The Common
Economy
Co-Creating the Future Economy Based on Shared Values in
Parramatta, Pernis and the Port of Rotterdam
Sarah Sannen
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ... 2
Executive Summary ... 3
This Episode of Black Mirror Sucks ... 4
An Economic Interlude ... 8
Sneaky Blindsiders ... 9
The Hidden Life of Pernis and Parramatta ... 18
Is There Value in That? ... 29
A Dunk-In Doughnut ... 48
Conclusion: The Mosquito of Wall Street ... 57
Appendix A ... 60
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Acknowledgements
This paper was written on the traditional land of the Dharug people of the Eora nation and the traditional land of the Jerrinja people of the Yuin nation. I acknowledge the Dharug people and Jerrinja people as the traditional custodians of this land, who have cared for these beautiful places for over 60,000 years and whose sovereignty has never been ceded. I hope that we can continue this custodianship of the Earth together, singing up the land in an acknowledgement of our
interdependent relationships and the lives that can thrive in a regenerative system.
This paper was also written in the lands of Pernis, The Hague and Leiden in The Netherlands. I acknowledge all those who welcomed me to this land, including my family, new and old friends, and Leiden University.
A particular acknowledgement to Port City Futures and Delft Design for Values for your guidance and support, to Benita for going out of your way to make sure I had data for my research and to Zachary for always being there for me, no matter what the time difference. Lastly, to my supervisor, Andrew, for giving me endless support and advice even through all my own scepticism and disillusionment. For all this support, I am incredibly grateful.
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Executive Summary
The current economic system was never actually designed. With global shifts in priorities and the sudden momentum associated the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely impacted this research, the opportunity to redesign an economic system that reflects the values of our community is significant. This paper explores the values of residents in Pernis, workers from the Port of Rotterdam and residents in Parramatta, inviting them to explore their own values and co-create a vision of the future. It uses a Futures Anthropology and Design Anthropology approach, incorporating a workshop to push the methodological boundaries of the discipline. This process revealed core values that align with the Sustainable Development Goals, which form the social floor of the Doughnut Economics model. This model is evaluated with respect to the visions of interlocutors and processes for better community engagement and co-creation are explored, with the suggestion that future
anthropological research focuses on citizen’s assemblies as an improved method of participation. This paper finds that co-creative approaches are hindered by political, economic, green, built, technological and global infrastructures, but that they can also be facilitated by them. Through a co-creative approach, the ‘who’ of community can become transparent and resentment and scepticism towards government could be addressed. It is argued that if we are to develop regenerative
communities there is much work to be done, but the key to this lies in co-creative, future focused research and engagement, with attention paid to the infrastructures that shape our communities in time and space.
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This Episode of Black Mirror Sucks
In February 2019 I took a semi-spontaneous trip to Oxford to attend a spring school in ecological economics. In March, I found myself in Marion Bay, Tasmania speaking on a panel beside Aiden Ricketts and Helena Nordberg-Hodge about economic injustice and running economics workshops. By August I had left the job I loved to pursue a research topic that I couldn’t get out of my mind; How can we design an economic system that benefits people and planet, not just the corporate machine? Later, I would realise that this re-design would also require an exploration of the urban forms and infrastructures necessary to build a system that reflects the values of communities. I began my research with little idea of the ‘where’, having only ever visited The Netherlands to spend time with family in The Hague. Thankfully, I soon discovered a small port community called Pernis through a research organisation, Port City Futures. Pernis is situated between an oil refinery, the Port of Rotterdam and the industrial harbour so the greenery as you arrive in the town comes as a surprise. Walking along the harbour and through the town, there are remnants of the blue-collar community that was, but the community is in transition, shifting to more affluent communities with jobs not necessarily tied to the surrounding industry. I met an array of residents of varying ages, though predominantly women, and started to delve into questions of values and vision for the future. But, by the time I started writing this thesis, the world seemed like it was coming to an end. The first three months of 2020 left 20% of my home country completely burnt. Many areas spared were subsequently flooded and destroyed by cyclones. More than 1.5 billion animals were thought to have died (including through two mass fish deaths – a recurring reality in the Murray-Darling Basin) and hundreds of businesses, homes and lives were lost. The government tried to introduce a religious discrimination bill allowing religious discrimination while continuing to deny the reality of climate and ecological breakdown. And this was only in Australia. The rest of the world experienced oil price wars, trade wars, real wars, a plague of locusts in Africa, thousands dying in floods in Bangladesh, the racial violence in Kashmir and the comparisons between India’s identity legislation and Hitler’s Germany (The Times of India, 2020). And now we have COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus. Entire countries have shut down and frantic expatriates are watching borders, wondering whether to make an emergency return to home. Infrastructure and community have been affected and effect all of these issues, creating the filters through which our responses to these challenges emerge, are received and perceived. The opportunity for economic transformation is ripe as cities and countries around the world have started exploring what kind of recovery they would like to see post-pandemic and the questions of this paper have grown in relevance far beyond the field sites explored.
When so much of my personal world was (literally) burning, one of the very first questions my interlocutors in Pernis would ask was “How are the fires in Australia?” Burning. Devastating. People I know have lost houses. It is everything you see on the news but more personal. I was simultaneously faced with the uncomfortable reality that the privilege of my country allowed for privileged media time and therefore money; that people were generally unaware of the thousands dying in
Bangladesh or the tree massacres in India but donated millions to Australia, money for which I am incredibly grateful. In the last month of fieldwork, social distancing and self-isolation took hold. The government restrictions on public gatherings, shopping and the hospitality industry were deemed both necessary and not enough, and students, institutions and businesses scrambled to move everything online. It made for an interesting time to be speaking with people about the future of Pernis.
5 | P a g e The first three months of this year comes off the back of numerous years of shifts in public discourse around environmental, social, and economic issues. Analysis by experts in supply chains1 illustrates the importance of these issues increasing over time and converging in the near future to significantly impact the ways in which the business community operates. Programs such as Blue Planet and War on Waste have drawn attention to some of the environmental impacts of consumption, encouraging consumers to change their behaviour. Government legislation on modern slavery and transparency has brought to forefront the exploitation hidden in our existing system and activist voices regarding entrenched poverty increasingly argue that classic neoliberal economics does not ‘trickle down’ (Pearl, 2019). Technology has begun disrupting employment and trade, but the growing list of critical raw materials threatens to halt this trend before it has truly begun. Related to and overshadowing all of these trends is climate and ecological breakdown which exacerbates these issues and is leading to a future full of unknowns within our lifetimes (IPCC, 2018).
