This document summarizes an ethnographic study of a deliberative workshop on social housing involving both professionals and applicants. The study explored how marginalized individuals experience deliberation and whether it leads to empowerment or reinforcement of stigmatization. It found that initially there was anger and conflict between participants, but through collective investigation of a case study, awareness of institutional dysfunctions and the political dimension of social housing emerged. Some participants reported feeling empowered to speak out, but effects were fragile and collective action did not endure beyond the workshop. The study argues ethnography is useful for understanding deliberation by linking usually separate fields like social movements, participatory institutions, and everyday citizenship practices.

1. Understanding the empirical and normative
complexity of deliberation:
why ethnography is useful
Marion Carrel
University Lille 3-CeRIES (Lille)
Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux-EHESS (Paris)
Citizens in the Making – Tampere – May 2016

2. This talk is based on the paper:
Marion CARREL, « Politization and Publicization: the
Fragile Effects of Deliberation in Working-Class
Districts », European Journal of Cultural and Political
Sociology, vol.2, Nos 3-4, Sept-Dec 2015, p. 185-188.

3. Marginalized individuals in
deliberation processes:
• Empowerment or reinforcement of stigmatization?
• The use of ethnography to take us beyond this binary
confrontation:
– Explore citizenship in its relational dimensions (Clarke,
Coll, Dagnino, Neveu 2013 ; Carrel, Neveu 2014)
– Monitor the emergence of public issues while
preserve an interest in structural data (Luhtakallio,
Eliasoph 2014)
– Dialogue between description and theory (Frega
2015; Berger, Charles 2014; Carrel, Cefaï, Talpin 2012)

4. Deliberation and poverty:
Four main theoretical issues
• Conflict and dissent in citizenship (Rancière)
• Deliberation in small group vs public space
(Chambers)
• Participation and representation (Sintomer)
• Knowledge and power, the role of language
(Bourdieu, Ricoeur)

5. The fieldwork: an empowerment
workshop on social housing
• Design
– A group of 13 participants: 7 professionals and 6 applicants
for social housing (financial compensation)
– 12 days of work spread out over a 6 months period
– Demand: social department of a French city
– Animation: Suzanne Rosenberg and colleague
– Output: information leaflet on the application process for
social housing and propositions to the city and state
• Methodology
– Observation and interviews
– The case of Lila

6. The deliberative experience: from
violence to argued conflict
• Anger and incomprehension on each side: « This
is impossible », « you are lying », « you’re only
here for your personal interest »
• The inquiry (Dewey): Slow elaboration of
narratives, collective investigation on Lila’s
dossier
• Awareness of institutional dysfunctions and
political dimension of social housing

7. The deliberative experience: fragile
effects on participants
• Empowerment
« At the employement agency I said: ‘This isn’t right’. That’s
what changed for me » (Laure)
• Beginnings of politization
« The workshop was like a wake-up call (…) I am ready for
action» (Lila)

8. The deliberative experience: a
temporary form of counter-power
• Deliberative counter-powers (Fung, Wright
2003)
• The political objectives of Celine, co-director
of the social department, to bring issues of
social justice in the public arena
• Organizational changes and public claims

9. The double pitfall of deliberative
processes
• Institutional resistance and political exploitation
« I don’t want to provide an alibi for public housing agencies
and elected representatives who have no housing to offer»
(Yacine)
• Absence of durability of collective action: Lila’s
withdrawal
Six months after, Lila had given up trying to denounce the
injustices of social housing beyond her immediate circle of
friends and family.

10. Concluding comments (1)
• The ideal of inclusion and social change: « opening
deliberation to non-argumentative and critical forms of
expression » (Young); « deliberative activism » (Fung)
• The importance of the political objectives pursued
• The importance of organization through collective
action
• Empowerment requires time (Eliasoph): Twelve days
are not enough?

11. Concluding comments (2)
• Empowerment is a social construct
• In order to understand it better, researchers
needs to link up fields often considered as
disconnected:
– Conflictual, bottom-up approaches to citizenship
(social movements)
– Institutional apparatus (participatory democracy)
– Day-to-day practices (ordinary citizenship)