Democracy Rising 20: Deliberative Dialogue as Service Learning
Through deliberative pedagogy, students are prepared to participate in solving problems important to them and their communities.
Series
Home Soil
Soil is not dirt. It is not a pile of fine-ground rock and biological detritus. It is not even a home for mycelium and microorganisms, annelids and insects, roots and burrowing chordates. It is the sum of all those things living together.
Power: Chapter 3. Power in the Holocene
Whether in family, school, work, or politics, we’re all immersed in the pathologies of power. If we’re lucky, we learn to navigate these waters without being harmed irreparably, and without harming others. Many are not so fortunate.
Democracy Rising 19: Dialogue in Dixie
The literal heart of Dixie (the U.S. Deep South) is the very last place one might expect to see a community rallying around the idea of acceptance and inclusivity—especially if the community is a small town in Alabama declaring itself a safe, nurturing, and inviting space for LGBTQ+ individuals.
Healing Grounds: Excerpt
I needed to speak to people whose ancestors had experienced the slaughter of their bison herds, the enslavement of their entire family, the brutal exploitation of migratory farm work, or incarceration at the hands of their own government while their crops were left to rot.
Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate – Excerpt
This excerpt from the second edition explores some of the lessons learned in the contemporary sustainable food movement, a movement that – although incomplete and imperfect – has devoted considerable effort to understanding what it means to feed ourselves without harm to land, people and community.
Democracy Rising 18: Deliberation, Free Speech, and Democracy
We all have a sense (though often only a fairly vague sense) that free speech is somehow crucial to democracy. But why should that be the case?
Democracy Rising 17: Earth Overshoot Demands Stronger Civic Infrastructure
In Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy, Tina Nabatchi and I defined civic infrastructure as “the laws, processes, institutions, and associations that support regular opportunities for people to connect with each other, solve problems, make decisions, and celebrate community.”
Power: Chapter 2. Power in the Pleistocene
The power to communicate aesthetic pleasure and thereby to feel profound affinity with other people, including individuals of other species, propel human culture forward in ways that are hard to measure, but that are impossible to ignore. These are powers that provide hope for our future.
Democracy Rising 16: Getting Started with Dialogue and Deliberation, Part 5
As you work to create deliberative dialogues, you will face many challenges. This post looks at two of those: getting people to show up, and ensuring that participation is productive.
Democracy Rising 15: Getting Started with Dialogue and Deliberation, Part 4
Even as an ordinary citizen you can begin engaging and facilitating change by starting with dialogue right where you are, and building from there.
Power: Chapter 1. Power in Nature
There are probably downsides to humans’ specialized powers (extreme intelligence, a highly developed ability to communicate, and proficient tool use). We humans tend to emphasize the advantages of these traits, but it’s always important to look for hidden costs.
