Conference Agenda

Democracy has developed a bad reputation in the past decade and is often experienced as challenging, strenuous, frustrating, broken. We witness an increasing inclination towards “benevolent authorities” in the so called Western cultures, in the deluded belief a single person would make better decisions than an informed and democratically skilled collective. Faster for sure – better? Undoubtfully not. There have been a lot of insightful analyses to describe the reasons for these phenomena from psychological, politological, sociological and transdisciplinary viewpoints. But the question is: how can participation succeed? Can we contribute in democratic learning as researchers, teachers, counsellors,…?

In this Game Changer-Workshop we’ll explore how democratic experience can be actively promoted, felt, and studied through creative qualitative inquiry. Across three 90-minute sessions, participants will engage through theoretical input, experimental exercises and collective reflection, working together to generate insights into how inquiry itself can function as a democratic act. Implementing contemporary theories, we will look at emotions as relational forces that shape participation, dialogue, recognition and hence possibilities of encounter. Participants will examine how emotional dynamics influence the ways communities engage with one another, and how shared reflection can deepen collective understanding and intraconnection. By combining embodied practice with reflective discussion, the session creates a space in which inquiry becomes an act of co-creation, valuing multiplicity, vulnerability, and shared meaning-making. Depending on the size of the group we’ll engage in different kinds of playful experiments and collective decision-making, following the principle of “listening before judging” and find out, if and how this approach can help to develop and deepen democratic processes.

The topic addresses broader societal and scholarly challenges: how to foster inclusive, dialogical spaces for belonging and knowledge creation, and integrating affective, participatory and experimental approaches into qualitative research. By foregrounding relationality and shared reflection, the session invites researchers from diverse disciplines—including social sciences, arts-based research, participatory methodologies, and civic engagement—to co-develop approaches that respond to pressing societal questions.

By the end of the three sessions, participants will have experienced democratic research practices firsthand and contributed to a shared output that embodies inclusive, participatory, and affectively informed inquiry. This approach exemplifies how creative qualitative research can address urgent societal questions, supporting the development of research practices that are both responsive and generative.