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First published online January 31, 2008

Deliberating Competence: Theoretical and Practitioner Perspectives on Effective Participatory Appraisal Practice

Jason ChilversView all authors and affiliations
Volume 33, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439073075941

Abstract

The “participatory turn” cutting across technical approaches for appraising environment, risk, science, and technology has been accompanied by intense debates over the desired nature, extent, and quality of public engagement in science. Burgeoning work evaluating the effectiveness of such processes and the social study of science in society more generally is notable, however, for lacking systematic understanding of the very actors shaping these new forms science-society interaction. This paper addresses this lacuna by drawing on United Kingdom based in-depth empirical research that made space for participatory appraisal experts to reflect on effective practice and novel questions of competence, expertise, and citizen-specialist relations within analytic-deliberative processes. Emerging practitioner principles warn that existing participatory models have not sufficiently considered constructivist perspectives on knowledge, analysis, and deliberation. Effective participatory appraisal under uncertainty needs to guard against the “technocracy of participation” by opening up to diversity, difference, antagonism, and uncertainties/indeterminacies.

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1.
1. One context in which participatory practitioners have been involved in critical self-reflection, however, is international development, particularly concerning the practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal (see, for example, Cornwall and Pratt 2003).
2.
2. Taken from Habermas's theory of pragmatics, these four discourse types relate to discourse: about the comprehensibility/clarity of communications (explicative discourse); about knowledge and “facts” (theoretical discourse); about values and norms (practical discourse); and about the authenticity/sincerity of claims (therapeutic discourse) (Webler 1995).
3.
3. Further details of this network mapping methodology, which used the concept of epistemic communities in conjunction with methods of social network analysis, and the results of PA network analysis, are provided in Chilvers (in press).
4.
4. Respondents' identities remain anonymous on ethical grounds because not all agreed to be identified. Gatekeeper selection was guided by initial understandings of the UK PA field in relation to four criteria, including respondents': reputation; experience of PA; diversity of expertise (across PA actor types noted above); and sector diversity. Iterative network analysis as research progressed confirmed inclusivity and diversity in this regard, and served as the basis for selecting stage two respondents. One-third of all interviewees were female. Participatory process experts comprised leading researchers and practitioners with high levels of recognized expertise and experience in public engagement. Most scientific experts held little or no expertise in conducting participatory processes but had gained experience as participants or “expert witnesses.” The experiences of decision makers were primarily related to their role in commissioning and sponsoring PA processes and translating outcomes into policy.
5.
5. The PMW was conducted by researchers from University College London for the Radioactive Substances Division of the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, and drawn on by CoRWM in designing its PSE strategies. Participants worked in groups to design PSE strategies for CoRMW's policy options appraisal process and define criteria by which to judge its effectiveness. Full details of the workshop methodology are provided in Chilvers et al. (2003).
6.
6. This significant minority comprised a relatively small number of participatory process experts exclusively wedded to a stakeholder (as opposed to a citizen-based) model of deliberation, along with some scientists and decision makers.

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Published In

Volume 33, Issue 3
Pages: 421 - 451
Article first published online: January 31, 2008
Issue published: May 2008

Keywords

  1. public participation
  2. analytic-deliberative processes
  3. evaluation
  4. principles
  5. environmental risk
  6. United Kingdom

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Jason Chilvers
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
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