Civic Engagement Practices Research Articles

When the Law Does Not Secure Justice or Peace: Requiem as Aesthetic Response

This essay assesses the possibilities for poetic-liturgical compositions, such as requiems, to promote Christian public engagement when legal frameworks are perceived to be inadequate for securing justice. This essay addresses the perception that legal statutes and procedures failed to honor the personhood of two particular African American males and discusses how aesthetic responses have been used to counter the devaluing of their lives. One such response, Marilyn Nelson’s poem Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem , questions the law’s failure to protect an eighteenth-century enslaved man. Another requiem memorializes Michael Brown after the teen’s killing by a police officer in 2014. This essay discusses these particular aesthetic responses and then evaluates the possibilities for the requiem as a Christian practice of civic engagement by appropriating Charles Mathewes’s articulation of hopeful citizenship. In cases when the law is perceived to be complicit in devaluing African American personhood, liturgy can be a meaningful Christian response.

Enlightenment Geisha: The Sex Trade, Education, and Feminine Ideals in Early Meiji Japan

During the mid-1870s, fearing the legal innovations of a “civilized” state, geisha and their employers recast Tokugawa-era practices of civic engagement and educational attainment in the language of enlightenment. Proprietors built schools intended to transform geisha into productive and moral mothers, and geisha donated to local educational institutions and suggested that their own studies would lead to self-sufficiency and freedom. These efforts associated geisha with the values of productivity and enlightenment, although similar strategies proved less successful for prostitutes. However, by the 1880s, both geisha and prostitutes were increasingly denied access to education and excluded from ideals of enlightened femininity that were predicated on marriage. This article considers how a group of unlikely actors deployed the Tokugawa past to become civilized, and in the process promoted ideas about the purpose of women's education that would later be expressed by an icon of Meiji modernity: the “good wife, wise mother.”

Civic Studies: Bringing Theory to Practice

Copyright © 2013 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA Civic engagement is integral to the creation and perpetuation of healthy communities and robust participatory democracy. While the preservation of our democratic society is strengthened through the engagement of community members as a whole, for some—those I call civic practitioners— the practice of civic engagement is the heart of their work.1 They act as our proxies in making democracy function as representatives in elected and sometimes appointed government positions, advocates in public life, intermediaries in negotiations and social capital formation, and organizers who mobilize others to influence public policy and practices. The regular activities of civic practitioners are at the foundation of civil society. Civic theory, such as that provided in the Institute of Civic Studies, can positively inform their work by articulating effective models of engagement and providing them opportunities to reflect on their goals and values. As with all work, that of civic practitioners requires knowledge and training. Knowledge of the issues is essential: those who work on any public or community issue need familiarity with that issue as it is understood in theory and applied on the ground. In addition, practitioners can profit from training in effective civic practices. For example, legislators and those who seek to influence them need to know how a bill becomes law, government officials and those who work with their policies must learn how to navigate the administrative process, and organizers and negotiators can be trained in how to conduct meetings. This skill-based knowledge, often provided by veteran civic practitioners, includes strategies such as listening to constituents, finding ways to engage others, and using various forms of media. Civic Studies: Bringing Theory to Practice

Energy Futures: Five Dilemmas of the Practice of Anticipatory Governance

Public participation has become standard practice in both environmental communication and science and technology studies, with such engagement increasingly moving “upstream” to the early stages of technological development. One framework for these activities is anticipatory governance, in which foresight and public and stakeholder engagement are used to reflect on—and direct—the impacts of new technology. In this essay we draw on our experience of anticipatory governance, in the shape of the “NanoFutures” project on energy futures, to present a reflexive analysis of engagement and deliberation. We draw out five tensions of the practice of deliberation on energy technologies. Through tracing the lineages of these dilemmas, we discuss some of the implications of these tensions for the practice of civic engagement and deliberation in a set of questions for this community of practitioner-scholars.

Civic Engagement and Associationalism: The Impact of Group Membership Scope versus Intensity of Participation

The relationship between participation in civic and political activities and membership of voluntary associations is now well established. What is less clear is the relative impacts of how much time people spend on group activities (associational intensity), and the number and type of groups that individuals are involved with (associational scope). Does it matter in terms of civic engagement, for example, whether one is a member of a quilting-circle or trade union? Does it matter whether association ‘membership’ is simply an annual payment or a major commitment of time and energy? In this article, we use a large survey to explore these questions empirically by focusing on the membership patterns and civic engagement practices of 4,001 citizens drawn from eight suburbs across Greater Melbourne, Australia. Our findings indicate that, while associational intensity is positively related to civic engagement, associational scope (the number of group memberships per person), is a more influential determinant of the level of civic and political participation. The results also suggest that while all forms of associationalism are important in terms of fostering greater levels of civic activity, not all forms have the same impact.

