The co-Production Oracle

The Co-Production Oracle is a deck of cards designed to help you open up new perspectives on issues, problems or areas of stuck-ness in collaborative situations.

Examples of these situations might include: collaborative research; projects with multiple partners designing/delivering the work; ongoing working relationships where there are challenges around agreeing or listening to each other; projects or briefs where you are trying to understand a situation (perhaps within a new community) so that you can respond with a solution, or relationships within teams where power dynamics need to be explored. 

I worked with the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute (GSI) to develop this deck of cards, which feature 30 co-production ‘archetypes’ based on interviews with members of the GSI - climate scientists, academics, nutritionists, artists, sociologists, and more - and informed by their diverse experiences of co-production. Each archetypal card has a corresponding prompt which provokes the reader to ask new questions about the issues they are exploring. The cards can be used by individuals, pairs and groups. 

What is Co-Production?

(by Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin, Lecturer in Sociology and Assistant Director of the Global Systems Institute, at the University of Exeter) 

“Co-production is an uncomfortable process. Co-production is losing control. Co-production is contamination and cross-pollination of different worldviews, seeking to break the monopoly of any one perspective to tackle the challenges we are facing as a collective. Co-production is not only putting yourself in the shoes of others, but allowing their voices, experiences and even their recalcitrant views to shape your own beloved projects, and ideas. This set of cards is designed for you to think with others from the perspective of the instigator of co-production processes; seeking to tackle power imbalances, and problems inherent to collective world making. The creation of these cards is itself the product of an open-ended process, in which an artist and an academic selected 30 archetypes to speak to issues of ownership, colonial legacies and shared responsibility that emerged from a series of conversations with the Global Systems Institute community. Since we thought that the processes of co-production in all its open-endedness was not amenable for a handbook, set of recipes, or imperatives, we decided to allow for a playful way — the Co-production Oracle — to disrupt the prescriptive thinking that characterises research projects, policy agendas and techno-fixes seeking to solve pressing problems such as the climate emergency. We provide this ‘Oracle’ with the hope it will help you make space for different voices and perspectives to shape your own practice of world making.”

WORKSHOPS

To bring this deck of cards to life for organisations or groups seeking to find new perspectives, I can deliver Co-Production Oracle workshops that will teach you how to use the cards and help you ask questions about your own collaborations, projects and team dynamics. This is a playful, illuminating and open-ended interactive process that can help start conversations about difficult issues and help teams find new angles from which to explore complex problems.  

Workshops with me might take the form of a 1-2 hour introductory session, or a more long-form, bespoke series of sessions to help explore the issues that matter to you, in greater depth. I can work with you to design the type of engagement that would suit your project or team, and use my perspective as a creative facilitator to help open up reflective space, in response to the issues you are facing. 

TESTIMONIALS FROM PREVIOUS PARTICIPANTS

 I feel like sometimes I neglect other forms of knowledge and get quite individualistic, but when I finally tried talking to people within complete opposite areas of knowledge (e.g Art, Philosophy, psychology) It was just so eye-opening experience to see, even my whole life with a different light! Made me realise the power of being humble and to form a community where ideas are equally valuable and to create the safe space needed for innovation.

It was such a mind-opening experience. It made me realise that sometimes my mental models limit my perspective on how I see the world, and having such a chat allowed me to see from a different perspective and through the experience of others. It even felt relieving and medicinal! And made me realise the importance of a community - to be happy so I could be of help to others, through my work, my company and even as I person. I just loved it!

I thought the Oracle was a really lively way of approaching something quite tricky.

Disruptive and productive interventions for moments when we get stuck (and other times!)

MORE INFORMATION

About the Cards and Workshops

For more information about buying a deck of cards, commissioning a workshop, or to start a conversation about bringing the Co-Production Oracle into your work, you can contact me at hello@hannahmumby.co.uk.

About the GSI

This deck of cards has been co-produced with the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute (GSI). The GSI is thought-leading in understanding global changes, solving global challenges and helping create a flourishing future world together, through transformative research, education and impact. The GSI’s aim is to work with others to secure a flourishing future for humanity as an integral part of a life-sustaining Earth system. It aims to be a ‘go to’ place for global change researchers from around the world, bringing them together with industry, policymakers, students and other stakeholders to tackle shared problems, and acting as a catalyst that enables translation of this research into applications that deliver tangible and sustainable social and ecological benefit. Find out more at www.exeter.ac.uk/research/gsi/