Dimensions Of Participation Research Articles

Complementing electoral democracy assessment: The Plebiscitary Electoral Democracy Index and its application to the Andean Community, 2003–2022

AbstractThis study employs the V‐Dem database and proposes an alternative calculation of the regular Electoral Democracy Index by incorporating the Direct Popular Vote Index, a component of the Participatory Democracy Index. The result is the creation of the Plebiscitary Electoral Democracy Index. To validate this index proposal, the article conducts an empirical test focusing on the Andean Community countries over the past two decades that compares the existing Electoral Democracy Index with the new proposed index from 2003 to 2022. The findings reveal that the proposed index reflects a consistently lower level of democracy than that measured by the Electoral Democracy Index across all Andean cases. This research shows how incorporating participation indicators in assessing electoral democracy reveals distinct conclusions regarding the state of democracy than those from the previously established Electoral Democracy Index. The comparatively lower levels of democracy emphasize the importance of incorporating a participatory dimension in the Electoral Democracy Index to develop a more comprehensive and regionally nuanced approach to measuring democracy that can be applied to understand better the evolution of democracy everywhere.

From Participatory Research to the Co-construction of Actions – Reflections on how to Reinforce Action Research for Social Inclusion

An important part of the action research literature focuses on the participatory dimension of the research process and is much less explicit on the connection of research and action or on how researchers contribute to tangible transformations, in particular outside organizational or education settings. Drawing from seven years of experience as an action researcher within an anti-poverty organization dedicated to improving living conditions in a low-income neighborhood in Montreal (Canada), this article seeks to enhance our comprehension of how action researchers can more effectively contribute to transformational action. Our study identifies four primary functions of research within the examined model and underscores three core characteristics to strengthen the integration of knowledge production and action. These characteristics encompass expanding the role of researchers to actively participate in both the co-development and implementation of action; engaging in long-term commitments and partnerships in a given setting, preferably being even a researcher based in the setting; and fostering collaborations with universities. By elucidating these key elements, this article intends to offer insights into improving the impact of action research, ultimately advancing our ability to contribute to transformative change for more inclusive and sustainable societies.

Innovative methods in collaborative research: mediagrams in the study of digital multilingual workplace communication and home-school interaction

ABSTRACT Recent developments in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics bring with them a need for methodological innovation in the study of multilingual communication in the online/offline nexus. As a response to this, our paper reports from a research project on migrants’ digital interaction to consider how mediagrams can be used for collaborative research in multilingual workplaces and schools. A mediagram is a visual tool used for collaborative data collection and analysis to capture one individual’s digital interaction, and to visualise, in a comprehensible manner, linguistic, digital, and modal resources used by this individual with specific interlocutors. The aim of this paper is to examine how mediagrams can be used to increase the participatory dimension of the sociolinguistic research processes, focusing on biographical dimensions and digital practices. For this purpose, we describe two distinct applications of mediagrams. First, a study of labour migrants’ digitally mediated workplace communication, and second, a study of parent-teacher communication. We discuss these two applications, considering participatory approaches in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, focusing on participants’ conceptions and participation and mediagrams’ methodological potential in post-digital contexts.

Application of Video Games as Part of Learning Islamic History

Teaching Islamic history is generally considered boring because most of the learning methods focus on storytelling. For this reason, other creative efforts are needed to make learning history enjoyable. One way is to apply video games in learning Islamic history. This is especially considering that video games apparently have a participatory dimension in learning Islamic history. This article then aims to present how video games are applied in learning Islamic history, especially conceptually considering that not many practices have been carried out systematically. This article was prepared using a qualitative approach supported by data collection methods in the form of literature studies. From the results of this study, it was found that video games can be applied in learning Islamic history if seen from their role as a medium for transferring information and values. Substantially, the form of application can be by choosing a video game as well as the game's tools and themes and then involving a mentor who directs and accompanies students to learn Islamic history well.

The ‘Human Right to Science’ qua right to participate in science

ABSTRACT In 1948, Article 27(1) UDHR declared the right ‘to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’. Since 1966, the right has also been guaranteed by Article 15(1)(b) ICESCR as the right to ‘enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications’. This equivocation on the right’s name reveals a disagreement about the object of that right, i.e. (actively) participating in the scientific practice or (passively) ‘enjoying its fruits’ only. While the importance of participation in science has recently been emphasised, no justifications thereof have yet been provided. Drawing on considerations in human rights theory, the present article proposes an interpretation of Article 15(1)(b) ICESCR qua ‘right to participate in scientific practice and enjoy its benefits’. It starts with an account of the genesis of the right. Second, it argues that science is best approached as a ‘participatory good’, both from the perspective of the philosophy of science and of other rights guaranteed by the ICESCR. Third, the article spells out the participatory dimensions of the human right to participate in science including its ‘collective’ dimensions. Finally, the article explores three institutional implications of the proposed participatory interpretation of the right, both domestically and internationally.