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has begun grappling with some of the forgotten unknowns and how we may respond to them. For some, it is viewed as an opportunity to create significant change in the ways in which our economies, countries and communities operate; an opportunity to reimagine a future without the social and environmental ills that our systems have created. Author, poet, and activist Sonya Renee Taylor posted to her followers on social media:
“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” (Taylor, 2020)
My initial plan was to research how an opportunity such as this could be leveraged through a process of co-creation and empowerment of communities in Pernis and the Port of Rotterdam. It aimed to explore the potential for positive, co-created futures with a specific focus on how we interact and transact, otherwise known as our economies. Recognising the contentious responses to co-creative and participatory approaches in anthropological literature, this research also contributes to this field, whilst pushing the potential of ‘ethnographies of the possible’ (Halse, 2013). The core questions of this paper began as:
How do the port and the relevant actors of The Port of Rotterdam and Pernis imagine future interactions and transactions within their respective communities and with the port?
• What values of these actors form the foundation of this vision and what measures of progress or success are important to the participants?
• Are there values that are shared by a majority of the actors in the Port and Pernis? • What do these actors feel is the role of government and private enterprise?
• What differences in vision emerge through participation and co-creation when compared to individual responses?
• Can the co-creation process empower actors and lead to greater buy-in to local strategies?
During my fieldwork, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, and the Australian government put out the call for all citizens to return home, enacting the highest travel bans possible with only a few days’ notice. Because of this, the field sites needed to be expanded and the focus of the research became split between Pernis, the Port of Rotterdam and a city called Parramatta, which lies in Greater Western Sydney, Australia.
1 At an Infrastructure Sustainability conference in Sydney, 2019, Robin Mellon, then CEO of The Supply Chain
Sustainability School, presented data gathered from surveys and workshops of industry professionals. The results of this work showed that professionals expect to see environmental, social and economic issues converging quickly regarding the demands placed on business. See Appendix A for the final graph.
6 | P a g e Initially, I was directed to Pernis and the Port of Rotterdam through the work of Port City Futures. This collaboration between Delft, Leiden and Erasmus Universities explore port communities. Through their collaboration with Delft Design for Values, Port City Futures also became interested in how values and economies may be co-created. Upon returning to Australia, I explored the similarities that could exist between these sites and an additional site in Sydney. Parramatta, a community established around a river and with a long history of indigenous culture, European invasion and the rise and fall of a blue-collar workforce, emerged as an interesting site to add to this research. I got to know a small group of individuals, similar in age but from wide ranging careers such as copyrighting, healthcare and education; representative of the shift from blue-collar occurring in the city.
Parramatta, Pernis and the Port of Rotterdam are linked through two core themes – infrastructure and sense of community (see The Hidden Life of Pernis and Parramatta). As the research progressed, it became evident that fundamental values such as family, empathy and a feeling of disempowerment in the current system also emerged as common. This patchwork ethnography considers the constraints of the research field and all people involved, but reimagines these as tools to build insight (Günel, et al., 2020). Due to the patchwork nature of this work, the research gathered in The Netherlands primarily focuses on the first three questions initially proposed, whilst the research in Australia was able to cover the remaining sub-questions and helps to develop an idea of what might be drawn out from The Netherlands by employing theoretical generalisation, aiming to shape theories for further research (Bhatta, 2018).
These questions arose out of my interest in new possibilities for the future and a constant dissatisfaction with the existing economic model, despite studying economics, helping others to invest in the stock market and working in supply chains. Not only was my formal education in the subject utterly inadequate and dated, but the world continued to operate as if the foundational assumptions of these theories were true. ‘Homo economicus’, for example, is the idea of the ‘rational man’; people make choices that are rational. We need only to look at our own choices to realise that this cannot possibly be true and then we consider the marketing industry and start to question whether we really have a choice all. And yet, the entire global economy operates from this principle (Urbina & Ruiz-Villaverde, 2019). The need for economic transition has been researched thoroughly in many disciplines including in ethnographies such as Mosse (2005), Tsing (2015) and Meagher (2010). This research demonstrates that the existing, dominant economic model does not necessarily capture what is happening ‘on the ground’ and does not benefit everyone or the planet that we depend on for survival.
Supply chain transparency requirements, advancements in technology that change the future of work, depleting resources, collapsing financial markets, ecological breakdown and now a global pandemic are already causing our economy to shift. The fundamental issue for this paper, however, is that the economy itself was never actually designed. As Phil Stevens, chairperson of the Living Economies Educational Trust, states in an interview, we are living in a “system by accident” (Living the Change, 2018). The term
‘economy' comes from the Latin ‘oikos – nomos' which translates to the management of the home. How our shared home is managed should not be left only to the accidents produced by philosophers or those with political or corporate power as has been done in the past. Groups such as the New Economics Foundation are therefore calling for greater participation in the design of the future. It is for this reason that the democratisation of economic measures, or the co-creation of economic measures, is an important part of driving the transition (New Economics Foundation, 2018) and a focus of this paper.
Anthropology could play a critical role in the development of this future if it turns away from the strictly empiricist approach that has taken over the academic and scientific world. The history of science and economics has led to this empiricist approach now familiar to students and researchers alike with a focus on finding and claiming to find what ‘is’ (Raworth, 2017). Though economic and scientific theories are still positioned as theories, the intention of research is to determine whether they are irrefutably true. This empiricist approach has become foundational to many schooling systems and the resulting dialogue contains many ‘factoids’, defined by Timothy Morton as “designed to look like what we think facts should be – we think they should look like they are not
7 | P a g e designed” (Morton, 2018, p. 8). Anthropology is facing a similar struggle, trying to fit into describing what ‘is’ and attempting to remove/extinguish claims of bias that may inhibit ‘scientific process’. However, as Morton elaborates, we can only understand a thing to be a thing through the filters of our own interpretations. Futures anthropology, in part, aims to address this by exploring
unknowables or possibilities, rather than claiming to reveal facts of the present (Pink & Salazar, 2016). However, there has been a reluctance within anthropology to engage in the design and exploration of possible futures (Appadurai 2007; Pels 2015). In contrast, this paper will focus on a futures anthropology approach and incorporate this into economic thinking using design
anthropology, focusing on democratised economics developed through a co-creative, values led process.
Design anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which draws on design theories and anthropological techniques. Ethnography is, at its core, interventionalist and by working reflexively and creatively with the interventions of ethnography, researchers can reveal more than what may be possible with traditional techniques (Murphy, 2016). Murphy hints at the concept of extending temporalities also explored by Hunt (2011) and Otto & Smith (2013) and the “future-orientated process of improvisational creation” that are core insights gained from a Design Anthropology methodology. The main counter argument to this methodology is in traditional ethics guidelines which acknowledge that researchers will always have an impact due to the nature of fieldwork but places emphasis on minimising that impact as much as possible. However, as Anusas & Harkness (2016) draw out from their own research, the ethnographer’s intervention can reveal deeper complexities and help all participants, including the researcher, to realise new
possibilities. Recognising this impact is not only key to remaining ethical in anthropological practice, but also opens the field up further to future orientation that can deeply and constructively engage communities (Halse & Boffi, 2016).
