Do deliberative processes merely extract knowledge from vulnerable communities without giving them anything in return? We examine alternative practices from the case of CabildoxLatAm.

In September 2020, over 400 citizens from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, México, Perú and Puerto Rico took part in CabildoxLatAm—a transnational deliberative town hall aimed at mapping and strengthening community-led responses to COVID-19.

Eighteen grassroots organisations, academics and innovation labs came together to organise the town hall. As organisers, we wanted to understand how communities respond to the absent, limited and often insufficient government responses in times of crises. We envisioned a highly participatory planning process and launched an open call for lay citizens, experts, public officials, graphic designers, community leaders, civil society organisations and feminist and LGBTQI+ collectives to join 12 cocreation sessions. They took part in setting questions, mapping initiatives and envisioning the agenda of the town hall.

CabildoxLatAm consisted of six sessions of digital deliberation over four days. Participants joined via Zoom using their phone or shared computers and tablets made available by community leaders. We discussed collective responses to the pandemic in four thematic areas: planetary health, food sovereignty, education, and digital governance. In each session, we mapped initiatives ranging from local food pantries to citizen-led monitoring of government expenditure and data analysis on the spread of COVID-19.

On the last day of the town hall, we hosted an open dialogue to gather feedback from the participants about the deliberative process. Citizens who took part in the cocreation process expressed feeling more prepared for the deliberation. Community organisers signalled how deliberation allowed them to question their own participatory processes; while volunteers and moderators pointed out that convening international groups in breakout rooms increased trust among participants. Many felt that the reasons that brought them together transcended borders and historical divisions as they shared the need to develop radical responses to structural inequalities and the uneven effects of the pandemic.

Yet, problems around the participatory design, implementation and assessment of the town hall still remained.

Challenges and Considerations in Designing Deliberation for and with Communities

As we reflected on the participants’ assessments, we realised that, as convenors, we replicated certain problems often present in one-off processes of deliberative democracy. Mapping citizen-led spaces of participation and creating a space to strengthen these responses without substantial, community-centred follow-up strategies to continue this newly created network can constitute a practice of knowledge ‘extractivism.’

Extractivism refers to practices that use the experiences and situated knowledge of vulnerable groups to fulfil ends that don’t actually tackle the concerns of those communities. These practices are reminiscent of participatory processes promoted by developmental and governmental agendas during the 1990s in Latin America. Such agendas have been criticised for instrumentalising or depoliticizing citizens to give legitimacy to processes they did not own, gain electoral support, or co-opt and maintain power despite election results.

We propose three recommendations based on our experience in organising CabildoxLatAm that can allow us to move beyond extractivist or utilitarian deliberation.

1) Continuity and networks

First, participants expressed concerns over the limitations of scheduled deliberations and the short lives of communities created within these spaces. They complained about the strict time allocation in each session as it constrained the quality and depth of conversations, especially among participants who only met each other for the first time. They argued that dialogue and trust building with an expiry date can repeat the mistakes of the political campaign trail: instrumentalising communities, replacing collective processes with momentary responses and reinforcing the disaffection linked to the one-off or infrequent nature of many public engagement mechanisms.

For example, the session dedicated to map community alternatives for education gathered the lowest number of responses despite having the highest number of participants. They were enthusiastic about understanding and imagining new forms of providing psychological support, covering basic needs and expanding the capacities needed by students after the pandemic. They were eager to continue this conversation, but the tight schedule of deliberation didn’t allow it.

A first step toward continued spaces for community building and participation could include convening follow-up meetings for a period after the deliberation and creating alternative fora (e.g., digital platforms) to continue those conversations.

2) Combining structured and extrainstitutional spaces of participation

While deliberative spaces aim to improve representative democracies by involving citizens in decision making, they need to be wary of foregoing community-led mobilisation and governance. During CabildoxLatAm, for instance, indigenous and Afro-descendant activists expressed the need to have political and territorial sovereignty during multistakeholder processes. In practice, this would mean financing, embedding and implementing deliberative practices in community-owned spaces and self-governance structures, not only in government institutions.

In response to this challenge, deliberative democrats ought to pay more attention to processes implemented and embedded both in institutional and extrainstitutional spaces. The upcoming Global Assembly is a good example in which deliberation will take place both within the UN Climate Change Conference COP and within alternative spaces governed by multiple community organisations across the world. We may also draw inspiration from flexible spaces and emancipatory forms of governance in which short-term deliberations can be embedded, such as traditional local town halls or systems of indigenous communal government.

3) Self-selection and representation

During the town hall, citizens highlighted the knowledge gained from having several hundreds of participants and expressed interest in even larger and more open deliberative schemes. However, the dominant practice in deliberative processes today seems to be the random selection of a small group of citizens representative of the larger population. The practice of random selection overlooks the fact that many countries do not have the institutional means and financial resources to undertake such a process, especially in the Global South. Sustaining random selection as a general principle for deliberation and a condition for legitimate output can thus result in exclusionary standards demanded under unequal conditions.

One alternative is to include different selection strategies across the stages of deliberation. The experience of CabildoxLatAm showed that self-selection allows communities to voice their concerns, directly address the issues that affect them, foster networks for collective action and develop meaningful and long-term strategies. Mapping problems and solutions on the ground and identifying the strategies and resources of communities demand an in-depth knowledge of the territories and needs of vulnerable populations. Thus, key actors should be allowed to self-select and self-represent.

Lessons for the Future

During CabildoxLatAm, digital and transnational deliberation allowed us to map alternative futures for mobilised communities that face high levels of inequality in institutionally challenged democracies. Moreover, participants demanded continuity and ownership of their engagement. They argued for sustainable, noninstitutionalised processes that can act flexibly in contexts of limited statehood, and sustained their claims for self-selection as central contributors to the well-being of their communities. This showed us the extent to which some of the bastions of deliberative democracy can still be challenged and strengthened.

We therefore suggest to (1) provide flexible follow-up mechanisms after deliberative processes and understand these as a standard of good practice, (2) to embed participatory processes not only in government and international institutions but also in community-owned spaces of self-governance, and (3) to combine self-selection and randomisation to ensure the inclusion of vulnerable groups and interested stakeholders.

Further strategies of improving the design and implementation of deliberative processes could include instances of mass deliberation (i.e., larger numbers of citizens connected through local leaders in collective spaces such as squares, markets and schools). More resources need to be invested in multilevel, transmedia and plural means of connection and engagement for citizens prior to deliberation. Finally, more attention must be paid to externally driven forms of legitimacy, including deliberation as a means to identify the needs of communities and to engage them as active stakeholders in the implementation of responses to crises.

About the Authors

Azucena Morán is research associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), PhD candidate at the University of Potsdam, and senior research fellow at Public Agenda. She tweets @azumoran.

Melisa Ross is research fellow at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), PhD candidate at Humboldt University, and senior research fellow at Public Agenda. She tweets @kmelisaross.

Acknowledgements

CabildoxLatAm was co-organised by IASS Potsdam, MIT Media Lab, PHA, WLPH, TEC Monterrey, PUCP, ICTA-UAB, LATINNO-WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Asuntos del Sur, Fundación Avina, CEJIL, Ciudadanía Inteligente, Hackeo Cultural, Instituto25A, Diversa, Global Change, La Sobremesa, and Factual. For more information, please refer to Reporte CabildoxLatAm (in Spanish).
We thank Nicole Curato for her insightful comments.