Civic Process Research Articles

Bending Rules, Telling Stories: Convivial Game Design Approaches for Engaging With Futures

Games have been used in civic participation (Lerner, 2014) and civic learning (Raphael et al. 2010). Building on the idea of using games for participation, democracy and collaboration, we propose approaching games as tools for convivial learning. First introduced by Illich (1973), the concept of conviviality envisions a society characterised by collaboration and self-determination, underpinned by tools that encourage joyful interaction, creativity and human agency through control over the tools. We believe that games as convivial tools could help bring forth creativity and mutual learning about civic processes and desirable futures. Yet, games’ nature as rigid systems of rules (Salen & Zimmerman, 2010) seems potentially at odds with positioning them as tools promoting agency. We propose to use the tension arising between rigidity and agency as starting point for exploring game design strategies for convivial games through research-through-design. We ask how games for thinking about the future may be designed that allow players to exercise control over their own experience, and to what effect. Inspired by the concept of critical play (Flanagan, 2009; Grace, 2014) and building on the distinction between narrative and mechanics as key constituting game elements, we have designed two distinct games for collaboratively engaging with the future. The first, Narrate, focuses on letting players invent their own narrative, whilst the second game Remix allows for experimentation with game rules and mechanics. We present the design process for each game and contrast the different approaches taken. Each game was tested by two groups and analysed in regards to its capacity to bring forth conviviality, creativity and collaboration. The paper compares and provides a discussion on how suitable the two chosen strategies of experimenting with narrative or mechanics are for (1) facilitating thinking and learning about shared futures, and (2) supporting player agency and bringing forth convivial interactions.

Perspectives of successes and challenges in collaborations between non-governmental organization and local government on urban forest management

Governments increasingly collaborate with residents and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in urban forest management because of the underlying belief that these groups improve the delivery of local forest services. However, in practice, the successes, challenges, and outcomes vary drastically by collaborative arrangement; solely documenting positive outcomes in NGO-government collaborations may hinder the ability to mitigate their associated downsides rather than biasing collaborative behaviours towards success. This study draws on the experiences of urban forest professionals across nine Canadian cities who have participated in or observed NGOs and local governments engage in collaborative urban forest management. We employed semi-structured interviews with 32 participants from three groups: leaders of NGOs, municipal government officials, and urban forest experts who have observed the two parties interact. Our results demonstrate that the addition of NGOs in municipal forest management is associated with positive outcomes and the characteristics of relationships, individual personnel, and community support contribute to their success. We also characterize the barriers that collaborators are tasked with navigating in order to achieve positive outcomes, including high employee turnover, siloed departments, competing priorities, shifting politics, and precarious funding and contracts. Our recommendations for successful NGO-government collaborations include arming stakeholders with a thorough knowledge of civic processes, diversifying political relationships, fostering “champions” among a greater number of involved parties, and participating in longer-term contracts and funding agreements. Further, involved parties should ensure they work towards the equitable distribution of the benefits and outputs of urban forest collaborations. Moving forward, because of the insular nature of NGO-government collaborations and a low capacity among NGOs to share the outputs of these collaborations, we recommend researchers continue to study the successes and shortcomings under varying governance arrangements so that groups may benchmark their collaborative activities against others and determine the most effective means of participating in co-management.

Применение механизмов сетевой демократии в местных сообществах (на материалах города Сургута Ханты-Мансийского автономного округа)

The article analyzes the influence of the network community, social media and interactive-communication plat-forms on the development of democratic practices of citizen participation in local self-governance. The devel-opment of interactive communication technologies has predetermined the vector of movement of many social and political phenomena, from revolutions and removal of governments to platforms for self-organization of citizens to search for missing people. In the context of the development of interactive communication technolo-gies, the need to correctly adapt the tools of network or electronic democracy in the implementation of public political processes becomes even more important. At the same time, just as the origins of the classical under-standing of democratic processes should be sought among the people, so the origins of network democracy should be sought not only at the federal level, where its potential is recognized to be enormous, but also at the level of local communities. The processes of nation-building, symbols that construct regional and federal iden-tification find their manifestation in the basic desire of the population to participate in civic processes and join in building the construct of the future for the local community. The paper attempts to determine the role of network democracy in the formation of local communities by examining local examples in a large city in the Siberian region.

