RSC IF: Community Developers Dinner
On a sunny April afternoon, the Royal Shakespeare Company Interdisciplinary Fellow, Amhara Spence, hosted a Community Developers Dinner (Lunch Edition!) at the Oxford Friends Meeting House. Originally from Birmingham, Amhara opened the event by sharing her personal journey navigating the deeply politicised geographies of her hometown.
Through years of her lived experience in the vibrant and deeply unequal city of Birmingham, Amhara learned the vocabulary needed to articulate the entrenched inequalities woven into the city’s urban fabric. Her growing awareness of the politics embedded in architecture and space-making led her to ask critical questions about who gets to define and control the environments we live in. This eventually inspired the creation of the Community Developers Dinner (CDD)—a bold and imaginative initiative that brings together active community members to challenge conventional understandings of "development," often dictated by corporate or statist interests.
The key provocations posed to participants included:
Who gets to develop a place?
Who decides the energy of a space and how it is to be used?
With these provocations in mind, Community Developer’s Dinners unfold as an open and reflective dialogue. In CDD sessions, participants explore what development meant to them and how their work challenges dominant narratives (often unconsciously imposed) about ownership, space, and power. The gathering, therefore, creates a space for collective thinking, encouraging attendees to freely express ideas, meet like-minded people, and rethink their own approaches to shaping the world around them.
Following a relaxed lunch in the sun-soaked garden on Walton Street, participants of the lunch edition of the CDD, reconvened indoors to hear from three powerful community voices:
Rawz (Urban Music Foundation: Rawz began by sharing three photographs that symbolised key moments in his journey growing up in Blackbird Leys. The first was the tree outside his house, which he has great affection for. The second was the East Oxford Community Centre—where he wrote poetry, worked with at-risk youth, and which he ultimately watched being demolished despite community protests. The third image depicted Blackbird Leys Community Centre, another important space lost to redevelopment. His story highlighted the frustration of having community decisions made by distant authorities and stressed the importance of challenging that disconnect.
Alex Lui (MakeSpace Oxford): Alex introduced Makespace Oxford, an initiative that transforms unused buildings in the city into accessible community spaces. Drawing from an earlier project in London where he and his team repurposed an old J.P. Morgan office into a rehearsal space for musicians, Alex illustrated how creative spatial reclamation can shift conversations about development. Now managing over 30 buildings, Makespace Oxford empowers communities to reclaim and repurpose the spaces they inhabit—turning underused infrastructure into hubs of activity and inclusion.
Juliet Can (The Stour Trust): Juliet shared her story as a Ugandan refugee and reflected on pre-independence customs in Uganda, where land was held in "custodial care" by communities. Over time, however, these rights were stripped away as power became concentrated in elite hands, who realised that diamond production was concentrated on certain custodially cared-for spaces. This loss informed her belief in the urgent need to reclaim land and power for communities. Motivated by this history, Juliet founded The Stour Trust, an organisation that acquires, leases, and preserves assets for local people, resisting both state and private ownership models that exclude grassroots voices.
To close the afternoon, participants broke into small groups for a collaborative mapping exercise based on the initial provocations from Amhara. They explored what it means to "own" or "occupy" space in Oxford. The results were diverse and thought-provoking, sparking rich conversation and critical reflection.
While the session left many feeling energised and affirmed in their role as changemakers, it also raised a compelling question: Why is there often hesitation to view these forms of community agency as inherently political?
As an observer, I was struck by the group’s reluctance to frame their work as political action. While grassroots initiatives like these are vital, there remains a gap when it comes to engaging with formal political mechanisms that might lead to more systemic, material change. Why is political engagement often sidelined, even when the work is clearly resisting hegemonic structures?
The afternoon was a vibrant success: an inspiring, joyful, and intellectually engaging event that showcased the power of community imagination and action.
