Participation Research Group

The Participation Research Group explores the nature of participation, its theoretical underpinnings and its practice. This research group provides a trans-disciplinary opportunity to share and contest the limits of participation and how it is used in research design and object of study. In particular, the group is concerned with the following aspects of participation:

• Definitions, theoretical underpinnings and impacts of participation across different disciplines and epistemologies;
• The nature of participation in arts and culture, and its role in the formation, negotiation and articulation of cultural value;
• Participatory practices in performance and the arts, and their impact;
• The aesthetics and ethics of participatory artistic practices;
• The relationship between participation and place (e.g., the right to the city; participatory practices for environmental goals; participation and sustainability);
• The role of cultural policy in fostering, measuring and defining participation;
• The participatory governance of culture.