Reversing the Gaze is a series of international, participatory online workshops organised by ScaleDem: an EU-funded research-action project dedicated to scaling democratic innovations beyond the research lab and into real-world policy.

Research on democratic innovation does not know borders, and yet, knowledge remains heavily fragmented: across disciplines, but also across continents. In Europe, theories and frameworks that guide how participatory democracy is designed and scaled remain very much marked by eurocentrism, even though some of the process we study originated and scaled across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe! The 'Reversing the Gaze’ workshop series aims to feed and enrich ScaleDem’s research on scaling democratic innovations with perspectives from experienced practitioners coming from outside Western Europe to challenge this traditional, Eurocentric vision and create new comparative perspectives.

What are the workshops about?

Each workshop focuses on a specific region and asks a shared question: what does 'scaling democratic innovations' actually look like in different contexts? What works, what doesn't, and what can we collectively learn from these experiences? Looking at very concrete indicators to go beyond generic statements, discussions will be structured around practical experience from different countries within the region to improve those. We aim to make these online workshops a space for real exchange and learning for both participants, and our project team. It is for this reason that we would like to organize a fireside chat discussion with one scholar from our project team, and one from the region under scrutiny.

Who is this for?

We are looking for mid-to-advanced level practitioners and professionals, including:

• Practitioners with experience in participatory or democratic processes
• Public officials engaged in democratic governance
• Academics and researchers in democracy, governance, or civic participation
• Representatives of civil society organisations and networks

How to register?

To register your interest, please fill in the form here: 'Reversing the Gaze' Scaledem online workshops - Register your interest! – Remplir le formulaire

The form takes approximately 2 minutes to complete. A confirmation email will follow up as there is a limit to the number of participants in each workshop.