Participative Democratic Futures in the Americas Home Page (PDA)

The PDA community is largely made up of those who have been trained in, or closely associated with, Search Conference & Participative Design as formulated by Fred and Merrelyn Emery of the Australian National University, and their colleagues. This group represents a growing number of consultants, trainers and educators, organization managers, leaders and others who have adopted the the principles of Participative Design (PD) as a means of creating a more democratic society and workplace.

This form of democracy emphasizes participatory, as opposed to representative, democracy. It places special emphasis on the power of self-managed groups to more fully satisfy basic human needs for self realization. It argues for the utilization of the knowledge, skills and intellectual capacities of those performing the work of organizations to design their own work practices, thereby achieving greater commitment to the tasks and improved productivity. The implications for this approach for transforming traditional hierarchical relationships among workers, between workers and supervisors, in government, in industry, in communities, and in other organizations are enormous and stimulating to a growing number of citizens and leaders in all walks of life.

This listserver supports a network with an academic and applied interest in the role of:

1. human behaviors and attitudes on the issue of sustainability of socio-economic/cultural institutions, and natural systems;
2. participative, democratic structures and practices, on the issue of sustainability of socio-economic/cultural institutions, and natural systems;
3. questions relating to the practices of the Search Conference and Participative Design.

Other Search Conference and Participative Design Articles.

• Journal for Quality and Participations' Community Quality Page has numerous articles on using the Search Conference and Participative Design process to create/improve communities and design self-organizing and selt-managing democratic teams.
• Sustainable Community, Sustainable Forestry...

Request for inclusion on the listserv should be sent directly to International Institute for Natural, Environmental & Cultural Resources Management (IIRM). Communications (requests for help, reports on work, general interest notices, references, etc.) sent to the listserv by network members throughout the world are automatically distributed to all members in the network.

Send us: General Information and Comments

Alberta Diversity Network

Transformational Learning Community

Dynamic Learning Community

PARNET Participatory Action Research Network.

Horizon Home Page Canada Dynamics

Buzz Blick Consulting

This page is currently sponsored by the International Institute for Natural, Environmental, and Cultural Resources Management and New Mexico State University.

Find any mispellings, grammatical or other mistakes. Please contact Sheldon Bartel. This page was last updated Aug 23, 1996