dialogue

Experimenting with distributed approaches – Case study: A ‘national-level’ distributed dialogue on bioenergy

Marta Entradas

An emerging thread in the public participation debate is the need for innovative and more experimental forms of dialogue to address weaknesses of previous structured deliberative methods. This research note discusses an experiment with a distributed approach to dialogue, which used bioenergy as a case study. We discuss the potential of the model to attract a variety of publics and views and to inform policy. This is done with a view to refining future dialogues and increasing the involvement of scientists and other practitioners at the science-policy interface.

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“Dioxins are the easiest topic to mention”: Resident activists’ construction of knowledge about low-level exposure to toxic chemicals

Nina Blom Andersen

This article discusses how residents in a local area contributed to the construction of knowledge in regard to scientific assessments in relation to a fire in a storage dump of burnable waste. Building on analytical concepts primarily from Social Worlds theory as well as some concepts from Actor–Network Theory, the analysis shows how dissent and a number of scientific controversies were initiated by some residents living nearby the waste dump who proved to be excellent network builders and who built a number of alliances with media and independent scientists, thus questioning the authorities’ and their experts’ legitimacy. Furthermore, the situated analysis identifies how a few persons—not very organized—were able to create a debate about scientific matters using their combined resources and strong alliance-building abilities, thus proving that in some cases there is no need for a higher level of organization.

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Here’s another nice mess: using video in reflective dialogue research method

K. Hepplewhite

This account discusses ‘reflective dialogues’, a process utilising video to re-examine in-action decision-making with theatre practitioners who operate in community contexts. The reflexive discussions combine with observation, text and digital documentation to offer a sometimes ‘messy’ (from Schön 1987) dynamic to the research and provide multiple insights through reviewing the working processes. This account presents the method, along with examples from reflective dialogues with a selection of practitioners and critique of the processes. The account toys with this interplay of practice/research/reflection and attempts (albeit temporarily) to impose a structure to configure the mess. In seeking to re-inform the practitioners and potential practitioners in applied theatre, the reflective dialogues have generating their own web of messed up research-of-reflection-on-practice.

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(Re)acting medicine: applying theatre in order to develop a whole-systems approach to understanding the healing response

S. Goldingay, P. Dieppe, M. Mangan & D. Marsden

This critical reflection is based on the belief that creative practitioners should be using their own well-established approaches to trouble dominant paradigms in health and care provision to both form and inform the future of healing provision and well-being creation. It describes work by a transdisciplinary team (drama and medicine) that is developing a methodology which is rooted in productive difference; an evolving synergy between two cultural and intellectual traditions with significant divergences in their world-view perceptions, approaches and training methods. This commonality is underpinned by four assumptions that: (1) human-to-human interactions matter, (2) context matters, (3) the whole person and their community matters and (4) interpretation matters. In this paper, we reflect on the project’s early stages and uses of this methodology to investigate the fundamental human-to-human interaction of a person seeking healing (a healee) with a healer. We believe that this interaction enables the healing response – the intrinsic ability of the human organism to self-heal and regain homeostasis.

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