Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 I, Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research
Paper Session
Contribution
In France and within the European Union, representative democracies are in crisis due to the rise of abstention and the erosion of public confidence in the institutions. The COVID health crisis and the social distancing measures have contributed to the deterioration of physical interactions in social life. Researches on civic engagement and political participation in educational sciences and psychology tell us what engagement is, what representations individuals or institutions have of civic rights and duties (Civic Knowledge Framework, 2023). Beyond these researches, how can research contribute to positive social transformation? What challenges awaits the researcher wanting to use research as a transformative channel? Grounded in a multidisciplinary approach, the research evoked in this paper seeks to accompany changes in posture, both among elected officials and citizens, at a municipal level to recreate a participatory culture and repair frayed local social bonds. It is a qualitative longitudinal research and we have been invited into this municipality via the mayor and some of the elected representatives to follow a local experimentation on a new participation project. This is a local policy set by the elected council to involve citizens in collective projects for the municipality. Using institutional analysis (Lourau, 1970), psychosociological studies on group, crisis and the collective imaginary (Guist-Desprairies, 2009), and certain studies in political science (Amnå&Ekman, 2014), we have designed a framework to accompany a participatory council made of volunteer citizens and elected officials, and we try to help them understand and overcome conflicts and contradictions to recreate a participatory culture. The theoretical framework is based on the institutional socio-clinical approach that “aims to think together about the singular futures of subjects (their practices, their subjectivities) and institutional and political transformations.” (Monceau, 2013).
It is necessary to say that I have been following the participative council since December 2022 and a lot of steps have been taken. At the beginning of the participation project, the municipality paid a service provider to apply a new method of scientific mediation inspired by the work of Bruno Latour. The citizens gathered for the workshops. A part of those citizens became members of the participative council that emerged from the first period of the participation project.
Method
This study uses a variety of tools to elaborate its methodology inspired by the concept of situated knowledge which also leads to an analysis of the researcher’s “I” (Harraway, 1988). Ethnographic tools are essential because I am a participant observer. Therefore, I write a field notes journal which allows me to analyze my involvement (Monceau, 2013). I mind my emotions and reactions to my environment to be able to objectivate possible bias. I also have a clinical approach: I conducted semi-structured clinical interviews (Galletta, 2013) with elected officials and citizens about their engagement and how they think of participatory culture. Moreover, because I care about epistemic justice and ethics, I decided to transcribe the interviews and give them back so that the interviewed can modify it if they think it is necessary. We discuss the reasons for modifications together and it allows me to explain how some information could be used in my research and how it is analyzed.
Expected Outcomes
The participative council needed to be accompanied because its members were a new consultative organization. They needed to understand why they were here, what the municipality wanted from them, and what they wanted to do with those expectations. Some citizens that came didn’t have political knowledge and the group needed to use collaborative methods to make their collective works. The researcher becomes a mediator that explains the implicit language and norms but also a trainer to help them with project methodology. Therefore, the individuals and the group can develop their empowerment and their critical thinking skills. This research seeks adult emancipation and development of civic engagement. Through this research, I have observed and I still witness a path being crafted by both the searcher that I am and the collective I take part of (participative council). This raises the following question: how does the searcher think and engage into academic research beyond the quest for results, but as an opportunity to fulfill a wider goal that recognizes the movement produced by his research and its transformative power?
References
Amnå, E. Ekman, J. (2014). Standby citizens: diverse faces of political passivity .European Political Science Review. Galletta, A., & CROSS, W. E. (2013). Mastering the Semi-Structured Interview and Beyond: From Research Design to Analysis and Publication. NYU Press. Giust-Desprairies, F. (2009). L’imaginaire collectif. Toulouse, France : ERES. Giust-Desprairies, F. (2015). Penser le groupe : enjeux historiques et théoriques d'un engagement social. Dans : René Kaës éd., Crises et traumas à l'épreuve du temps : Le travail psychique dans les groupes, les couples et les institutions. Paris : Dunod, 147-176. Haraway, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. Lourau, R. (1970). L’analyse institutionnelle. EditionsMinuit. Monceau, G. (2013). Institutionnalisation de la réflexivité et obstacles à l’analyse de l’implication. Dans : Jacques Béziat éd., Analyse de pratiques et réflexivité : Regards sur la formation, la recherche et l’intervention socio-éducative (pp. 21-32). Paris:L'Harmattan.
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