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New international journal brings democracy and Cultural participation into focus.

Is contemporary citizen involvement a method of practising local democracy, or is it merely a way of legitimizing a political discourse? This is one of the questions that are being discussed in the first issue of Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation.

The first issue of the new journal Conjunctions has just been published. This new international journal crosses academic disciplines, as well as national borders.

`Cultural participation is something that affects most disciplines. Within the health sector, researchers are working with patient involvement, whereas other projects involve citizens in urban planning. In art, you will also find that the focus upon participation is increasing. For example, AROS right now has an exhibition of paintings by the Danish painter Michael Kvium, where it is possible for citizens to contribute with self-portraits inspired by Kvium´s paintings´, says Camilla Møhring Reestorff, who is one of the scientists behind the new journal.

Local democracy, the very concept of involving citizens in more and more contexts, is one of the focus areas the new journal sets out to investigate. And with good reason, according to Camilla Møhring Reestorff:

 `When applying for support for, for example, an NGO project, more and more foundations demand that the have project must have some degree of citizen involvement. Among other things, we would like to examine the borderland between citizen involvement as a method of legitimizing a political discourse and citizen involvement where real influence is delegated to the participants´.

The first issue of the journal contains article from New Zealand, USA, Australia, England and Denmark. The editorial team is also interested in hearing from researchers at AU.

In case you are interested in contributing to the journal, please contact:

Camilla Møhring Reestorff
E-mail: norcmr@dac.au.dk
Phone: 87163181  

 Read more:

Read the first issue of Conjunctions:  Participatory Cultural Citizenship

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