INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT · ARLO BODO
NORMAVERSA works with organisations, networks and communities to question established ways of working and build alternatives - through programme design, facilitation and critical research.
GET IN TOUCHPractices are never neutral. They reproduce norms through the problems we define, the categories we use, the knowledge we legitimise and the people we include or exclude.
NORMAVERSA works with people and organisations to make those choices visible, undo what limits participation and develop alternative ways of designing programmes, producing knowledge and working together.
NORMAVERSA is a coined name drawing on the Latin norma - the norm or rule - and versa - turned. It names the practice of turning norms around and refusing to treat them as inevitable, opening space for other ways of knowing, deciding and working.
Designing programmes that do not treat problems, identities or solutions as self-evident. Examining how needs are framed, which categories are reproduced and who holds power over priorities, decisions and definitions of what counts as success.
Holding spaces where dominant norms can be made visible, fixed categories unsettled and tensions explored - while participants shape both the processes and what emerges from them.
Using research to examine how systems of power (re)produce exclusions - and what situated knowledge and lived experience reveal that dominant frameworks leave out.
Five principles guiding how NORMAVERSA works.
Selected examples from ten years of designing programmes, facilitating learning and conducting research across civil society, grassroots movements and international institutions.
Design and delivery of study sessions, thematic webinars, capacity-building programmes, academies and international conferences for LGBTQIA+ young people and youth organisations internationally.
Training for professionals supporting LGBTQIA+ people, examining systemic barriers within existing services and developing safer approaches.
Participatory workshops examining how race, class, (dis)ability, mobility and visa regimes shape what we do and how we do it - and exploring more transformative alternatives.
Qualitative research and analysis examining how gender is understood, integrated and assessed across international programmes.
I'm Arlo (they/them), a Brussels-based programme designer, facilitator and independent researcher working across LGBTQIA+ rights, youth work, international cooperation, gender and sexuality. For ten years, I have worked with civil society organisations, grassroots movements, youth networks and institutions internationally. My practice brings queer feminist, intersectional and decolonial thinking into practical work. Also informed by my lived experience as a queer trans person from a working-class background, NORMAVERSA asks how power operates - and how things might be done otherwise.