Institutions have tried various methods to involve communities, leading to a plethora of criticism of participatory methods. In participatory or co-created processes, political and economic power is
redistributed through the design of a solution, process, object or policy (Arnstein, 1969; Kjaersgaard, et al. 2016). Individuals are recognized as active stakeholders and the decision-making process is democratized through their participation (Baiocchi & Summers, 2017; Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2014). Though anthropology has been quite critical of participation in the past, there has been little review of the Citizens’ Assembly as an effective participatory approach. Throughout the following exploration of co-creation and democratised economics, this alternative participatory approach will be explored as a method of engagement that could be researched more thoroughly in future.
This paper was informed by the work of Delft Design for Values and Port City Futures, bringing together values exploration in the port community. The field sites of Parramatta, Pernis and the Port of Rotterdam each held their own difficulties and opportunities and additional synergies were planned with Delft Design for Values and Port City Futures that could not be realised due to the COVID-19 pandemic, see Sneaky Blindsiders. Overall, the exploration of values and futures within Parramatta, Pernis and the Port of Rotterdam has revealed many areas for further exploration and an initial insight into how values can be incorporated into future economic models. Before getting into these, however, a short economic history lesson is order.
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An Economic Interlude
“The valuable capacity of the human mind to simplify a complex situation in a compact characterisation becomes dangerous when not controlled in terms of definitely stated criteria. With quantitative measurements especially, the
definiteness of the result suggests, often misleadingly, a precision and simplicity in the outlines of the object measures. Measurements of national income are subject to this type of illusion and resulting abuse, especially since they deal with matters that are the centre of conflict of opposing social groups where the effectiveness of an arguments is often contingent upon oversimplifications” (Kuznets, 1934)
In 1691, Sir William Petty, physician and political economist, published an appendix to his book “The Political Anatomy of Ireland” which contained the first systemised approach to calculating national income. In doing so, he demonstrated the contribution of labour to income drawing the conclusion that the labour base, too, could be taxed. In 1940, Colin Clark, inspired by Sir William Petty, wrote the book “The Conditions of Economic Progress”. Stating that economists remained second to political scientists in their ability to provide the common good, this book also provided the
vernacular of ‘economic progress’ and linked the potential for progress to national income. By 1934 The Great Depression had a strong hold and US government had no data or indicators to guide decision making. Kuznets’ report to congress “National Income 1929-1932” provided an analysis of national income over the period whilst developing a new method for evaluating an economy. His cautionary quote above was included in this report and foreshadowed over 80 years of the indicator’s misuse. By 1937, Kuznets’ report on National Income from 1929 to 1935 included an aggregate of production as well as income, and GDP was born.
Despite Kuznets’ warning not to use GDP as an indicator of economic success or wellbeing, it has become the primary indicator and goal of economies and politicians globally (Fioramonti, 2017), even cementing itself as one of the commitments required by developing nations when obtaining loans and investment from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The pursuit of growth brings exploitation. Exploitation of the environment and exploitation of people. As anthropologist Anna Tsing (2015) explains, this exploitation is contained in separate “bubbles” leaving us unaware of other relationships and consequences. Traditional personal relationships between suppliers are replaced by complicated supply chains where people are only aware of the part they play,
themselves. These “bubbles” in the supply chain are clouded by economic process so that we are unaware of who is working for us in the supply chains of the commodities we buy and what the environmental impact of those commodities truly is.
As transparency emerges in environmental and social aspects of supply chains, the fundamental issues with the existing model will be further revealed, with far reaching consequences. This is an opportunity to re-make our economic system in a way that captures the needs of communities such as Pernis, Parramatta and the Port of Rotterdam. The systems we build do not need to be static but can allow for the dynamism of our values and the context within which we live, to become
regenerative systems. Designing such as system is a big ask, bigger than this paper, however the process to get there can be explored, starting with an exploration of values and processes of co-creation.
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Sneaky Blindsiders
The research methodology planned for this research was developed in order to conduct Futures Anthropology, which relates to Design Anthropology. The design of the methodology was inspired by regenerative systems theory, which examines systems with respect to their ability to be conducive to life, economic theory, and multi-modal approaches to research. The intention of this research was to remain open to emergence, acknowledging that “a method or approach is always situated and emergent from within the particular circumstances through which it plays out” (Pink & Salazar, 2016, pp. 4-5). This need to embrace emergence and change became more important given the global context of the research and some of the additional challenges that were raised such as language. In addition to traditional techniques of interview and observation, I drew on multi-modal approaches such as drawing and a workshop with
interlocutors. As fieldnotes and interpretations of data are still laden with subjectivity (Emerson, et al., 2011) as part of the methodology, Atlas.ti was used to code and analyse the data received. The use of software such as this works to ‘discipline subjectivity’, to use the phrase coined by Margaret Mead
(Bateson, 1980). Disciplining subjectivity allows the researcher’s responses and emotions to be consciously explored in the research, contributing usefully to it. Though this does not remove bias entirely, it makes assumptions explicit and assists in the ability to be reflexive about the research. In a further attempt to address bias, the key terms of the research questions were operationalised before entering the field. The following table, Table 1, includes the key concepts of the research question, how they were defined prior to the research and the suggested indicators.
Table 1
Concept Definition Indicator
Values The intrinsic or extrinsic motivations that are considered important and underlie patterns of behaviour and social norms.
Behaviour towards/Perception of other actors
Behaviour towards/Perception of the self
Behaviour towards/Perception of the environment
Transactions & Interactions
Exchanges between people and/or organisations and/or government. Employment Purchases Gifts Volunteering Buy-In Uptake of changes that come into
effect, including policy changes, emerging industries and
demographic changes
Verbal support
Active Participation in changes (e.g. Community events, developing/ promoting policy)
Empowerment Ability and desire to participate and affect change
Level of involvement in activities Translation of involvement into action by official leaders
10 | P a g e Throughout the course of the research, some additional indicators were found as shown in
Table 2.
Table 2
Concept Definition Indicator
Values The intrinsic or extrinsic motivations that are considered important and underlie patterns of behaviour and social norms.
Descriptions of
behaviour/recounts of events involving other actors, the self, the environment
Transactions & Interactions
Exchanges between people and/or organisations and/or government.
