This collection of short, accessible essays proposes a new theoretical agenda for participatory d... more This collection of short, accessible essays proposes a new theoretical agenda for participatory democracy. Calls for increased participation are becoming ubiquitous throughout social life, from politics to community engagement, and from the arts to education. These demands raise important problems and trouble many assumptions about the nature of democratic practice in the 21st century. One assumption, however, remains largely unquestioned: that authentic democratic participation is solely a problem of transferring power to marginalized groups. The researchers, activists and practitioners who contribute to this provocative book, by contrast, make the case for a parallel project: the democratization of authority. The craft of democracy – the struggle for common life – requires inventing new ways of creating authority and objectivity amongst silenced voices, truths and experiences.
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2018
First published in 1932, John Dewey’s Art as Experience has provided the touchstone for subsequen... more First published in 1932, John Dewey’s Art as Experience has provided the touchstone for subsequent debates about the importance of art in pedagogies built on learning from experience. One of his central contributions to education was to describe the activities of making and receiving art as interwoven, advocating that experiences of the arts are ‘enhancements of the processes of everyday life’ (1932, 12). Experience entered the educational lexicon, newly articulated by Dewey as an aesthetic practice that is both personally enriching in quotidian life and unities society in pluralist democracies. Changing cultural and social circumstances have brought renewed questions about the political and educational value of experience. In an experience economy, in which theatricalised consumers are lured to spend money, it can no longer be assumed that experience is inevitably counter-cultural or democratic. Furthermore, the concept of experience has been open to critical scrutiny, in which bin...
Theatre & Education provides an insight into the energy, passion and values that ... more Theatre & Education provides an insight into the energy, passion and values that have inspired the most inventive theatre-makers who work with young people in educational settings. It argues that the aesthetic principles and educational ideals that inform theatre & ...
Natya Chetana is a theatre group in India founded under the leadership of Subodh Patnaik in 1986 ... more Natya Chetana is a theatre group in India founded under the leadership of Subodh Patnaik in 1986 when he started doing theatre with a research component to establish whether theatre could play a role in educating society. As a result, Natya Chetana became involved in researching traditional rural theatre, as well as the social development strategies and practices of non-governmental organizations and the impact of theatre on the audience as a process. The past 17 years have, therefore, yielded a harvest of rich experiences and breakthrough events in Natya Chetana. This article is in three parts. The first part discusses the theory and practice of community theatre and theatre for social development, as embodied in Natya Chetana. The second part discusses the value of theatre as an art form to social and community development and the third part explains the different processes needed for the success of a community theatre group.
Ride the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2010
In his Oxford Amnesty Lecture in 1992, the philosopher Jacques Derrida drew attention to the rela... more In his Oxford Amnesty Lecture in 1992, the philosopher Jacques Derrida drew attention to the relationship between language, subjectivity and human rights. He argued that human rights are always constructed in language, and this means that they derive from a ...
Ride the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 1999
[1] The exception being, within contemporary and emergent works, one in which participants are al... more [1] The exception being, within contemporary and emergent works, one in which participants are also authors or performers in overt biographical pieces (Richardson & Lockridge, 1992; Ellis Sc Bochner, 1992; Rambo-Ronai, 1996; Payne, 1996). In many ways, Carran ...
This collection of short, accessible essays proposes a new theoretical agenda for participatory d... more This collection of short, accessible essays proposes a new theoretical agenda for participatory democracy. Calls for increased participation are becoming ubiquitous throughout social life, from politics to community engagement, and from the arts to education. These demands raise important problems and trouble many assumptions about the nature of democratic practice in the 21st century. One assumption, however, remains largely unquestioned: that authentic democratic participation is solely a problem of transferring power to marginalized groups. The researchers, activists and practitioners who contribute to this provocative book, by contrast, make the case for a parallel project: the democratization of authority. The craft of democracy – the struggle for common life – requires inventing new ways of creating authority and objectivity amongst silenced voices, truths and experiences.
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2018
First published in 1932, John Dewey’s Art as Experience has provided the touchstone for subsequen... more First published in 1932, John Dewey’s Art as Experience has provided the touchstone for subsequent debates about the importance of art in pedagogies built on learning from experience. One of his central contributions to education was to describe the activities of making and receiving art as interwoven, advocating that experiences of the arts are ‘enhancements of the processes of everyday life’ (1932, 12). Experience entered the educational lexicon, newly articulated by Dewey as an aesthetic practice that is both personally enriching in quotidian life and unities society in pluralist democracies. Changing cultural and social circumstances have brought renewed questions about the political and educational value of experience. In an experience economy, in which theatricalised consumers are lured to spend money, it can no longer be assumed that experience is inevitably counter-cultural or democratic. Furthermore, the concept of experience has been open to critical scrutiny, in which bin...
Theatre & Education provides an insight into the energy, passion and values that ... more Theatre & Education provides an insight into the energy, passion and values that have inspired the most inventive theatre-makers who work with young people in educational settings. It argues that the aesthetic principles and educational ideals that inform theatre & ...
Natya Chetana is a theatre group in India founded under the leadership of Subodh Patnaik in 1986 ... more Natya Chetana is a theatre group in India founded under the leadership of Subodh Patnaik in 1986 when he started doing theatre with a research component to establish whether theatre could play a role in educating society. As a result, Natya Chetana became involved in researching traditional rural theatre, as well as the social development strategies and practices of non-governmental organizations and the impact of theatre on the audience as a process. The past 17 years have, therefore, yielded a harvest of rich experiences and breakthrough events in Natya Chetana. This article is in three parts. The first part discusses the theory and practice of community theatre and theatre for social development, as embodied in Natya Chetana. The second part discusses the value of theatre as an art form to social and community development and the third part explains the different processes needed for the success of a community theatre group.
