The current epidemic has seen both the largest pause of the industrial war on the natural world in living memory and the multifaceted emergence of untold networks of community mutual support. There are dolphins in the canals of Venice, sunsets visible in Delhi, folks employed as corporate hacks talking about racism in health care on TV and people rediscovering they live together.

Can that rediscovery include relearning the art of designing social systems that meet common needs, helping communities deepen their social cohesion and heal from division and hate, such that these new and renewed networks develop political identities and grow to replace colonial structures, rather than fade, as the pandemic retreats?

For 25 years Dominic Barter has collaborated in applying Nonviolent Communication to the design of dialogical social systems with communities and groups of many sizes. Today these innovations influence results in over 50 countries – from Senegal to Nepal, from Korea to France  – and throughout Brazil.

He is most well known for his work developing Restorative Circles in the favela shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro in the mid 90s, and later with the federal Ministry of Justice; for the Financial Corresponsibilty, or ‘money pile’, model of transparent community self-funding; and for the Beta Space public education system.