HORECA (Hotel, Restaurant, Café)
Taxation and Government Services including
infrastructure Buy-In Uptake of changes that come into
effect, including policy changes, emerging industries and
demographic changes
No Additional
Empowerment Ability and desire to participate and affect change
Level of involvement in decision making
Values, though reflected in observations and interlocutors’ own assessment of what was important to them, were also reflected in anecdotes told by interlocutors. They were also revealed in the justifications regarding definitions and the importance of other values. The richness of these stories has led to their inclusion as an indicator of values. Transactions and interactions that occur within the communities were also observable in the presence, lack thereof and desire for what is termed in The Netherlands as HORECA, also known as the hospitality industry. In my initial days of research, my own, rather desperate, struggle to find a café spurred this thought. As fieldwork progressed, cafes, restaurants and bars were raised repeatedly by residents of both Pernis and Parramatta, as well as workers at the Port, as essential and desired services. The provision of government services also emerged through this research as both valuable and beyond influence, thus becoming a pivotal indicator of existing and desired transactions and interactions. Finally, the ability and interest of interlocutors in participating in decision making that impacts the community emerged as an
indicator of empowerment, as well as of perceptions of governments and their motives. By allowing for emergence in the indicators of the key concepts, the data gathered was able to be analysed and applied more constructively to the question, thus drawing on grounded theory methodology (Emerson, et al., 2011).
Observation, in-person interviews and a workshop were planned for the data gathering process. A snowball sampling method was used, allowing for relationships with interlocutors to develop which would allow for deeper conversation as well as introductions to other interlocutors relevant to the research. In addition to these methods, participants were asked to draw their ideal vision of the future. Drawing was used “to interpret, communicate, or share something that escapes verbal
11 | P a g e evocation.” (Hurdley, et al., 2017). Hurdley, et al. (2017) state that “drawing is democratising” and the use of imagery empowers participants allowing values to be drawn out regardless of barriers such as language and age (Richard & Lahman, 2015). Leadership and psychology fields also use drawing and imagery to help convey difficult concepts and it can help to break down the sometimes difficult dynamic between researchers and interlocutors, “The practice of drawing makes us
vulnerable; it challenges our habitus as embodied, reflexive researchers and rebalances power relations between the ‘expert’ and research participants” (Hurdley, et al., 2017, pp. 749-750). Where drawing was not possible, photo elicitation was used. This method still required the verbal or written explanation of the choices which did not prove as beneficial as the drawings where language was a barrier.
Interviews opened with general conversation about the interlocutor(s) of Parramatta, Pernis and the Port, what brought them to be living and/or working where they were and what they liked and disliked about the area. Following this, interlocutors talked through 54 values cards taken from The Common Cause Handbook (PIRC, 2012), discussing how important they were to them as individuals. This usually lasted about 40 minutes, sometimes longer if they were discussing with others. The feedback from these interviews was that this was one of the most interesting parts of the conversation as the interpretations of the cards could be discussed in detail. Lastly, interlocutors were asked to draw their ideal vision of the future and discussed these. When more than one person was interviewed, this generally led to further conversation about futures with some interlocutors wanting to add more images after these conversations because they had initially felt shy about drawing and worried more about this than what they might envision. Interlocutors were then followed up with a request to participate in a workshop.
Before applying to any Masters’ degree, I envisioned my research to include workshops. Very early on, I was surprised to learn that workshops were a novel idea for anthropology, an interesting finding when this is the methodology I have most used in consulting and when developing policy or strategy within organisations. Workshops as a methodological tool can be further enhanced when used in anthropological research by incorporating the important anthropological aspect of
observation. Typically, workshops aim to encourage collaboration and participation, but the focus is on outcomes. Anthropologists would be able to explore outcomes, but also the process of
workshops themselves and discover opportunities for improvement in collaborative approaches that would have far reaching benefits. Thus, expanding the methodological toolbox of anthropology to include such data gathering tools would enrich both research and industry. It is hoped that such workshops would not be disrupted by unforeseen circumstances such as a global pandemic, as was to happen in this research.
The last weeks of fieldwork had arrived, and I was preparing to run the workshop I’d been looking forward to since 2018. Port City Futures and Delft Design for Values had been exploring the ways in which games could assist people in describing values, as well as allowing values and assumptions to be debated in an unthreatening environment. Having experienced numerous games as workshop tools in the past, this added an additional element into the workshop that could be analysed anthropologically. At the suggestion of Port City Futures, I reached out to students from TU Delft who had developed a game called Harbour Hustle. Sitting in the café prior to the Harbour Hustle meeting at TU Delft, I was refreshing my Twitter feed constantly. The university was eerily quiet, and the Dutch Prime Minister was due to make an announcement about the impact of novel coronavirus in The Netherlands. As my colleague arrived, I shifted my curiosity to the game. We decided it would be best to run it at the beginning of the workshop and my colleague offered to facilitate the opening session with another student. We agreed on a timeline and I took the game home with me to learn
12 | P a g e as much about it as I could before the session. That night, the Dutch government banned gatherings of over 100 people. 3 days later, cafés, restaurants and bars were shut down. Exactly one week after my meeting at TU Delft, I was on a flight home to Sydney, leaving Harbour Hustle with my cousin who would return the game once the restrictions were lifted.
I had intentionally designed my research questions to necessitate a workshop; it was essential to address the issues of co-creation. And so, I refused to give up hope. After determining Parramatta was the most appropriate site to add a useful and interesting patch to my research, I redesigned the workshop to be conducted online. I subsequently un-designed the online version when restrictions lifted enough to run it face to face. The structure of this workshop drew on Theory-U (Kaufer & Scharmer, 2013) which was developed as a process for tapping into the collective capacity of a team in order to “address the root causes of today’s societal, environmental and spiritual challenges” (The Presencing Institute, 2020). The Theory U structure is outlined in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1
The basic premise of this model is to stop the mind from jumping immediately from problem to solution and thus, avoid polarised and preconceived arguments, particularly pertinent in the political discussion we were soon to have. It requires the user of the model to dive deeper into the problem and the stakeholders involved before brainstorming, prototyping and implementing new ideas. Beginning with downloading, users of the model engage in a reflexive exercise from the outset, recognising past patterns about oneself. This allows one to look at a problem from various
perspectives through this acknowledgement of what one’s own perspective is, known in the model as suspending. Redirecting, related to the open-heart stage of the model, welcomes information from others. Letting go encourages the recognition of others’ needs which creates the space for new ideas to emerge in the letting come phase. As these new ideas emerge, visions and intentions can be created. These lead to prototypes which eventually can be enacted.