“Dangerous in the Minds of Barrio People”: Empowering Bicultural Latino Identity on Spanish-Language Television in Los Angeles, 1960–1990

Abstract This article focuses on the bicultural Latino identity-building discourses promoted by TV stations KMEX Channel 34 (Spanish International Network/Univision) and KVEA Channel 52 (Telemundo) through news and public affairs programming in metropolitan Los Angeles, home of the United States’s largest concentration of Latinas and Latinos. The two stations’ news and public affairs shows are historically significant for being their most extensive locally produced content and offering a valuable audio/visual representation of Latino Southern California’s cultural development from the early 1960s to late 1980s. Both stations reflected their social context, broadcasting to an overwhelmingly Mexican-heritage audience; but producers and investors at KMEX-34 and KVEA-52 also consciously sought a wider Spanish-speaking audience in Southern California by framing viewers as politically empowered bicultural U.S. Latino subjects defined by a positive affirmation of their cultural background (broadly inclusive of all of Latin America) and their integration into U.S. life through participation in electoral politics and other civic processes. Combining archival research consisting of early scripts, office memoranda, program reviews, viewer letters, oral history interviews, and analysis of extant video recordings preserved in the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s News and Public Affairs Collection, I historicize the ways locally produced programming on Spanish-language TV framed and promoted notions of an additive and empowering bicultural U.S. Latino identity.

Bioethics and Civic Education in a Post-Roe America.

This essay explores how bioethics as a field, rather than as a collection of individual efforts by bioethicists working within it, can inform deliberation on matters of bioethical import that, for better or worse, are in the hands of civic processes. It is motivated by the repeal of a constitutional protection of abortion access in the Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which effectively returned abortion regulations to states rather than setting a baseline federal protection of abortion access up to fetal viability. Given the outsized role of local legislators in shaping health-care policy through legislation, about abortion as well as other health topics, the author proposes foundational bioethical education for legislators and considers two potential models for such education: one that operates on a clinical ethics consultation model, and one that mirrors bioethical coursework taught in traditional academic settings but modified for a legislator audience. Although both models present notable challenges requiring further conceptualization and problem-solving, overcoming these hurdles would enable bioethics to provide a service to civic learning and placemaking that would complement advocacy or lobbying efforts by individual bioethicists.

Engaging youth for positive change: A mixed methods evaluation of site level program implementation & outcomes

This convergent, mixed-methods research presents a site-level assessment of a civic engagement program geared towards middle and high school students (i.e. young people). In Illinois, a majority of young adults (ages 18–29) report discussing sociopolitical issues with friends and family, mimicking national trends. Simultaneously, approximately one in four young people in Illinois physically voted in 2018 elections, and less than 10% reported contacting or visiting public officials. These discrepancies allude to the importance of empowering younger people to engage actively in civic and electoral discourse and processes as a means to improving their communities. Engaging Youth for Positive Change (EYPC) is one example of a civic engagement program for adolescents and young people in the United States. The curriculum guides middle and high school aged people through civic processes including adopting local ordinances by working with city councils or other governing bodies. Researchers collected site level data from EYPC implementation sites (N = 122) across Illinois and there were significant correlations between outcome scores and both number of activities implemented and implementation indices. This manuscript delineates site level aspects of EYPC in detail—including quantitative and qualitative findings from site-level analyses—and discusses implications regarding how EYPC and similar programs may promote civic engagement among youth and young adult populations.

Digital Citizenship, Media Literacy, and the ACTS Framework

AbstractIn a “post‐truth” era in which misinformation permeates digital environments, it is critical for teachers to help students develop media literacy skills by analyzing and evaluating media messages. Through these processes, English language arts teachers can also help students develop digital citizenship skills, in which they can analyze media, create messages, and then share their creations. These skills and processes empower students to become informed digital citizens who actively engage in civic processes and advocate for issues and actions in which they believe. This article explores the concepts of digital citizenship and media literacy and presents the Analyze, Create, Then Share Framework as a way to help students develop skills in these areas. Analyzing, Creating, Then Sharing media messages can aid students' understanding of disciplinary content, help students participate in civic processes, and promote digital citizenship.

How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public

How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public

Slow Civic Violence and the Removal of USPS Mail Sorting Machines During the 2020 Election

This article combines historical research with demographic analysis and neoliberal/rhetorical critique to put forth the concept of slow civic violence—indirect injuries on civic process, particularly within marginalized communities. The author ties the United States Postal Service's (USPS) rationale for removing mail sorting machines during the 2020 election year to systemic moves that damage democratic participation. The author conducts an empirical analysis of where the USPS mail sorting machines were removed to show how neoliberal arguments in favor of cost cutting make voting by mail a more precarious and uncertain act primarily for those who reside in communities of color.