Epistemic othering: the interplay of knowledges in legislative drafting

AbstractIn this article, we use the concept of epistemic othering to describe the subjectivation of people who experience debt problems in the legislative drafting process, and argue that the evidence‐based policy paradigm, together with its participatory dimension, produce a potentially harmful subject position for people who are considered vulnerable and irrational. By analysing the preparatory material of Finnish interest rate cap laws, we explore what is constructed as rational and possible in the legislative process, and how these modalities frame the use of expert knowledge. We argue that what is considered rational is constructed in terms of market logic, and what is construed as possible is heavily framed by law‐as‐knowledge. Together, market logic and law‐as‐knowledge form the preconditions for the use of expert knowledge. Ultimately, the way in which these three types of knowledge interact contributes to the epistemic othering of people who experience debt problems.

Managing Complex Knowledge in Sustainable Planning: A Semantic-Based Model for Multiagent Water-Related Concepts

The concepts of green infrastructures, nature-based solutions and ecosystem services are today considered an integral part of the broader theme of the urban bioregion, with an intrinsic character of complexity. It is certainly difficult to structure bioregional processes in a balanced and sustainable way, able to keep local energy production and consumption cycles closed. It is a complex issue of knowledge bases, and problems are increased by the participatory dimension of environmental planning. In fact, when rational planning models have failed in the face of prominent individual needs and environmental complexity, a path has emerged towards the inclusion of multiple citizens’ and stakeholders’ knowledge. The cognitive structure of the plans has thus changed from systems of exclusively expert, formal knowledge to systems of diffused, multi-agent knowledge. This has involved richness but also significant problems in understanding and managing knowledge bases. In this complexity, there are some common peculiarities when it comes to socio-environmental systems. A common feature of the reference domains of ecosystem services, nature-based solutions and green infrastructures is the water resource. A management model of hydrological data, which are structurally relevant and cross-sectoral in environmental planning actions, could represent a flagship initiative. The used approach could be conveyed to more complex and extensive areas of the environmental domain in a perspective of sustainable planning. The present paper is part of a research work oriented toward handling complex environmental subjects, such as green infrastructures, nature-based solutions or ecosystem services, with a knowledge modelling approach. This approach is based on semantic extensions, elaborated form the concept of semantic web, to allow shared interpretations of knowledge coming from different languages and scientific domains. It is also based on using applied ontologies, elaborated from the concept of ontology-based classification, to support a structured organization of knowledge contents. The main research objective is therefore to investigate about a knowledge management system with semantic extensions, populated with hydrological knowledge contents, as well as to propose a preliminary functional architecture. A simple ontology of data is extracted, aiming at clarifying and improving inter-domain communication, so as to enhance a common semantic understanding in a complex environmental system.

Social Participation: A Lever for Empowerment of Precarious Immigrants

Empowerment is a concept that is hardly used in the field of migration. However, this approach, which is based on participation, promotion of experiential knowledge, peer support, strengthening through exchange with others who have experienced similar difficulties, and change by and with the communities affected, is particularly relevant to an understanding of the migration experiences of immigrants in precarious situations, dealing with the difficulties of exile and arrival in a new country. This article aims to show how empowerment is a useful concept for designing and implementing interventions and research aimed at immigrants, provided that it is used in all of its dimensions, including the collective dimension based on social participation. After reviewing the history and the contours of this concept, its possible drifts and the importance of its collective and participatory dimension, the article analyses, using examples from the field of health promotion, how the participation of immigrants in programmes and research concerning them makes it possible to activate this empowerment.