Ride the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2010
In his Oxford Amnesty Lecture in 1992, the philosopher Jacques Derrida drew attention to the rela... more In his Oxford Amnesty Lecture in 1992, the philosopher Jacques Derrida drew attention to the relationship between language, subjectivity and human rights. He argued that human rights are always constructed in language, and this means that they derive from a ...
Ride the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 1999
[1] The exception being, within contemporary and emergent works, one in which participants are al... more [1] The exception being, within contemporary and emergent works, one in which participants are also authors or performers in overt biographical pieces (Richardson & Lockridge, 1992; Ellis Sc Bochner, 1992; Rambo-Ronai, 1996; Payne, 1996). In many ways, Carran ...
This book gathers together a collection of essays organised around three ‘problems’ of participat... more This book gathers together a collection of essays organised around three ‘problems’ of participatory democracy. These problems raise questions, conundrums and challenges for participatory practice and thinking. They point towards both difficulties and opportunities. We are not identifying ‘problems’ in order to simply criticize or reject participation. Problems are an enduring part of all worthwhile practice, driving creativity, understanding and skills. Our aim is to vitalize participatory thought and practice by raising and reflecting upon three broad problems.
The first problem that the essays address is that ‘Participatory Democracy Needs Authority’. The authors of essays in this section affirm the value of democracy, paying particular attention to how it needs to be cultivated through structures of authority. Those who have authority and those who grant it are connected by bonds of trust that allow us to hold people and actions to account. Democracy’s dependence upon authority constitutes a problem, creating challenges and dilemmas, because trust takes time and emotional labour to build and often seems to be a scarce resource. Moreover, we have to deal with the fact that there are always power relations and inequalities at play – however participatory our practice or democratic our intentions. The second problem that we take up is that ‘Participatory Democracy is a Craft’. Rather than understanding democracy in terms of electoral politics, and participation in terms of handbooks and manuals brimming with the latest techniques and models, the contributors attend to the subtleties of effective participation, whether in civil society activity, processes of collaborative learning or in ‘ordinary’ life. Enhancing democracy through better forms of participation requires particular ethical and embodied sensibilities and commitments, which can only be developed through practical experience, and which need to be nurtured through slow apprenticeship. Democracy is craftwork more than it is a set of institutions, textbook techniques or processes. However, as the authors of this section suggest, it is a difficult, costly and embodied challenge to learn the skills and ethos of such craft.
The final problem is that ‘Participatory Democracy is a Struggle Against Privatization’. Many advocates of participatory democracy are more or less explicitly committed to resisting ‘privatization’ both in the sense of commodification and market dominance, and in the sense of individualisation of life and experience – seeing both as opposed to equality and dignity. But many proponents of neo-liberal marketization and individualised freedom also promote myriad forms of ‘participation’. Further, as is evident in theatre box offices, ‘participation sells’. This raises awkward questions and uncomfortable challenges for proponents of participation – a challenge that the authors of this section try to address, in part, by reframing participation in terms of acting in, and creating, alternative visions of what we share in common.
We hope that this collection of essays helps in opening up conversations around participation. Such conversation is crucial, not simply for specialist communities of practitioners or academics, but for everyone who is interested in democracy and dignity today. ‘Participation’ has become nigh on ubiquitous as an ambition, description and buzzword throughout social life, from marketing strategies and economic development, through government reform and alternative politics, to education and the arts. We might even say that participation is the form, the mode of organisation, that defines our present moment. Participation is our condition, our imperative and our problem.
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The first problem that the essays address is that ‘Participatory Democracy Needs Authority’. The authors of essays in this section affirm the value of democracy, paying particular attention to how it needs to be cultivated through structures of authority. Those who have authority and those who grant it are connected by bonds of trust that allow us to hold people and actions to account. Democracy’s dependence upon authority constitutes a problem, creating challenges and dilemmas, because trust takes time and emotional labour to build and often seems to be a scarce resource. Moreover, we have to deal with the fact that there are always power relations and inequalities at play – however participatory our practice or democratic our intentions.
The second problem that we take up is that ‘Participatory Democracy is a Craft’. Rather than understanding democracy in terms of electoral politics, and participation in terms of handbooks and manuals brimming with the latest techniques and models, the contributors attend to the subtleties of effective participation, whether in civil society activity, processes of collaborative learning or in ‘ordinary’ life. Enhancing democracy through better forms of participation requires particular ethical and embodied sensibilities and commitments, which can only be developed through practical experience, and which need to be nurtured through slow apprenticeship. Democracy is craftwork more than it is a set of institutions, textbook techniques or processes. However, as the authors of this section suggest, it is a difficult, costly and embodied challenge to learn the skills and ethos of such craft.
The final problem is that ‘Participatory Democracy is a Struggle Against Privatization’. Many advocates of participatory democracy are more or less explicitly committed to resisting ‘privatization’ both in the sense of commodification and market dominance, and in the sense of individualisation of life and experience – seeing both as opposed to equality and dignity. But many proponents of neo-liberal marketization and individualised freedom also promote myriad forms of ‘participation’. Further, as is evident in theatre box offices, ‘participation sells’. This raises awkward questions and uncomfortable challenges for proponents of participation – a challenge that the authors of this section try to address, in part, by reframing participation in terms of acting in, and creating, alternative visions of what we share in common.
We hope that this collection of essays helps in opening up conversations around participation. Such conversation is crucial, not simply for specialist communities of practitioners or academics, but for everyone who is interested in democracy and dignity today. ‘Participation’ has become nigh on ubiquitous as an ambition, description and buzzword throughout social life, from marketing strategies and economic development, through government reform and alternative politics, to education and the arts. We might even say that participation is the form, the mode of organisation, that defines our present moment. Participation is our condition, our imperative and our problem.