Toward a New Tribalism

"We have learned that to raise a happy, healthy and hopeful child, it takes a family, it takes teachers, it takes clergy, it takes business people, it takes community leaders, it takes those who protect our health and safety it takes all of us.  Yes, it takes a village."  

So pronounced former First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton, before an audience in Chicago 14 years ago.  Ever the politician, Mrs. Clinton then shouted in her best political twang:  "And Chicago is my kind of village!" 

At that time she was quoting from her controversial book, It Takes a Village.  While her idea seemed radical at the time, mainly because of its political ideas, it identified a rooted challenge in an era of increased social mobility and economic and technological transformation.  On the day in 1996 when Mrs. Clinton spoke, the Internet was in its infancy, along with billions of the planet's inhabitants who today use broadband and the web as part of their daily experience.  They have used the digital experience to create communities in their own image. 

Like Mrs. Clinton, they intuitively had it right: we live in relationship, not in isolation.  If the physical community cannot comply to our collective need, a virtual one will emerge.  Borrowing a phrase from Africa, she thus began a revival of an old idea concerning the strength of communities.  It is collective.  "Strength in numbers" is an old political axiom, which usually refers to voters.  However, in the era of the new community, it is unabashedly an acknowledgment of collaboration. 

I think the title of Mrs. Clinton's book, as much as the book itself, began to set the tone for how I think about the new community.  ICF has begun to understand what it really takes to become a successful village or community in the new century.  Politics has trailed along.  At the community level, in many cases, it has even led.  As we head toward naming another intelligent community of the year I would say that we are still only beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible.

A new tribalism has become visible on the horizon.  Not one that is collectivist as were attempts to have a central state plan the lives of citizens.  Nor "tribal" in the sense of being defined or organized in response to an enemy, or an external threat.  But rather one that is capable of delivering the promise of a safe and more wholesome community.  Like explorers setting out to chart a new land or, closer to home for me, a satellite exploring the edges of the universe and all of the excitement that generates, our criteria is a new type of map.  It has allowed hundreds of communities to begin to search for their future, and understand its potential by looking at successful places. 

The Role of Culture

I wrote in my 31 December blog that the culture within a community, especially an intelligent community, is yielding an as-yet unmeasured gross domestic local product.  This GDLP comes not from the presence of museums, historic sites of interest or hotels developed to accommodate and house tourists.  While these are attractive features for any community, and famously so in cases such as Bilbao, Spain through its Guggenheim Museum or in Hong Kong, through its new West Kowloon development, they are not the raw materials needed to generate the "economy of the creative culture."  Their virtue is that they are promoted in the business and travel sections of newspapers and magazines, which adds luster to a community for tourists.  They also help to attract real estate investments, add money to the tax rolls and produce livable wages for workers and managers in the services sector.  Curators of museums, as well as other professionals, do even better.  However, in my view, they are byproducts of what a local culture is capable of truly producing.  In a sense, they are fossilized unless identified and used as a source of innovation. 

To quote another political figure from the era of the Clinton presidency, former Vice President and Nobel Laureate, Al Gore, is right when he says that "political will is a renewable resource."  The suggestion is that innovation and vision, expressed in political terms, will produce new energy.  If this is the case, I believe that it is also true that local culture is both a renewable resource and imperishable.  It is the gold mine we should rush to exploit.

When a local culture is harnessed to broadband and telecom, it receives new potency and invigorates an old "investment."  The investment is a complex one to readily define, but one that is familiar.  So familiar that we take it for granted.  Yet it is the continuously reinforced, and reinforcing, experience of community life.  No matter where we are, community life persists through our daily, vibrant spectrum of experience.  We richen ourselves in direct proportion to our pride of place, educational experiences, ancestral identification, economic status and our ambition and desire.  The "village" includes a particular history, language and its social customs. 

It can be revealed in a flash.  I cannot forget a presentation made by Darrell Ohokannoak, chairman of Nunavut Broadband.  Nunavut is Canada's third Arctic territory and was named a Smart21 community by ICF in 2006.  We knew that Nunavut had developed a broadband company and an infrastructure to connect its 28 communities, all of them remote, in an attempt to tackle harsh unemployment and an increasing disappearance of its cultural essence. 

While beginning his presentation at a summit of Canadian Intelligent Communities, organized by MISA, I expected another interesting Powerpoint presentation with graphs, bullet points and a quote here and there for emphasis.  Instead, we saw beautiful photographs of what seemed like someone's family vacation, but far more unique.

"My apologies for not having words for you," he began slowly  "But we are a visual people and we tell stories."  He paused.  "We use our imagination."  In four words he had explained a persistent quality of his community and one that would inform its unique economic offering.  Using imagination and knowledge of communications technology, Nunavut had been enabled by the power of broadband via satellite.  The satellite connected it to the world.  Over time it managed to use the Internet to bring to market its unique tribal art, which thanks to its e-commerce site found markets outside of its frosty region. 

The community had reached into its own core, brought forward its collective imagination and harnessed it to broadband and related technology and allowed its cultural assets to renew themselves in a new era of "community." 

It is an old story but one that is constantly rewritten.  The question is, what will it look like in the 21st century, and how can we best study it?