[bestbits] [governance] Re: Call for nominations for civil society representatives for the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory group (MAG)

[Daniel Pimienta]

>I support all the issues that Deirdre raises and 
>would benefit immensely from hearing about 
>solutions for the problems she presents.

Mishi,

Back, beetween 2000 and 2005, we have been (quite 
succesfully I would say from the many 
evaluations) experimenting methodologies for what 
we called "Distance Participation" in the project 
MISTICA (Methodologies and Social Impact of ICT 
in Latin America - http://funredes.org/mistica ) 
and at the same time we were also experimenting 
with imbedding translation into virtual community 
communication (to solve the second barreer for 
participation after distance which is language). 
MISTICA was not multistakeholder by design (it 
was centered on civil society) but indeed have 
make some interesting contributions to democratic 
process in virtual spaces which could apply to multi-stakeholder communities.

The following paper (which by the way was 
translated from Spanish by Deirdre :-)) could 
give some insights to the whole process:
<http://funredes.org/mistica/english/cyberlibrary/thematic/icie/>At 
the Boundaries of Ethics and 
Cultures<http://funredes.org/mistica/english/cyberlibrary/thematic/icie/> 
: Virtual Communities as an Open Ended Process 
Carrying the Will for Social Change (the "MISTICA" experience) .

The method had nothing to do with the use of 
synchronous resources for broadcasting the 
meeting; it was, by design, an asynchronous 
management based on the following axiom:
even if a virtual community organize a face to 
face meeting the center of gravity of the community remains virtual.
The whole design of the meeting was made with 
that principle in mind, e.g. not allowing 
decisions be made by the lucky minority in face 
to face encounters but keeping a whole community 
process for decision making. This way of 
processing trigger many interesting consequences 
which warrant due and democratic processes and, I 
would say, provoke a radical change in the way 
face to face participants perceive their own participation.

This obviously requires to think the design of 
the meeting differently, organizing delayed 
interactions after meeting sections, but that 
will keep face to face participants in sync with 
the community and allow sometime some interesting 
situation when a face to face participant can 
also interact by the virtual asynchronius channel.

The same type of methodologies were also 
experimented at the same time by colleagues 
working for Fondation pour le Progrès de 
l'Humanité in order to manage the Alliance for a 
Responsible, Plureal and United World 
(http://www.alliance21.org). The French article 
on Wikipedia does refer to Distance Participation 
(see 
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_pour_un_monde_responsable,_pluriel_et_solidaire).

If people are interested I coud offer more details off the list.


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