13 | P a g e Building out from this model, the workshop ran in the following sequence with 6 enthusiastic interlocutors from Parramatta:
Table 3
Activity Description Notes Timing
Introduction Interlocutors introduce names and something they are passionate about
To ensure a safe space is created for discussion, interlocutors are to avoid asking each other about work, cultural background etc. This information may be offered voluntarily
5mins
Explain goals of the session and format
5mins
Downloading & Suspending: Open Mind
Values Individually write down the values most important to them on post it notes
No external stimulus or suggestions – place all suggestions on butchers’ paper in the centre of the room
5mins
Discussion to group similar values and add any additional that are raised
Grouping of values on the butches’ paper at the centre of the room. Keep these values to the side/on a wall during the rest of the workshop
10mins
Sensing: Open Heart
Problem Mapping Use post-it notes and arrows on butchers’ paper to show relationships between issues in the community. Highlight those issues which are closely linked to many others
This uses the Minds at Work Methodology (Minds at Work, 2012)
Good characteristics of the community that are raised are recorded on another sheet and wish list items recorded on post-its put into a 'carpark'
20mins
Letting Go & Letting Come: Open Will
Values of the Future
Looking at the problem maps and highlights, list the values that will be most important to the community of the future
These may be the same as initially discussed
10mins
Break: 5 minutes Crystallising: Open Heart
Future In 2 groups, draw, write and colour your ideal vision of the future
If it is difficult to agree on an ideal future, focus on the problem map and which steps can be taken to address these issues
10mins
Present back to the group and discuss similarities and differences, listing the similarities as goals or activities
14 | P a g e Prototyping: Open Mind
Responsibility Individually, use stickers to mark which actors should be responsible for each
goal/activity (government, community groups, charities, businesses, individuals)
Remain open to other actors that may take responsibility or shared responsibility
5mins
Group discussion on results 10mins
Indicators Group discussion on which indicators actors should look at to determine success
10mins
Summary Brief summary of findings from the day
Go through problem maps, drawings and key values
10mins Questions &
General Discussion
Wrap up session with final questions and open to informal discussion
End of formal discussions 5mins
Total Time: 2 hours
The workshops were originally planned to be multi-stakeholder and larger, ensuring port workers, residents and, ideally, government representatives could attend. However, the COVID-19 restrictions in place and location of the site at the time the research could be conducted resulted in a smaller group with different backgrounds but who were all residents of the Parramatta area. Explorations into power during the co-creation process were then much more subtle and dependent on personalities, rather than reflective of perceptions and/or realities of power that exists through social structures. The intimacy of the workshops was also an unexpected turn, which may have resulted in a number of different responses to those which may have been raised in a larger, more unfamiliar group. At times, the interlocutors appeared empowered to speak out, potentially gaining confidence from this intimacy, whilst at other times there was an apparent resistance to questioning ideas that were popular in the group. In future research, conducting multiple workshops with various stakeholders and with follow up interviews would help to evaluate these dynamics further. Overall, however, the feedback on the workshop was very positive with interlocutors describing it as “thought provoking” and “a lot of fun”.
Other changes to the methodology included the introduction of an online survey and online interviews to continue collating data during isolation and lockdown. These methods allowed me to be then when I could not be there (Gray, 2016). As Gray argues, this ability to be temporally co-present, though not physically present is new to anthropology and methods used can address some of the previous issues associated with remote anthropology, including triangulation (Mead, 2000). The introduction of these online tools further added patches into the rapidly growing quilt of my research, allowing me to capture a variety of data and perspectives. This method did bring with it a number of challenges but, interestingly, also allowed for some interactions that I may not otherwise have had. There is a difficulty with online approaches as it removes some of the elements of
conversation such as body language. Though video calling can help with this, it is still limited in its ability to replicate a personal conversation. However, the introduction of surveys into my research did allow me to receive responses from interlocutors that were not comfortable with English. Through the wonderful voluntary assistance of another interlocutor and my Dutch speaking relatives, my English survey was translated to Dutch, posted on a community Facebook page and Dutch responses translated to English. Though the number of responses was small, it may not have been possible to engage the additional interlocutors without such an approach. Of course, this is
15 | P a g e limited in its lack of observation and intimacy in the approach, but it was a useful and informative addition to the research.
These changes to the research methodology did have an impact on the data collected. As outlined, the two sites, though similar in some respects, do not share other important aspects such as the Maritime Mindset of Pernis and the development of Parramatta into the political centre (see The
Hidden Life of Pernis and Parramatta). The data collected is not, and could never be, completely
comparable, however, theoretical generalisation can be employed and evoke questions for further research. In particular, there are similarities in the way these spatially and culturally distanced interlocutors speak of infrastructure challenges and the way that this impacts on engagement and feelings of empowerment over the future. The changes to the methodology also impacted data collection with respect to consistent approaches to interlocutors. The snowball sampling method employed in The Netherlands allowed a greater variety of responses and demographic of the interlocuters. It was particularly important in building rapport and trust in the community. In
Australia, the sampling technique was restricted to my existing network due to timing and COVID-19 restrictions. The demographic was therefore less varied, and interlocutors were previously known. These impacts on the data collection process also raised important areas to be aware of in analysis of the data as outlined below.
Within the research, there were a number of features that could result in biases, with language being the prime example. The language barrier was quite prominent with interlocutors in Pernis. Although most were able to speak in English, there was a limit in my ability to engage with the community due to confidence on both my behalf and some of the residents. Asking interlocutors to speak in a foreign language has its own host of problems (Pels, 2014). So too does the translation of questions and responses with each word holding particular connotations in one language that may not hold for the direct translation of that word into another. In making the choice of which words to use, the translator is introducing their own bias and understanding into the research (Pels, 2014). This became abundantly clear to me when asking two family members to work together to translate the list of values used during my interviews. Both native Dutch speakers, one has lived and worked in Australia for over 30 years and the other has always lived in The Netherlands. The implied meanings of the words were cause for much debate and did not always result in an agreement over which words to use. This is also the case for the more commonly known Dutch word ‘gezellig’ whose direct translation is ‘cosy’ but refers primarily to a feeling experienced when spending time with close family and friends. Thus, language has been a primary element of this research requiring reflexivity in both translation and avoiding personal interpretations of the words used when not the
interlocutor’s primary language.
The introduction of 54 values cards into the interviews conducted was another debated method chosen for this research. On one side of the argument is the notion of prompting and planting certain ideas into the minds of interlocutors. This debate was raised through working with Delft Design for Values and Port City Futures. However, I argue that this method allowed for a richer conversation about a series of values that drew out more perspectives from interlocuters than may have been raised otherwise. This is similar to often recounted experiences in anthropology where the subjectivity of the researcher provides additional learnings (Bateson, 1980; Emerson, et al., 2011). In particular, this methodology led to lengthy and sometimes intense discussions when interlocutors discussed the values with one another. For example, the value of self-indulgence was discussed thoroughly in one group interview, with interlocutors debating the difference between self-indulgence and self-care:
16 | P a g e L: But I think it’s not contrary to being responsible or professional but on the
contrary, it’s very important you have to enjoy things you do on your free time in order to have a balance in life with other things, with work…
N: My way of thinking is you need to take care of yourself to be like happy and to be in a good position for like, not for others, but for yourself and for the wellbeing of your relationships.
Interviewer: If the word was ‘self care’ what would you think?
L: The problem is that yeah, self indulgent sounds a bit like a negative thing but it’s more like self care actually. And I think that self care is very important.
M: Moderation!
