Deliberating across differences: Planning futures in cross-cultural spaces

Abstract

Power imbalances and cultural differences between community members can raise challenges for deliberative democrats who want to design equal and open dialogic processes. This article examines how one organization accounted for power and responded to cultural difference in its design of a deliberative planning process. My research indicates that a deliberative planning process can address power imbalances and cultural differences through several techniques. The hand-selection and strategic recruitment of participants ensures broad community representation within the process. The incorporation of storytelling, an emphasis on emphatic listening and the creation of a safe deliberative space, helps mitigate inequality and foster reciprocity. Power imbalances between participants can also be downplayed by focusing deliberations on broader planning and policy frameworks, as opposed to highly specified policy decisions. These techniques may best be implemented by focusing on dialogue instead of deliberation. Finally, this article reveals the importance of considering cultural difference, beyond its relation to power imbalance, to develop cross-cultural deliberative processes.

Opportunities and Challenges of Public Participation in Post-Disaster Recovery Planning: Lessons from Galveston, TX

“…Preparation involves distinct but linked processes laid out in advance, one for collecting and incorporating broad public input and another one for proactively identifying and deliberating on conflicts in a much smaller and focused group. Strategic recruitment of representative participants for the former process has been shown to facilitate deliberative planning and address power imbalances in decision making (Zapata 2009). With this distinction, instead of engaging everyone in planning, volunteers can be divided into several smaller advisory subcommittees each led by a recovery champion or local experts in different fields.…”

Policy Opportunities and Constraints for Addressing Urban Precarity of Migrant Populations

“…In particular, different democrats argue that it is overly simplistic to assume that prevailing conditions of power and dominant discourses or biases can be completely set aside during deliberation (Fraser, 1992). However, these challenges can be overcome through design that embraces cultural and social differences in deliberation and creates an enabling space for dialogue through mindful selection of participants, use of narrative approaches and empathetic listening (Dryzek et al, 2019b; Zapata, 2009). Therefore, deliberation is better understood as a mechanism for procedural inclusion that neither guarantees equality nor requires consensus, and instead allows for diverse views and opinions to enter the decision‐making arena.…”

Building a Foundation for Public Engagement in Planning

“…Their work has been complemented by recent scholarship that points to engagement strategies targeted to historically excluded and marginalized groups. Strategies include small-group and flexible workshops (Laurian & Shaw, 2009), storytelling (Zapata, 2009), intentional recruitment from underrepresented groups via community organizers and civil society organizations (Fung, 2006;Kondo, 2012), and a therapeutic approach to engagement that creates space to consider underlying fears and hopes (Sandercock, 2000). There is a growing literature as well on participatory technologies for public engagement (Afzalan & Muller, 2018;Radinsky et al, 2017).…”