The proposal economy

Using the case of Cobalt, a former silver mining town in Northern Ontario, Canada, we trace the transition from social funding as a feature of the welfare state to social funding based on application, adjudication and award. We identify a process in the community development arena, whereby local governments, community organizations and community members are increasingly enmeshed in the bureaucratic and socially disengaging processes of proposal-writing. Cobalters regard aspects of this downward deflection of the locus of economic responsibility as fairer, and more transparent, than the previous funding regime. We show how a local moral economy and understanding of citizenship based on an ethic of caring has contributed, in a counterintuitive way, to an interim outcome of more public services. At the same time, the current pursuit of development funds via proposal is undermining the practices of civic engagement which have allowed the town to remain distinct for the past century.

Disability and democracy in Cambodia: an integrative approach to community building and civic engagement

The political framework through which the various communities of disabled persons in Cambodia advocate for and claim their rights is complex and confusing. Both governmental and non‐governmental actors engage this political framework through the mobilization of persons from the various disabled communities, competing in the civic sphere through issue‐oriented advocacy in ways that seek to influence the process of democratic governance. While the status of disabled rights in Cambodia is still comparatively weak, it is argued here that this civic engagement has allowed disabled communities to find common cause with non‐disabled persons and groups in the project of deepening the roots of democracy in Cambodia. This article discusses the demographic composition of disability, the framework of political action that addresses disability issues and the practice of civic engagement and activism by disabled and non‐disabled communities in Cambodia.

Putting the culture back into agriculture: civic engagement, community and the celebration of local food

This paper reports on the case study of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm in south-western Ontario, Canada. As an exemplar of urban agriculture, Fourfold Farm CSA operates from an alternative agriculture paradigm and is built upon the socio-ecological practices of civic engagement, community and the celebration of local food. Analysis of in-depth, key informant interviews with members of the CSA as well as the co-founders reveals the extent to which the farm is much more than a source of healthy, organic food. The paper outlines the ways the CSA operators and their members articulate a deeper endeavour to link urban food consumers with food producers through cultural activities. The discussion concludes with a call for more social research in agriculture as well as a broader effort to articulate the ways urban agriculture can contribute to putting the culture back into agriculture and creating sustainable systems of farming.

Collaborative Public Governance: Implications for Civic Engagement

This chapter develops some of the key implications of the movement toward collaborative public management for civic engagement practices. It begins with the premise that the inclusion of the citizenry, both individuals and organized associations, is crucial for truly “public” collaborative governance. The chapter is developed through autobiographical reflection on several decades of the author’s published work on both civic engagement and collaborative public governance. Twelve articles and book chapters are discussed from this body of work, most of which are the published products of research on the neighborhood council system in Los Angeles. The discussion concludes with three implications of collaborative public governance for civic engagement: 1) Shared arenas for deliberation are necessary if collaborative public governance is to effectively include citizens, 2) Support from political leadership is crucial if neighborhood councils and city departments are to reach collaborative agreements, and 3) Capacity building for collaborative action is necessary for all parties involved in the collaborative public governance process.

The Incubation Model of University-Community Relationships: A Case Study in Creating New Programs, New Knowledge, and New Fields of Practice

Universities in Canada and elsewhere are recognizing the importance of being more engaged with their communities. Indeed, the president of the University of Alberta made engaging with external communities one of the cornerstones of her vision for the institution. So how are universities meeting this challenge? In his book, Managing Civic and Community Engagement, David Watson laments the dearth of scholarly attention paid to the practice of civic engagement by universities (Watson, 2007). In this article, I discuss the university community partnership between the Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, and the Legal Resource Centre of Alberta Ltd., which began more than 30 years ago. Both a success story and a cautionary tale, the case study helps to define a little-discussed model of university community engagement and to expose some of its strengths and limitations. It is useful in advancing both the theory and the practice of university-community engagement.

Review: Rhetorical Democracy: Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement, edited by Gerard A Hauser and Amy Grim

Review: Rhetorical Democracy: Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement, edited by Gerard A Hauser and Amy Grim

Review: Rhetorical Democracy: Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement, edited by Gerard A. Hauser and Amy Grim

Review: Rhetorical Democracy: Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement, edited by Gerard A. Hauser and Amy Grim

18: The Hesburgh Certificate and Portland State University's Faculty Development Approach to Supporting Service Learning and Community-University Partnerships

Service learning now has a prominent home in hundreds of diverse campuses across the nation. Developing service-learning expertise and other community-campus partnership enhancement strategies for faculty requires innovation. Recently, Portland State University's Center for Academic Excellence received the Theodore M. Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence for Community-University Partnerships. This chapter outlines the center's three-tiered approach to supporting and sustaining civic engagement practices that are sensitive to individual needs on campus and in the community, while also working toward ongoing departmental and institutional transformation.