Participation and deliberation in the periphery

by University of Eastern Finland

Prospects in Peripheries (PiP) is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project that seeks to develop methods to increase attractiveness of peripheries and combat marginalisation. Last month, the UEF research teams of EUARENAS and PiP met to discuss the synergies and possible knowledge transfer between the two projects.

The potential link between the two projects lies in the fact that contributing to and involvement in the decision-making processes in peripheries through participatory and deliberative practices improves a sense of attachment and fosters identification with their place of residence.

Both EUARENAS and PiP are interested in and pilot social innovations in selected European cities. The PiP toolkit for prospect generation in peripheries can be applied in the EUARENAS sphere of citizen inclusion in participatory and deliberative processes. In turn, empirical methods applied by EUARENAS such as community reporting and media discourse analysis can be useful for gathering stakeholder insights, which is fundamental to PiP’s objectives.