills, confidence, and control over knowledge, not just temporary involvement.
Conclusion: Genuine empowerment requires reciprocity plus participation, open communication, and shared decision-making - what Wilmsen calls “liberation research.”

How can I apply it to my project?

Identify different types of stakeholders and levels and types of engagement and reciprocity with each.

"Architecture as a political act, which addresses unjust and exploitative geographies through acts of direct action, activism and spatial agency."
- Hannes Meyer - Bauhaus educator who believed that design belonged to and should be for the society rather than the privileged few.

Passage 56 - 'cultural and ecological space managed by residents'
- current project emerged as a series of temporary activities
- collectivity as shared agency
'User' as an abstract and vague term
- no demographic difference acknowledged
- what does use/using mean?
- divisive between developers, producers and users
  production and use as contributing to each other.
- Dana Cuff - Architecture: the story of practice.
  - collective action isn't just involvement of different stakeholders but an interpersonal or joint commitment.
Margaret Crawford - Can architects be socially responsible?
What are the processes of production that deliver socially and spatially just cities and how can this aim be achieved? How can these processes and forms of production be governed to maintain their principles?
Francesca Hughes - a critical position needs to be liminal by necessity - one must be both an insider and an outsider.