Of Elephants and Harmony: Memory, Knowledge and Pleasure in the Joyous Entry of Albert of Austria and Isabella of Spain into Antwerp

This essay is about a sculpted elephant set on a wheeled base, an early modern festival float belonging to the city of Antwerp in present-day Belgium. Twice a year, during civic processions known as ommegangen, this float was paraded through the streets of Antwerp. However, on 10 December 1599, the civic authorities deployed the elephant as a stationary pageant, to form part of a different festival, the Joyous Entry of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. This article explores the many roles and resonances pertaining to this specific use of the float. The article is therefore a detailed case study of how one Habsburg subject city deployed one particular sculpture within urban pageantry to articulate and negotiate its often fraught relationship to its overlords and its position within the broader Luso-Hispanic Empire. At the same time, I show how the Antwerp urban elite drew on diverse forms of knowledge - historical, geographical, dynastic, scientific, musical and religious - to address and, to a certain extent, domesticate their courtly visitors.

Reclaiming drama in tourism research: a dramatological analytic

ABSTRACT Drama as symbolic action is overlooked in tourism research failing to take into account how dramaturgic interactions shape touristic relations, spaces, and systems. This note presents a novel theoretical analytic to study symbolic action and embodied tourism performances. This dramatological perspective seeks to understand the civic dramaturgic processes of extracting shared meaning from the co-performance and instantiation of symbolic representations. It moves forward to reinstate the place of drama in tourism scholarship, and clear confusion from common misconceptions about the essence of drama in touristic settings and behaviours. It is shown that civic dramaturgy can advance our understanding of tourism as an embodied practice by complementing and expanding extant performance studies and theory interlinked with symbols, social interactions, imaginaries, and cultures.

The Cost of Disbelief: Fracturing News Ecosystems in an Age of Rampant Media Cynicism

In the United States, and around the world, journalism and public information exist across broken media architectures. Citizens are at the mercy of those eager to take advantage of platform infrastructures in which access, quality, and diversity varies so wildly. Increasingly, politicians are taking advantage of these platform architectures to position people against one another. The result is a fracturing of belief, where truths splinter and trust erodes. Our digital environments are at the center of this fracturing, and our social and civic cohesion is at risk. What has resulted is a rampant cynicism, which is reflected in an intentional disengagement from the information infrastructures that provide civic cohesion. This is buoyed by an erosion of local news environments, which has further disconnected communities or forced them to rely on large scale digital media companies. This article will detail three areas eroding public trust and engagement— distributed propaganda, hijacking of local news, and reifying polarization—and their contributions to growing cynicism toward our current civic and political environments. It will unpack the frame of cynicism to articulate a lack of willingness to participate in civic processes that are seen as inclusive and reach beyond differences. The essay will pivot to the concept of civic-mindedness to promote an approach to combat the cynicism that has engulfed our political and civic infrastructures.

Teaching to teach civics in fragile times: a conceptual framework

ABSTRACT Teacher education and civic education are scholarly fields characterised by an abundance of writings that offer numerous frameworks, visions, and practices. Whereas several studies already presented theoretical models of the civic education process, the goal of this paper is to offer a conceptual framework of preservice civics teacher education. This framework, based on interviews with nine Israeli civics teacher educators, yielded four distinct models that include: (1) Technical Training; (2) Critical Thinking; (3) Patriotic; and (4) Social Change. As will be developed, the theoretical exploration of these models touches on foundational aspects of citizenship and education, relating to the fundamental question of good citizenship promoted as part of the civic education process and to the goals of teacher education. This heuristic approach emphasises processes of self-reflection as a critical element of the civics teacher education process.

