RC21 CONFERENCE 2013
Resourceful cities
Berlin (Germany), 29-31 August 2013
Humboldt-University Berlin, Institute for Social Science, Dept. for Urban and Regional Sociology
Participation between Consensus and Contestation
Calls for more entitlement and participation in urban development have increased in recent years. This is happening in very distinct forms and for a broad range of reasons, with demands based on different rights and privileges, such as political entitlements, property, or social and environmental justice. Yet in parallel to growth of “right to the city” claims, often ambiguous in terms of their actual implications, citizens have been encouraged to take part in existing forms of participatory governance by range of public and private institutional actors. This has happened in various ways, e.g. by inclusion in decision-making processes regarding different aspects of urban development or appropriation of urban space for artistic and cultural uses.
These participation-encouraging programs can be seen as ambiguous as they are frequently inserted into larger schemes of urban development, where the objectives and outcomes are not that transparent. Indeed participatory practices might allow genuine participation but can also easily be reduced to a means to legitimize and support neoliberal urban politics by means of fictitious consensus.
This session invites theoretical and empirical papers that shed light on the often ambiguous and/or contradictory practices of participation in urban development, both regarding the public frameworks and strategies into which these practices are inserted and the intentions, motives and expectations of those who participate. What are the desired outcomes of participatory practices and how does this correspond to the discourses, claims and justifications of the actors involved? Are potentially pre-determined limits of participation challenged and to what result?
Session Organizers
Jan Dohnke, Freie Universität Berlin, Stadt:Werk:Statt, Weisestraße 27/2, 12049 Berlin, T: +49 (0)30-6482 2803, E: jan.dohnke@fu-berlin.de
Corinna Hölzl, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Geography Department, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, T: +49 (0)30-2093 6868, E: Corinna.hoelzl@geo.hu-berlin.de
Maros Krivy, Estonian Academy of Arts, Faculty of Architecture, Pikk tn 20, 10133 Tallinn, Estonia, T: +372 55 710 75, E: maros.krivy@artun.ee
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