Hipertekstualne inovacije u delu Evgeniosa Trivizasa 88 Dolmadakia

Hypertextuality involves creating texts that are interconnected through digital hyperlinks, providing a network of related pieces of content that can be explored in a non-linear way. Evgenios Trivizas' The 88 Dolmadakia (1997) serves as a pivotal case study in this exploration, encapsulating the transformative potential of hypertextuality within children's literature. This modern Greek literary work distinguishes itself through a nuanced blend of text and illustration, offering a nonlinear narrative structure that hinges on reader participation and metafictional techniques. Central to The 88 Dolmadakia is its dynamic narrative pathway, which relies on reader choices to dictate the course of events. Each reading yields a distinctive narrative outcome, underscoring the mutable nature of the narrative. Trivizas' employment of hypertextual strategies in this work not only amplifies the immersive quotient of the reading experience but also posits a profound commentary on the fluid boundaries of narrative construction. In synthesizing these elements, The 88 Dolmadakia emerges as an exemplar of the transformative potential of hypertextuality in children's literature, suggesting an avenue for further scholarly exploration into the adaptive and participatory dimensions of contemporary storytelling.

Social Educator in Practice. The Participatory Dimension of Working with People Experiencing Homelessness

Bearing in mind the image of the homeless functioning in our society, a thesis can be presented that it is not the fact of being homeless that causes social exclusion of people experiencing homelessness, but the perception of the homeless by others and the resulting social reactions towards them. Beresford proposes among others: focusing activity on the disabling society; overcoming division into service users and service providers, and; encouraging participation of service users in social work, education, practice, and research (Beresford, 2014). Participative practices co-created with people experiencing homelessness through the implemented research and projects reflect the above postulates. Thanks to the involvement of various social entities, they break the stereotypes about homeless people; they overcome divisions between service users and providers, blurring the borders between them due to the implemented activities; finally, they involve service users in different aspects of lives, including the practice, as they become experts in their needs and undertaken activities, they join to help others or initiate such help, thus sometimes it is hard to tell a volunteer from a project participant. The objective of this text is to reconstruct the activities increasing the participative potential of the implemented research and projects. In the text I present the nature of socially involved research conducted by me. Then I discuss the efforts undertaken in order to boost the participative potential of the implemented research and projects, on the basis of specific actions promoting voluntary and subjective decisions about getting involved, a diagnosis of participative needs, the inclusion of wider society groups to participative practices, or the participative impact on a structurally conditioned situation of people experiencing homelessness.

Teenagers in the library: participatory mediation practices

In their efforts to reach out to teenagers, libraries facilitate different literary activities where youth come together, socialize and interact. In what ways do these practices contribute to the building of literary and social communities among the participating teenagers and to a broadened understanding of the concepts of libraries? This paper examines three different cases of participatory mediation activities in Norwegian libraries: a podcast, a voluntary reading group and a shared reading activity. The method used is qualitative interviews, and the findings are discussed in relation to theories on the social and participatory dimensions of cultural institutions and to a model from library and information theory. In the cases presented, the libraries facilitated the activities as part of their strategies. The study sheds light on how the mediation practices in question contribute to fostering literary and social communities among the participating teenagers. The present study demonstrates possible ways of expanding the understanding of what a library means to young people in a contemporary context.

The Influence of Service Quality of Apparatus on Community Satisfaction in the Testing Unit of Motorized Vehicles for Types of Goods Transport in Sidoarjo Regency

Customer (community) satisfaction is the main measure of public services. The problem with KIR testing at the District Transportation Office. Sidoarjo, namely the attitude of the apparatus that still does not act quickly and precisely in helping every complaint from the drivers, then the community is not satisfied with the KIR testing service. The purpose of this study is to determine and analyze the effect of the quality of service of the apparatus on community satisfaction in the unit testing motorized vehicles for the type of freight transport at the Transportation Service Office of Sidoarjo Regency. This research is a quantitative research, the sample in this study amounted to 95 respondents with a simple random sampling sampling technique, data collection techniques using observation methods, questionnaires. The data analysis technique used multiple linear regression analysis and hypothesis testing including T-test, F-test, Coefficient of Determination. The results show that the Transparency Dimension has a significant influence on community satisfaction, the accountability dimension has a significant influence on community satisfaction, the conditional dimension has a significant influence on community satisfaction, the participatory dimension has a significant influence on community satisfaction, the equal rights dimension has a significant influence on community satisfaction. the balance of rights and obligations has a significant influence on people's satisfaction

The power of narrative storytelling: How podcasts as an arts-based practice enhance solidarity and social activism in adult education

This article emerges from a podcast hosted by a Centre for Migration at a Canadian University in 2021. In this discussion, we explore how podcasts offer a unique and often under-researched arts-based medium that can be used as a form of creative expression to tell stories, build dialogue, and create solidarity. We argue that podcasts offer benefits and learning not only to the listeners but also to participants who are part of the creation process. Drawing upon direct quotes from the podcast and qualitative reflections from the podcast interviewees, this collaboratively written article examines how the podcast stimulates activism and access to deeper understandings and collectively made meanings around the lived experiences of migration. It sheds light upon the less-researched emotional and participatory dimensions of arts-based podcast-making, teaching, and research in adult education. We conclude that the podcast created spaces of disruption, public pedagogy, and praxis.

