Community Wayfinding

As ecological breakdown and socio-economic challenges intensify, finding our way is increasingly difficult. Given this, ways of community discernment that nurture a hopeful orientation and prompts discovering realistic potential steps given where we stand in relation to our situation is vital. This led to the development of the ABioSA Wayfinder - a group-orientated way of interpreting and navigating the formation of a community.

The Wayfinder is a dialogue process which invites small groups of people within a community or across a multi-stakeholder landscape to approach wayfinding a collective. The ABioSA Wayfinder consist of three conversations that community hosts use to invite others to explore their shared intention and discern plausible steps in support of chosen directions.

As part of the ABioSA Community Engagement Pilot Project we tested the Wayfinder with Young People living in the Tsitsikamma region. Together we discovered how this dialogue process can transform how we know ourselves and make choices about our realities, while considering the ecology of place, community and plants. We discovered that the process of using the Wayfinder is teachable. The community hosts working with Young People felt the format of the Wayfinder provided a ‘flexible spine’, a loose structure to work with which continued to strengthen their confidence to step into the role with more ease and inspiration.

Wayfinding is a living process in that it continues to grow in its function and develop in its form as different stakeholders use it for perspective finding and discerning feasible options and choices. The purpose of the Wayfinder is to promote agency and evoke a community orientated way to explore potential and possibilities together. We would like to widen the circle of collective wayfinding within the bioeconomy, including among Young People. If you would like to extend Wayfinding into your networks, we invite you to get in touch with us and contact Ingeborg Adelfang-Hodgson.