Local Art, Local Action: A Proposal for Deliberating on and about Main Street

Abstract

In every campaign, politicians make promises. They spell out their hopes and dreams for their constituents and describe the dystopia that would exist should their opponent be elected instead. With campaign speeches characterized by lofty promises, buzz words, and vague generalities, deliberative opportunities exist for clarification and complexification of candidate (and party) platforms. I propose a unique possibility for local politics that would demystify the electoral process and increase civic engagement by providing community-level opportunities to participate in platform-formation, information-seeking, and deliberation. Specifically, I propose that local government host an issue-raising arts festival, which would lead to an online deliberative forum.

Public Spheres for Deliberation on Nature? Democratic Qualities of Visitor Centres in Sweden

“…On the ideas of Wiederhold, different material settings invite different forumbased rules and resources (cf. Wiederhold, 2013). Forum-based rules include considerations on how the participants talk and listen, make meaning, share experiences, and learn, but also what is expected from the situation and what the participants expect from their roles, respectively.…”

“…In addition to this, interactions occur in more constellations, particularly as groups move along in the landscape and meet from new angles. One way of conceiving of this is that the norms pertaining to interaction are different outdoors (Wiederhold, 2013). Indeed, walking outdoors increase divergent thinking, something that is for instance used in the tradition of peripatetic conversations.…”

“…Such locale based (place based) and the forum based (communicative context) conditions for deliberation (cf. Wiederhold, 2013) will be discussed further in the paper.…”

“…The growing need to recreate meaningful roles for citizens in the democratic system also calls for communicative forums that are based on physical presence. The embodied presence (see Wiederhold, 2013) may be interpreted as a mode of advocacy, which comes from the act of "literally coexisting with another [person] in a particular space and time" (Pezzullo, 2007, p. 9).…”