Letters for Life to Hope with Paulo Freire

The community project Letras Prá Vida has been developed in Portugal since 2015 and is coordinated by the Escola Superior de Educação of the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra. Within the scope of its socio-educational intervention dimension, it promotes literacy workshops, the "Letras Prá Vida"; for the promotion of digital literacy, Teclas Prá Vida; and Músicas Prá Vida, which use music as an instrument at the service of humanization, in an inclusive and intergenerational approach. These workshops contribute to the development of different literacies, intergenerational dialogue, equal learning opportunities, empowerment, social inclusion, combating loneliness and isolation, active aging, civic participation, democratic citizenship and education. to health. Added to this intervention dimension, based on in-service learning, a participatory and critical research-action dimension, a formative dimension of adult education and literacy and a community of practice that contributes, through the critical friends of the project, among which we include Paulo Freire. In a liberating, democratic, and openly political practice, we defend education as a public good for all, valuing non-formal adult education and the education of older adults as a right and an investment. This unfinished reflection on how Paulo Freire lives at the heart of Letras Prá Vida that we present here is an invitation to the action of hope.

Municipal size and local democracy: understanding the trade-off between participation and contestation in Latin America

ABSTRACT Municipal size affects local democracy through two mechanisms – participation and contestation. By drawing on national-level theories of democracy, this article identifies a necessary tradeoff: decreasing municipal size maximises the participatory dimension of local democracy but reduces the level of contestation, which is similarly crucial for a healthy democracy. Employing multilevel models that simultaneously account for national-level and local-level influences, this proposition is tested using a large dataset of over 9,000 municipalities in 15 Latin American countries with competitive local elections. The evidence supports the operation of such a tradeoff in a regional comparison, and single-country analyses suggest that it is present with varying force in most countries of the region.

Sharing the hate? Memes and transnationality in the far right’s digital visual culture

ABSTRACT Current research on visual media and the far right creates two expectations: that memes play an increasingly salient role in the far right’s digital visual culture, and that the visual and participatory dimensions of internet culture facilitate greater transnationality. We explore these expectations with a comparative research design, situating memes in relation to other genres of visual content and across different country contexts. Taking a mixed methods approach, this article examines the digital visual culture of 25 far-right alternative media and other non-party organisations in Australia, Italy, Germany, and the United States. We assess the salience of memes and other visual genres, as well as three forms of transnationality: the circulation of images, direct communicative references, and transnational similarities. Unexpectedly, we find that memes play only a limited role in the digital visual culture of far-right non-party organisations, with their uneven concentration in Anglophone alt-media suggesting the potential pitfalls of assumptions about ‘global’ internet culture. We also find little evidence of transnationality through the circulation of the same visuals across countries, whether memes or other genres. Instead, transnationality works through transnational references within the images themselves and through more parallel practices of reproducing visuals in similar ways with similar themes, but with elements specific to an organisation’s national and political context. Within this, we identify three distinct visual discourses – fascist continuity, western civilisational identity, and pop cultural appropriation – which highlight different practices of transnationality and collective identity construction within the far right online.

Quality of Population Document Service in Subang Regency

The purpose of this study is to provide a description of the service quality of population documents in Subang Regency. The results showed that the Department of Population and Civil Registration of Subang Regency has several tasks related to the quality of population document services in Subang Regency. In this research, the service function is examined from the first point of view, the dimensions of Transparency of Population documents which are currently carried out with Electronic Signatures are conveyed more openly regarding the requirements that must be met and also the completion time set in accordance with the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). Second, the accountability dimension, the data contained in the Population Administration Information System (SIAK) has not been well integrated with other institutions, so that in terms of responding to public needs and the ability to service Population Documents through Electronic Signatures is not optimal. Third, the conditional dimension, not prioritizing services to people who need Population Documents for the urgent public interest. Fourth, the Participatory dimension, focused on efforts to organize and accelerate programs in each of the Integrated Service Units, this understanding has not been optimal in improving services to the community. Fifth, the dimension of equal rights, in this case the Population and Civil Registration Service, can minimize discrimination in terms of Population Document services. Sixth, the dimension of the balance of rights and obligations is not optimal because service recipients have not met their needs and supervision that should be carried out by direct superiors is often neglected. Keywords: public service; electronic identity card; e-government

