The following two documents, which explore issues of community empowerment and the need for a new life design, were written at the start of 2008, during the time when Wollongong City Council was in the process of being sacked by the NSW Government on the grounds of ‘systemic corruption.” As such, and given what has happened in the meanwhile, they are now a little dated (in some respects).

The basic ideas remain sound in 2011 – that we need to learn from other Ways of Being (from outside modern master narratives) which recognise that “the individual” – as constituted by modernity – can never be the sole locus of responsibility if we seek to rebalance life.

Instead of ‘vertical’ and one-sided arrangements which typify the ‘modern’ period, the emphasis shifts to ‘horizontal’ and two-sided arrangements – from ‘hot’ societies to ‘cold’ societies’.

As we develop new senses of identity (in which we become “otherwise”) new forms of organisation emerge (and vice versa).

New paradigm – http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd362r25_67fwqpktcn

New Episteme – http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd362r25_68hjkw5z8d