Weaving Care
how can the conditions for a community of care be formed and sustained?
Overview
The ‘Weaving Care’ playbook emerged from a collaboration with Arlington Five (A5), a local cafe in Ottawa. Weaving Care is designed to offer a path for anyone interested in forming a care-driven community that fosters welcoming and earnest relationships. The playbook is designed to support an open and dynamic process to:
Develop a community identity and sense of belonging.
Build and expand a community beyond its geographical location.
Develop abilities, qualities, and capacities for a local hands-on decolonial practice of hospitality.
Encourage a decommodified practice of care.
keywords: community, care-driven, decommodified hospitality, hands-on practice
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Community can be referred to as a group of people that share something – ideals, ethnicity, context, values, profession, etc. – and that are aware of their belonging and participation within said group. Community is also a feeling that emerges from a set of relationships among people. Members of a community have a sense of trust, belonging, safety, and caring for each other. To foster and maintain a collective sense of community, there is an emerging need to focus on the aspect of care. This project aims to design a process to support both forming and maintaining a community of care.
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Several stages of research were conducted with A5 and its community, beginning in March 2022, to better understand A5’s operations and current role within the community, the current context, and A5’s community. This was then followed by additional exploratory research to define key concepts, identify best cases, and envision possible futures.
Based on this research, the playbook was designed to support this vision and expand beyond A5 to allow others with community care-driven mindsets to contribute to strengthening a collective sense of community identity together.
Web-based playbook designed as a starting point to guide a dynamic process of forming a community of care.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
and developed in partnership with:
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