Risks Without Borders: A Cultural Consensus Model of Risks to Sustainability in Rapidly Changing Social–Ecological Systems

Global sustainability goals cannot realistically be achieved without strategies that build on multiscale definitions of risks to wellbeing. Particularly in geographic contexts experiencing rapid and complex social and environmental changes, there is a growing need to empower communities to realize self-identified adaptation goals that address self-identified risks. Meeting this demand requires tools that can help assess shared understandings about the needs for, and barriers to, positive change. This study explores consensus about risks and uncertainties in adjacent boroughs grappling with rapid social–ecological transformations in northern Alaska. The Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs, like the rest of the Arctic, are coping with a climate that is warming twice as fast as in other regions. The boroughs are predominantly inhabited by Iñupiat people, for whom the region is ancestral grounds, whose livelihoods are still supported by subsistence activities, and whose traditional tribal governance has been weakened through multiple levels of governing bodies and institutions. Drawing on extensive workshop discussions and survey experiments conducted with residents of the two boroughs, we developed a model of the northern Alaska region’s social–ecological system and its drivers of change. Using cultural consensus analysis, we gauged the extent of consensus across the boroughs about what key risks threaten the sustainability of their communities. Though both boroughs occupy vast swaths of land, each with their own resource, leadership, and management challenges, we found strong consensus around how risks that impact the sustainability of communities are evaluated and prioritized. Our results further confirmed that rapid and complex changes are creating high levels of uncertainties for community planners in both boroughs. We discuss the mobilizing potential of risk consensus toward collective adaptation action in the civic process of policy making. We note the contribution of cultural consensus analysis as a tool for cross-scale learning in areas coping with rapid environmental changes and complex social challenges.

Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society by Cynthia Hahn

Reviewed by: Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society by Cynthia Hahn Sarah Luginbill Cynthia Hahn, Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press 2020) 176 pp., 52 ills. Relics of Christ's Passion present scholars of medieval Christianity with a fascinating paradox. According to the New Testament, Christ's body ascended into heaven shortly after his resurrection. Therefore, apart from a few alleged relics of Christ's blood and circumcised foreskin, there are no bones or body of Christ to venerate. In the absence of primary relics, medieval Christians collected and enshrined objects that came into contact with Christ—specifically, those items that interacted with his body during the Passion (the whip, crown of thorns, True Cross, holy nails, sponge, and lance, among others). The medieval dissemination and popularity of these relics are the subject of Cynthia Hahn's latest monograph, which surveys the cult of Passion relics in western Europe from the time of Constantine to the sixteenth century. Hahn's book is taken from two public lectures, given at the Spencer Museum of Art (University of Kansas) and the Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City). Following the division of these lectures, Passion Relics consists of only two chapters, with micro-discussions embedded in each. The first half of the book traces the development of the cult of what Hahn deems the "greatest" Passion relic: the True Cross. Hahn recounts the True Cross's origin story (found by Helena, the mother of Constantine), examines the various medieval records of the dissemination of splinter relics, and analyzes practices of enshrining fragments of the True Cross in Western reliquaries. She discusses the cross as both a material object and as a shorthand for faith, redemption, and sacrifice in text, liturgy, and art. One example of the latter includes the poem "The Dream of the Rood," wherein the True Cross appears to an anonymous viewer as a living tree that has been both attacked and bejeweled by human hands. The second half of the monograph focuses on medieval Passion relics as a group, both in theory and in physical collections. Hahn outlines the major relics, including the holy nails, the lance, and the sponge, and their significance to medieval Christians as [End Page 278] objects that touched Christ's skin, blood, and mouth. Hahn notes that Passion relics appeared to surface in social and political settings in which they served a purpose, emphasizing that the material culture of belief was never far from secular ambitions. In this way, Hahn's second chapter analyzes Passion relics "as holy material but also as social phenomena—as barometers of Christian devotion and its processes" (5). Passion relics were utilized by rulers, such as Constantine and Raymond of Toulouse, to solidify diplomatic ties. Louis IX, Charles IV, and the Savoy dynasty created extravagant architectural works to house their Passion relics and underscore their personal connections to the objects. Passion relics, however, did not just circulate in the elite circles of medieval Europe. While Passion relics first traveled from east to west relatively slowly and mostly through diplomatic channels, the crusades opened up a much broader network for relics of the True Cross, the holy lance, and others to enter western Europe in larger amounts. The lay populace interacted with Passion relics in the context of grand architecture or elaborate civic processions, which further elevated the status and splendor of the items on display. In addition to this kind of public devotion, Hahn explores the role of Passion relics in female spirituality and imagination. She discusses the images in the Passional of Abbess Kunigunde and the devotion of Gertrude of Helfta, a mystic who used the veil of Veronica as a focus in her meditations. Hahn mentions the sexualized nature of some female devotions to Christ's wounds, but does not analyze them in depth. A second paradox regarding Passion relics emerges in Hahn's work: items associated with physical pain and torture also become conduits of spiritual redemption and loving devotion for believers. Hahn notes this juxtaposition manifests itself visually through the contrast between the relics themselves (iron or wood) and the materials of their reliquary...

