Abstract
By analysing experiences of a Civic Preference Forum organised for community gardeners in Hungary in 2017, our paper’s aim is twofold. We investigate if the Civic Preference Forum was an adequate format to enable discursive participation. Then we provide evidence on how this deliberative method can be applied on common-pool institution design gaining scientific knowledge about community gardening. Community gardeners, garden coordinators and experts were invited to the pilot Civic Preference Forum to share their experiences, problems, doubts, solutions, and opinions related to community gardening. First, the potential link between community gardening and deliberation is discussed and the method of Civic Preference Forum is introduced and placed among the deliberative and participative methods. Then by the lessons of the forum on community gardening it is demonstrated how the method can deliver insights for participants, decision-makers and academia. Participants’ preferences and wishes are analysed by applying and testing the criteria of discourse quality analysis. It is argued that the Civic Preference Forum fulfilled the criteria of equal and open discursive participation and the analytic dimensions of evaluating the discourse worked well in the case of a Civic Preference Forum. Enclave deliberations based on proximity may differ from collective identity-based ones in terms of composition and implications. The first may result intra-group discursive equality, while the second may provide inter-group equality. Beside the methodological findings, the explored positive and negative side effects and limitations of the methods, the forum delivered new scientific knowledge on community gardens as common-pool resources, which helps to better understand the mechanisms in community projects. We learned that community gardeners’ discourse was focused on such nodal themes as dependence and independence, monitoring and control, active and passive membership, equal and unequal participation, free riding and collective action, rules and norms of land cultivation and behaviour. Civic Preference Forum as a method enabled participants to clarify preferences, thematise problems and wishes as well as exchange ideas on possible solutions to them.
Highlights
There is a growing interest both in deliberative methods and in common-pool resource management
We investigate how discursive participation is realised through the method of Civic Preference Forum and how the forum can deliver knowledge on the problems and solutions related to community gardening
We argue that urban community gardens are common-pool resources and are worth to be linked with the idea of deliberation
Summary
There is a growing interest both in deliberative methods and in common-pool resource management. The ambition of this paper is to link these methodological and substantive interests and check the methodological lessons of the application of a deliberative method on an emerging field of community gardening. The foundation of deliberative democracy is the very process where public issues and alternative approaches are discussed and in certain cases, but not always resolutions are made based on consultations, forums and debates. We investigate how discursive participation is realised through the method of Civic Preference Forum and how the forum can deliver knowledge on the problems and solutions related to community gardening. The discursive participation can be interpreted as a discussion and active participation through which participants can express and learn each other’s preferences and opinions. In our case the exchange of opinions takes place in a regulated forum of like-minded people
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