Spaces of participation
Convenors: Mike Kesby (St Andrews), Duncan Fuller (Northumbria), Larch Maxey
(Sansea), Dorothea Kleine (London School of Economics)
'Participation' is gaining increasing prominence in social research and
social policy. But what are the spatial dimensions of participation - what
difference does geography make to our understandings and experiences of
participation (Cornwall 2004; Kesby 2005)? Interest in these questions is
growing outside human geography, and while our discipline as a whole is
rather late in turning its focus towards participation, geographers are well
placed to make an important contribution to the debate. This session
encourages the exploration of approaches, styles and technologies (including
participation via webconference) aimed to widen and deepen participation
within the fora of international conferences. In this session we are
interested to address questions of how space, spatiality, context and scale
affect participatory practice. We want to discuss how a sensitivity to
geographical issues better helps explain how, why and were participation
works and/or fails, and to identify a geographical perspective might help
surmount existing limitations and improve participatory praxis. Finally we
are interested to explore how geographical concerns be brought into
participatory work and how geographical analysis might be cultivated amongst
participants themselves.
Papers are therefore welcomed from all parts of the academy, and/or from
those actively involved in the creation of participatory spaces and futures,
in whatever form. Participants might like to consider the following question
and themes:
· How do participatory spaces, places, contexts and arenas work,
and how can we make them work better?
· Participation is increasingly becoming institutionalised. What
are the new institutionalised spaces of participation like and what have
their effects been?
· How might participation best be conceptualised in spatial terms?
· To what extent are participatory approaches embedded in space and
place, how does that affect the sustainability of participation and how can
we facilitate the distanciation of participatory praxis beyond the
boundaries of carefully managed participatory arenas?
· To what extent and with what consequences, are particular
participatory events/processes situated and located within particular
institutional and social contexts?
· To what extend is PAR space 'paradoxical', i.e. beyond the
dominant powers that constitute everyday spaces, so enabling impossible
behaviours and unthinkable thoughts, yet at the same time itself constituted
by potentially dominating powers?
· Does "The new tyranny" critique mean that participatory spaces
are inevitably spaces of externally imposed discipline and power and even if
they are, does this necessarily mean that they can never be spaces for
empowerment, consciencisation or action?
· Does the recently proposed taxonomy of 'invited' versus 'popular'
participatory spaces provide a useful way to conceptualize different kinds
of participatory arenas?
· How can various new and old arenas of participation be linked and
connected in productive ways and how might this address the critiques that
accuse advocates of participation of limiting themselves to the local scale?
· Geographers believe that spatiality and politics of scale are
tremendously important issues for social analysis, but how can be bring
these and other geographical concepts into participatory projects with which
we are involved in ways that make sense and have utility for ordinary
people?
· How can conferences (like the RGS-IBG Annual Conf.) become more
inclusive? What roles (if any) can new information and communication
technologies play in broadening participation to those who cannot attend in
person? Could conferences be structured, timed, located, and otherwise
organised in ways which increase participation?
Please send expressions of interest, or abstracts to any or all of the
session convenors by 24th January 2006:
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Dr Duncan Fuller
Programme Leader, BA Geography
Division of Geography
Ellison Building D Block
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST
Direct Tel - 0191 2273753
Fax - 0191 2274715
Divisional Office - 0191 2273428
PEANuT (Participatory Evaluation and Appraisal in Newcastle upon Tyne) -
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/peanut
Mapping Tranquillity -
http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/map_tran
quil/?view=Standard
Exploring solutions to 'graffiti' in Newcastle upon Tyne -
http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/graffiti
/
'Local to me': Advancing Financial Inclusion in Newcastle upon Tyne -
http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/local/?v
iew=Standard
Participatory Geographies Working Group of the RGS/IBG (PyGyWG)-
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/
Geo-publishing.org - http://www.may.ie/nirsa/geo-pub/geo-pub.html
Radical Theory/Critical Praxis: Making a Difference Beyond the Academy?
http://www.praxis-epress.org/availablebooks/radicaltheorycriticalpraxis.html
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