[Commlist] CFP: Experiencing Participation

*CFP: /Experiencing Participation/*

Special issue editors: Professor Birgit Eriksson, Professor Carsten 
Stage and Postdoc Tina Louise Hove Sørensen, Aarhus University, Denmark

This special issue of /Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of 
Cultural Participation/ invites contributions that explore the 
experiential dimensions of participation as they unfold across social 
practices, cultural sectors and disciplines.

According to Christopher Kelty, participation relies on individuals who 
contribute to a collective, but Kelty also criticizes how participation 
– not least in an era of social media – is 1) increasingly 
instrumentalized to obtain certain goals and 2) too focused on 
aggregating individual contributions, not on enabling a truly collective 
process to unfold. In that way participation has become synonymous with 
the strategic use of accumulated individual actions and disconnected 
from a profound experience of taking part in meaningful collectives 
where the sum is greater than the parts. Based on his historical 
studies, Kelty describes the experience of participation as “something 
more than individual” and as “both individual and collective at the same 
time” (Kelty, 2019, 18).

 From a different, and mainly empirical, angle, Ellie Brodie et al 
(2011) have researched how and why people participate. By examining this 
from the perspective of individuals and exploring how and why their 
participation begins, continues or ends, they argue that sustained 
participation depends on the quality of the experience of participation, 
including the extent to which participants “feel they are making a 
difference and having an impact, whether they feel their contribution is 
valued, and the quality of the social bonds with other participants” 
(Brodie et al, 2011, 6).

The special issue aims to empirically and theoretically explore the 
experience of participatory processes and the complex interplay between 
participation and experience. What (if any) are the differences between 
the experience of participating in something bigger like a concert 
audience or crowd, and the experience of a shift in power balance and 
influence? Or between invited or self-organized participation (Cornwall 
2008)? How does the experience of participation change over time? How 
are various experiences of participation linked to each other – does 
repeated experiences of participation for instance create expert 
participants? And what are the difference between participatory 
experiences taking place in e.g. a museum, political movement, local 
neighborhood or social media public?

We invite empirical, theoretical, methodological and practice informed 
contributions that address the question of how participation is 
experiential. Articles can address (but are not limited to) the 
following topics:

  * The experience of participation in various practices, contexts and
    sectors
  * Potential differences between the experience of participation and
    other types of collective experience
  * Spaces and atmospheres of participation
  * Negative experiences of participation and/or citizen involvement
  * Participation fatigue
  * Methodological challenges of and approaches to exploring
    participation as experience
  * Affect theoretical approaches to participation
  * The implications of approaching and evaluating participation as an
    experiential term and process
  * How particular experiences can spur participatory engagements
The overall focus of the journal is to explore the socially 
transformative and democratic potential of cultural participation 
processes, to qualify the academic understanding of what ‘participation’ 
is and what it involves, and to discuss the complex relations created 
between user-generated processes and established institutions and 
discourses.

Please submit an abstract of max 500 words presenting the core 
argument(s) of your paper. Abstracts must be submitted to the issue 
editors (on (norcs /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(norcs /at/ cc.au.dk)>, (aekbe /at/ cc.au.dk) 
<mailto:(aekbe /at/ cc.au.dk)>(oraesttls /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(aesttls /at/ cc.au.dk)>).

If your abstract is accepted, and you are asked to submit a full paper, 
we may ask you to contribute to the issue publication process by 
(double-blind) peer-reviewing another paper submitted to the issue.

Timeline:

Deadline for abstracts (max. 500 words): February 1, 2023

Notifications of acceptance: February 15, 2023

Deadline for articles: August 10, 2023

Online submissions: https://www.sciendo.com/journal/TJCP 
<https://www.sciendo.com/journal/TJCP>

About the journal: https://sciendo.com/journal/TJCP 
<https://sciendo.com/journal/TJCP>

Any questions related to this special edition can be sent to:

Birgit Eriksson ((aekbe /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(aekbe /at/ cc.au.dk)>),Carsten Stage 
((norcs /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(norcs /at/ cc.au.dk)>) or Tina Louise Hove Sørensen 
((aesttls /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(aesttls /at/ cc.au.dk)>)

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