In this way, the approach taken to open discussion around specific topics allowed interlocutors and myself to “question taken-for granted assumptions and expand our notions of what is possible and desirable” (Tobin, 2019). There was only one instance in which the values prompts became a barrier and that was in the workshop. As all present at the workshop had previously been interviewed, when asked to write down individually important values, one interlocutor struggled as their memory of the interview led them to focus on the values most discussed. In this instance, a previous anchor had moved out of context and became a primer to the responses in this early exercise (Kahneman, 2011). This was quickly overcome but serves to demonstrate the impact of both the method and research itself on the interlocutors we work with as anthropologists (Pels, 2014).
Finally, the participants in Australia were already in my network, as noted above. Though it is unlikely that this level of familiarity severely biased the research, there were a few occasions where interlocutors were apologetic in their responses, knowing that my values on certain issues were different.
R: Sorry Sarah. This is again where in the last couple of years, my stance on this is changing more and more…See, I’m not willing to pay x amount of money to put solar panels on the house. I know it will do a world of good but the money. I just can’t justify that amount of money.
Q: You value it but just not as much as money or wealth
R: Yeah, at this stage yes, that’s correct. But the little things, if something was cheaper. Say it was a few grand for solar panels I would do it in a heartbeat This was also the case when interlocutors were familiar with each other:
R: [Looking to interlocutor Q] Don’t take this the wrong way – I value detachment highly
Q: [Jokingly] You hate me!
In my analysis it has been important to reflect on the ways in which these interlocutors conveyed their responses and how their own perceptions of myself were included. This is also the case for interlocutors in The Netherlands, particularly those with whom I developed more of a relationship with and would have been particularly pertinent in the subsequent interviews and the planned workshop as these relationships developed.
17 | P a g e Though the methodological changes were unexpected and challenging, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed me to add an additional perspective to this research from a community with parallels to Pernis, adding further richness to the research. The smaller workshop brought intimacy into the research that allowed for a deeper discussion and the focus on drawing, online interactions and the inclusion of group interviews allowed interlocutors to contribute their perspectives despite language barriers and through a range of modes. This research relied heavily on patchwork, emergence and adaptability. As we navigate rapidly changing environments and systems in our own lives and as part of our local and global communities, this felt highly reflective of the future I had begun exploring.
18 | P a g e
The Hidden Life of Pernis and Parramatta
The agora of ancient Greece is credited as the birthplace of some of the world’s most influential ideas, including democracy. In this space, philosophers, politicians, and other free citizens would gather to debate and engage in civic life. Spending a majority of time outdoors and engaging with citizens and foreigners throughout the city has been considered vital to the strong participation in civic life for which the agora in Athens is known (Weiner, 2016). The infrastructure of Athens played a pivotal part in the development of such engagement, with public spaces used far more frequently than private spaces. Some estimates suggest Athenians spent as little as 30 minutes within their own homes beyond sleeping (Weiner, 2016). Today, a rather different picture emerges, particularly for readers from Western backgrounds. It begs the question, if the commute to the agora were subject to unreliable traffic and road tolls, how might the thread of creativity and debate have flowed in civic life? Speaking of infrastructure’s influence on history, the anthropologist Brian Larkin (2013) quotes Freud, “Motor power places gigantic forces at his [humanity’s] disposal, which, like his muscles, he can employ in any direction” but this choice of direction is both political and economic (Collier, 2011). It is in this way that infrastructure becomes “intimately caught up with” shaping the future (Larkin, 2013) and the supposed participatory democracy of the present.
On embarking on this research project, infrastructure had not been considered as a significant factor. However, coding interviews and fieldnotes brought this factor to the fore, with even the opening line of my fieldnotes regarding Pernis, stating:
“I should have researched how difficult it would be to get to my field sites before I committed”
This seemingly offhand reflection quickly evolved into a point of analysis, as my commute began in the political centre of the Netherlands and passed through the central business district of Rotterdam before reaching the intended field site of Pernis. Further, the Port itself was so removed from the city the only access was by road, a luxury I did not have. This resulted in a focus on port workers who lived in Rotterdam city, one of whom provided the reflection:
L: “The access to the highway from here is very close but it’s a single lane road to the highway so that it’s two minutes if there are no cars but in the morning it’s crazy” Another worker who takes a different on-ramp to the highway added,
M: “It is a 30-minute commute to the Europoort in the mornings but in the evening, it takes 1.5hrs to get back as everyone is also commuting.”
The frustration was not just limited to the infrastructure itself but also to the expectations about infrastructure:
L: “I wasn’t planning on having to commute when I moved to The Netherlands, it was something that happened.”
Residents of the Parramatta-Blacktown region are similarly impacted by infrastructure, located approximately 40kms from Sydney’s Central Business District (CBD). Interlocutors spoke frequently of the unreliability of public transport, the cost of roads and the amount of traffic. In many cases it emerged as related to a lack of desire to go into the Sydney CBD.
19 | P a g e Q: Mm, we avoid like the plague if possible. But I will for work, like for work things basically. But otherwise, I will not get [Interlocutor R] to the city on a Saturday night if his life
depended [on it] unless…the only time’s we’ve (sic) went is if we have a free voucher for something… But even then, he makes me go in at lunch time.
Interviewer: Because it’s busy?
Q: Because it’s a pain in the arse. It’s busy, it’s hard to get to, all the traffic and everything we can get in the city, practically we can get here. You’ve just got to find it.
These infrastructural issues are also the structures which facilitate ‘flows’, defined by anthropologist Anna Tsing (2000) as movements “stimulated through political and economic channels”. In these communities, these structures facilitating flows are also barriers created via political and economic channels. The roads described by residents are key networks for transporting goods as well as people. These flows are essential to the current economy as access to resources and employment are foundational needs for the capitalist system. Where infrastructure creates barriers to flows, they also become barriers to participation in the broader economy and potentially in political, or civic, life. Some residents in Parramatta spoke of their commutes to work and the façade of having options created by these political and economic flows:
S: “I’ve thought about riding (cycling), but Parramatta Road is too busy…and I’ve thought about train but it’s too expensive… When I drive, I take the M4 (a toll road) on the way back…I would do it on the way to work but the money, obviously it’s too expensive.” Q: “If I’m lucky, half an hour and that’s taking tolls. Usually it’s 45 minutes… I can get a bus where I have to walk two k (kilometres) or it takes another half an hour to wait to get a bus to the station and then another half an hour on the bus from there… If I don’t want to drive, I’ll drive to near your mum’s place and get a bus from there.”
Commuting and access to the main CBD are not just the only restrictions that infrastructure places on communities, however. The link even goes beyond impacting where one takes a job, what schools are available how this may link to cycles of work and poverty (Harms, 2016). This poor infrastructural connection to political centres impacts the ways in which communities can and do engage in civic life (Anand, 2017). The possibility for co-created economies holds the opportunity to address this.
