{"id":1264,"date":"2009-02-24T23:11:40","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T07:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2009\/02\/the_dark_side_of_participation\/"},"modified":"2009-02-24T23:11:40","modified_gmt":"2009-02-25T07:11:40","slug":"the_dark_side_of_participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/the_dark_side_of_participation.php","title":{"rendered":"The dark side of participation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arts advocates and funders have been avoiding the word ‘attendance’ for the past few years, and encouraging the word ‘participation’ as the better descriptor for the culturally engaged. Attendance is passive and unidirectional, the thinking goes. Participation describes a wider range of involvement with and in the arts.<\/p>\n

But advocates for that particular word might want to explore the unease it has brought to those in global development circles, where ”participation” can describe a more subtle and sophisticated approach for the privileged and powerful to get their way.<\/p>\n

Case in point: Participation: the New Tyranny?<\/a>\"\", a much-discussed book from almost a decade ago. Or Participation — From Tyranny to Transformation?<\/a>\"\", a more recent response to the challenge.<\/p>\n

There’s great opportunity and good intent in building engagement and two-way participation between artists and audiences. But no doubt there’s also a similar dark side in advancing participatory rhetoric when the intent is really just to sell more of the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arts advocates and funders have been avoiding the word ‘attendance’ for the past few years, and encouraging the word ‘participation’ as the better descriptor for the culturally engaged. Attendance is passive and unidirectional, the thinking goes. Participation describes a wider range of involvement with and in the arts. But advocates for that particular word might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}