Musealisation of folk art - on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Ethnographic Museum

Starting from the concept of folk art as a historical phenomenon that refers to par- ticular civic processes of valorisation, selection and representation of peasant painting traditions, its role can be considered against the backdrop of specific economic, social and political circumstances of congenial cultural activities, which, from the end of the 19th century to the World War II, included the practices of gathering of ethnographic collections, the formation of the first museum collections and museum activities, the development of artistic crafts, encouragement of home-based handicraft businesses, as well as education in visual arts through professional education. This paper provides a historical overview of the process of affirmation of folk art, with an emphasis on musealisation and it is intended as a contribution to the interpretation of the initial collections of the Ethnographic Museum

The Power of Corruption

Abstract The central paradox of corruption in the political life of the global South is how such a widely despised phenomenon persists so untroubled by allthe negative attention. The two books under discussion—Steven Pierce's Moral Economies of Corruption and Milan Vaishnav's When Crime Pays—demonstrate that to make sense of that paradox, one needs to go beyond the dominant legal/technocratic understanding of corruption as either private acts of illegality or failures of the civic democratic process. Thinking further with the insights offered by those books, the article sugg ests that the phenomenon of corruption can only be made sense of when placed within the matrix of political and social power relations in the global South democracies. Corruptions appear not as distortions in an idealized democratic marketplace, but in the context of maneuvers of counter-democratic power to maintain existing hierarchies of dominations against tides of democratic mobilization, not merely as a subversion of the public good, but in reaction to attempts to make goods public.

Practitioner’s Note

Deliberative forums, such as citizens’ assemblies or reference panels, are one institutionalization of deliberative democracy that has become increasingly commonplace in recent years. MASS LBP is a pioneer in designing and facilitating such long-form deliberative processes in Canada. This article provides an overview of the company’s civic lottery and reference panel process, notes several distinctive features of MASS LBP that are relevant to addressing challenges to democratic deliberation, and outlines possible areas for future research in deliberative democracy applied in both private and public settings.

Giving women a voice on decision-making about water: barriers and opportunities in Laikipia, Kenya

In more than 75% of households around the world in which water needs are fulfilled by retrieving water, women are typically tasked with this critical responsibility. This is true in Kenya, and the challenges women in rural areas of the country face are compounded by a lack of reasonable access to safe water by 56.5% of rural households. More than 25% of the population must travel at least 30 minutes to collect water, and 70% of all diseases in the country are water-borne (Kameri-Mbote and Kariuki 2015). Given their role as the primary household decision-maker about water, women have an astute understanding of water availability, access, quality and household use, and women’s perspectives would enhance decision-making in groups that address water resource management. However, women have historically been marginalized from participation in such processes for numerous reasons related to lack of empowerment, leadership, and voice, and the practicalities of the demands on her time that prevent her from having discretionary time to devote to civic processes. In this study, we interviewed 153 women living in three different watersheds in the Laikipia region of central Kenya about their views on water resource management, and interest in participation in water resource user associations (WRUAs) as members and leaders. Our results are consistent with prior research in that marginalization of women from WRUA participation is steeped in entrenched normative beliefs and behaviors about women’s roles and her domestic responsibilities, a lack of money to participate, and a lack of time given her other responsibilities.

Activating sacred objects in public space: Bernini’s angels on the ponte sant’angelo in early modern Rome

ABSTRACTIn 1667, Pope Clement IX commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to design 10 sculptures of angels to decorate the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome. Contemporary accounts record that the faithful experienced Bernini’s statues as animated celestial figures at the heart of the city. The ability of the marble angels to persuasively move beholders fulfilled the aims of the papal commission to expand the reach of the Church into the urban space of Rome. This paper examines how these religious objects were activated in a public space, a setting composed of sacred and profane elements. In the early modern era, the Ponte Sant’Angelo connected Rome’s city center to St. Peter’s Basilica while also serving as a setting for civic processions, spectacular fireworks displays, and public executions. While angels were ubiquitous in the city’s sacred spaces, like church interiors, Bernini’s sculptures materialized a flock of angels at an outdoor, urban nexus of theology, spectacle, and justice. Drawing on theories of performance that conceptualize the profound religious encounter that can result from the simultaneous juxtaposition of sacred and profane elements, this paper argues that the public setting activated Bernini’s marble statues so that they were experienced as lively celestial figures by the faithful.