In 2019, the Federal Election was held in Australia. Branded the ‘unlosable election’ for the opposition, the results shocked activists and supporters of the opposition alike. Journalist Annabel Crabb summarised the feeling in an article published in The Guardian one week after the results were announced, “Google’s search statistics revealed an overnight bump in inquiries about moving to New Zealand. Horrified left-wing commentators lamented that Australians were selfish or stupid. The hashtag #Quexit gained currency, advocating a split from the Australian state most vigorous in its rejection of Labor’s campaign.” (Crabb, 2019). Actively involved in the campaign ‘Vote for the Planet’, I personally was devastated by the results. More devastating than the results, however, was the realisation that we had lost as soon as Barnaby Joyce, leader of the National Party, made his victory speech as his seat in New England was declared. He stated, 'What I could say to the people who put all those resources into it: You went after one bloke. You went after him. Whilst going after him, you forgot about the other seats you might have won, you clowns” (Joyce, 2019). And in that one speech I realised I had fallen into the same trap that political and environmental movements have fallen into time and time again. We hadn’t crossed the bridge.
20 | P a g e It is commonly stated by some Sydneysiders that ‘If you’ve crossed the bridge you’ve gone too far’. I first heard this saying when I started my undergraduate degree. The conversation happened almost 10 years ago but went something like this:
Student: Where do you live? Me: Seven Hills
Student: Where’s that?
Me: Between Parramatta and Blacktown
Student: Blacktown? Isn’t that past the Blue Mountains?
Me: No. The Blue Mountains are about a 40-minute drive west of there Student: [Laughing] Oh well, if you’ve crossed the bridge you’ve gone too far! Me: What bridge?
Student: Any bridge
And so, began my initiation into the world of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. A short time after this conversation, the university paper Tharunka published a satirical map of Sydney:
21 | P a g e An interesting observation regarding this is that there is no map of Sydney according to Western Sydney. Instead, the area is classified as ‘Refugees’, ‘Cultural Cringe’, ‘Someone has to live here’ or ‘Out there’. For non-Sydney readers, a map of Sydney has been included below with two red dots
highlighting Parramatta and Blacktown.
Figure 3: A Google Maps image of Sydney, Australia with added notion highlighting Parramatta and Blacktown
What surprised me most was that Parramatta seemed to be unknown despite being Sydney’s second biggest CBD and providing the second greatest number of jobs in Sydney (Remplan, 2020). ‘The bridge’ had become a symbol of the divide between geographic regions of Sydney (Larkin, 2013). Intended to connect two sides, bridges do not always have this outcome in a cultural sense, regardless of their utility regarding physical movement. In some cases, such as in the New York of Robert Moses, these bridges simultaneous connect and physically divide to suit the politics of the time (Caro, 1974). Watching Barnaby Joyce’s victory speech, I was hit with the realisation that I had also forgotten to cross “the bridge” back to my home in the campaigning we did leading up to the election. How could I forget when, at the time, I was living there myself?
Infrastructural barriers to participation do not just exist in the divide between political faces and communities, but between communities themselves. The ability to self-organise within a community is restricted by perceptions of the place, perceptions of importance and perceptions of influence. The infrastructural barriers between places limits real and perceived ability, as well as motivation to participate in civic life. Even decisions about infrastructure itself can exclude the voices of those in these communities. A resident from Pernis explained that a road was proposed that would impact
22 | P a g e the community. There was supposed to be an update from the gemeente (local government) but no one had heard anything. The community wasn’t sure when or where it would be built or what the impact would be. This resident expressed the view that it was not unusual to feel left in the dark. At a community event held at De Bonte Koe, the community centre in Pernis, I asked some residents whether they had completed a survey I had seen posted online by the gemeente for residents of Pernis to have their say on the future of the community. Of the ten people I spoke with, none were aware of the survey. Later, when asking about the role of the gemeente, responses were filled with laughter and sarcasm, with the overall tone of conversations sceptical of their motivations and their ability to do positive work for the community.
The feeling that the government does not play an effective role that acknowledges the interests of community also emerged through the group visioning exercise in the workshop with one group of Parramatta residents opening their presentation with:
Group 1: It all starts from the ground up. This is the party called The Greater Good Government, where the government is there for the greater good. The greater good provides everyone with what they need, instead of telling everyone what to do… hypothetically.
Figure 4: One group vision from the workshop showing the ideal future with accessible transport and essential services, renewable energy, green buildings, no trucks on the road (deliveries by air instead), campfire for connecting away from technology and a greater Good Government that is built from the ground up.
23 | P a g e The feelings of a gap between people or community and the government is likely linked to many factors, including to a ‘politics of resentment’ (Cramer, 2016) that separates the ‘City’ and
government from these communities, perpetuated by technological and economic infrastructural changes. Both Pernis and Parramatta have experienced significant shifts in the role they play within the cities of Rotterdam and Sydney, respectively. Pernis, located next to the major Shell oil refinery has transitioned from a resource centre to the city outskirts and not considered an attraction in itself:
Interviewer: Does anyone still work on the refinery? I know it used to employ a lot of people
F: Not really. In the hotel you can find a lot of workers, but they are usually here for just one week and then they leave
E: Yes, and they are in there drinking all night because they don't know what else to do here!
A: Remember the big Chinese tourist buses? I used to live a few doors down from the hotel and we would stand in the window watching them amazed!
Interviewer: What brought them here? I: I think the tulips
D: No, I think Pernis is in the middle between the port, the beach and the city C: It's probably cheaper to get a hotel here as well, instead of in the city
The residents describe the flows of people through their community as transitory, with Pernis playing only a peripheral role in the larger economy through the provision of temporary housing for workers and tourists. Yet, Pernis has a long history as a resource centre with its own booming economy. The images below were provided by a long-term resident of Pernis who brought a number of books to a Ladies’ Night to show me the history of the town. The following images paint a history of the town as centred on industry and resources with many shops and a thriving hospitality industry; it was an economically important part of Rotterdam.
24 | P a g e Figure 6: Thriving restaurants and bars in Pernis
Parramatta is also experiencing a shift in its relationship with the city. Following Australia’s invasion by English colonisers, Parramatta was established as the first European inland settlement. Overtime, waves of migration and changes in policy shaped Parramatta from indigenous country to farmland and industry. Now, recognised as the geographic centre of Sydney, the New South Wales State Government has started moving their offices to the area and companies are following suit. This trend is set to continue as part of the ‘Metropolis of Three Cities Plan’ for Greater Western Sydney (Greater Sydney Commission, 2018).
These changes in the relationship of Pernis and Parramatta with their respective cities is interwoven with shifts in the demographic make-up of these communities. When asked about any changes in the community, a group in Pernis explained:
F: there are more shops around and the community is getting bigger and more.... F: multicultural
F: yes, multi-cultural. That's the right word [had to leave to answer the door] Interviewer: she just mentioned it's become more multi-cultural. Has that been a difficult process?