Similitudes et différences entre l’évaluation d’impact sur la santé et l’évaluation de politiques publiques

Health impact assessment (HIA) is rapidly growing in France. It shows similarities with other approaches, such as the evaluation of public policies (EPP), with which it can sometimes be mistaken for.Purpose of research: The aims of this article are to identify the similarities and differences between HIA and EPP and to assess the extent to which HPA skills are transferable to HIA. The two approaches share common features: they are both based on principles and values that structure practice; they produce a judgement at the end of an argumentation process; they follow the same thinking process and use similar tools. However, HIA has specific features that justify the strengthening of skills, particularly in relation to its participatory dimension. The two approaches have more similarities than differences due to their evaluative nature. The competences acquired in PPE are transferable to HIA and the evaluator at the crossroads of the two exercises can revisit and enrich his practice in PPE.

New Governance Path through Digital Platforms and the Old Urban Planning Process in Italy

Current acceleration in digital practices, unexpected challenges in our social and spatial interactions, and sudden limitations in our physical spaces, mark unpredictable changes in our old normal. A different normal—as generated nowadays from the global pandemic 2020—is setting out, indeed, a mixed physical/virtual framework of the modification humanity is undertaking in being pushed into a new “digital age”; or better, as many scholars are saying, into the New Normal. A new normal in which the balance between physical and virtual interactions became in vantage of the second one in just one year, by increasing, at the same time, both the quantity and the quality of exchanging digital data. It is drafted a bi-dimensional enlarging that re-calls and stresses moreover the value of certain qualitative multi-data-based analyses aimed in reading the people’s common-sense to extrapolate wishes and needs within their daily lives; as the sentiment analysis applied to the urban planning processes wants to do. In synthesis, the bigger number of qualitative data coming from the web (from Socials mainly) became more affordable and more reliable (due to the new larger number of digital flows) in shaping new ways for a more effective public participation within the conventional planning process. In the pages of this article authors, through different but shared viewpoints, propose a possible answer to the topic of a new “Governance 3.0” addressing the attempt of a change of those consolidated paradigms within which the spatial dimension—in which we live and we act day by day—is shaped through planning processes consolidate over the years. Analyzing the relationship between Technocracy and Democracy, as defined by Khanna, it is argued that it is possible to realize new forecasts and to acquire a more democratic and participatory (inclusive) dimension of Governance, thanks to new digital technologies by exploring the general unconscious “feeling” of people, through anonymous data collection from Socials and similar platforms and without any direct or indirect interference with it. The Sentiment Analysis can “define automatic tools able to extract subjective information from texts in natural languages, such as opinions and sentiments, in order to create structured and actionable knowledge to be used by either a decision-support system or a decision-maker.

The First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study (2008\u20132018)\u2014rationale, design, methods and lessons learned

ObjectiveTo describe the rationale, the participatory nature of the methodology, and the lessons learned during the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study (FNFNES), a community-based participatory research project implemented in eight Assembly of First Nations regions, which includes the entirety of Canada south of the 60th parallel.MethodsFNFNES respected the First Nations principles of Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP®) (https://fnigc.ca/ocap). A random sampling strategy based on an ecosystem framework comprising 11 ecozones was adopted to collect representative nutritional and environmental health results for all First Nations adults living on-reserve south of the 60th parallel. Data collection occurred during the fall months from 2008 to 2016. Respective First Nations were involved in the planning and implementation of data collection for the five principal components: household interviews, tap water sampling for metals, surface water sampling for pharmaceuticals, hair sampling for mercury, and traditional food sampling for contaminants.ResultsA total of 6487 adults from 92 First Nations participated in the Study (participation rate 78%). A higher percentage of females (66%) participated than males (34%). The average age of males and females was similar (44 and 45 years, respectively). This study offers a novel body of coherent and regionally representative evidence on the human dimension of the ongoing environmental degradation affecting First Nations.ConclusionFNFNES serves as a good example of participatory research. We encourage public health professionals to develop policy and programs building on the participatory dimension of the research as well as on its results. The information collected by the FNFNES is also important for community empowerment, environmental stewardship and the general promotion of good health by and for First Nations peoples in Canada.