25 | P a g e O: I mean, I don't really think it's become that cultural. When I think
multi-cultural I think Arabic, Moroccan, Turkish you know? I think it's just a lot of Dutch people from different part of the Netherlands and Germans
Interviewer: Isn't there an Ethiopian Church here too? A: yes, every Sunday!
D: but they don't live here, they come from the surrounding areas for church A: Yes, there is also a Hindu church! They also come from other suburbs
In fact, according to Alle Cijfers, the distribution of the population of Pernis is approximately 80% native Dutch, 10% Western Migration and 10% non-Western Migration. This has remained relatively stable since 2013, with only a slight decline in native Dutch residents over the last 6 years (Alle Cijfers, 2020). However, the 20% non-native population is a significant jump from the 6% recorded in 1997 (van Huis, et al., 2002). The following graph illustrates clearly the boom period for the area of Pernis and the small revitalisation of the area referred to by interlocuter Q above. The graph shows the number of buildings constructed in each period. Of the 2,547 existing buildings, 2,263 of them are places of residence.
Figure 8
*Source allecijfers.nl/wijk/pernis-rotterdam/
Parramatta has also experienced an evolution of community:
S: Growing up it was like, don’t go to Parra, you’ll probably get stabbed. And when we went to Parra shops I would have to go with mum and dad. But then, I reckon it
26 | P a g e would have been in probably high school onwards that I used to catch the bus into
Parramatta, and it started to obviously slowly get better… When you go for a walk you walk past the odd homeless person or weirdo… This guy just approached me and he was smoking and missing a tooth and I thought oh ‘shit, shit, shit’, first thing he asked was “can I have your phone?” so that freaked me out but then I realised he was just a normal guy so there are still those kind of areas where you don’t feel completely safe but generally speaking I’m very happy to go for a walk and feel comfortable here.
T: It’s different for me. My perception of Parramatta when I moved up here was that it was a rough area
Interviewer: And when was that, sorry?
T: That was five years ago… I got work in Westmead, so I was going to have to go there at some point… And by and large actually the perception changed straight away. I went to the shopping centre a few times and figured it was very multi-cultural but also it wasn’t too bad an area anyway.
According to the 2016 census, over half of all residents in Parramatta speak a language other than English at home and 50% of all residents were born overseas. Income inequality still exists with 28% of residents classified as high income and 19% of residents classified as low income (City of
Parramatta, 2020). A comparison with the 2001 census results show a significant growth in migration with only 36% of residents born overseas (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006). The makeup of residents has also changed over this time with the next highest response rate in language spoken at home other than English being Arabic (10%), Cantonese (4.6%) and Mandarin (3%) compared to 2016 with 10% Mandarin, 6.5% Cantonese and 5% Korean (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). These statistics support the suggestions of the interlocutors and suggest a highly diverse community. In contrast to Pernis where 80% of the community identify as Native-Dutch, only 0.7% of the
Parramatta community identify at Indigenous Australian. The most significant reason for this is the history of colonisation/invasion of the Parramatta area. By 1801, 13 years after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney, Indigenous people in the Parramatta area were permitted to be shot on sight with at least one infamous resistance fighter, Pemulway, decapitated and his head sent back to London
(McAllister & Moran, 2020). The Parramatta region has worked to recognise this history, including using the name “Parramatta” which comes from the name of the indigenous clan the Burramattagal translates to “where the eels lay” in the indigenous language of the Dharug people, the traditional custodians of the land. This history ties into the 250 year long known, recorded history of invasion and migration.
These historical shifts in economics and the demographic make-up of community call into question the notion and definition of ‘community’. What communities exist within Pernis, the Port and Parramatta? How have they evolved? And what are the features around which communities form? Rather than being simply geographically, demographically or time bound, community can be conceived of as a process, imagined reality or social interaction (Walsh & High, 1999). Neoliberal economics and modernisation shift everyday interactions and transactions away from the social space (Tsing, 2015) creating a disconnect between community and the traditional economy.
Community, however, still evolves through a process of interaction and traditionally ‘non-economic’ transaction. The possibility then arises to explore the features around which these communities evolve, interact and transact in neoliberal, capitalist and alternative transactions.
27 | P a g e Both Pernis and Parramatta have a strong relationship with waterways. For Pernis, this exists in the form of a personal maritime mindset developed over time with the Port of Rotterdam and for Parramatta, it is related to the Parramatta River, a key factor in the history of the area. Situated between the city, an oil refinery, and the largest port in Europe, Pernis has earnt the nickname “Smelly Pernis”. However, residents say this is an unjust label:
B: when we came to look at houses here, I was a bit unsure because of the industry but when you drive in you see all the green and all the trees and it is so quiet. I fell in love with it straight away.
D: yes, I grew up in Spijkenesse and lived in Vlaardingen before Pernis and it is really smelly but Pernis is different. Sometimes, like today, you can smell it a bit more, but it is much worse in other places
A: Yes! When I tell people, I live in Pernis they say, "oh, smelly Pernis?" and I think that's strange because it is much worse in Vlaardingen. [D] actually measure the air particle matter and found it was much worse closer to Rotterdam city.
In fact, the waterways and greenery of Pernis is one of the biggest positives for residents, particularly juxtaposed with the industrial port:
A: When I moved here, I loved it because it was so quiet and peaceful
C: I love the contrast between the nature and the industry and especially the lights. I love to take my mobility scooter starting from the tunnel and going all the way along to the other side of Pernis. You can see the containers and the ships. It is very busy and always something to see.
A: No-one else gets it. My boyfriend’s friends came from Spain and I was like "look, isn't it beautiful - all the lights" and they thought I was crazy, but I love it. I work in it and I think it's beautiful. Even seeing the lights on the tall towers.
D: And seeing the smoke! C: And sometimes some flames!
This relationship with the port as a feature of community is not one designed by the City, but a deeply personal maritime mindset that exists beyond government initiatives, employment, and education. The transactions and interactions with the port are not strictly ‘economic’ though are essential to the sense of community and belonging to the area.
Similarly, the City of Parramatta is centred around the Parramatta River. This river was an important food source and territorial boundary for Indigenous Australians. Following the invasion by the English, the river became the primary mode of transport throughout the ‘new country’, particularly as the source of freshwater the English established around, known as the Tank Stream, begun to dry up (Hoskins, 2015). Through periods of industrialisation, the river became heavily polluted and is no longer swimmable, although some community groups are working towards making the area
swimmable again (Parramatta River Catchment Group, 2020). The connection to waterways, including Parramatta river, was evident in the discussions with residents. Though these bodies of water do not have the allure (or detraction) of industry, they are valued and utilised by the community in different ways. When asked about the reasons they chose to live in the area, one resident responded:
