“They’re just not listening” has become a familiar lament in contemporary politics. Politicians often promise to listen, and citizens still feel let down. If listening is often hailed as a remedy for the ills of distrust, disaffection, and polarization, what do we mean exactly by listening and what does listening well look like in practice? To whom should government listen, and how? What needs to be done to embed listening in the workings of government across multiple scales?
This workshop brings together people thinking about these issues in academia, think tanks, and charitable organizations to address these questions from multiple angles—from the impacts of unresponsive economic policy to the potential of deliberative democracy, from the political challenges of building sustainable coalitions to the marginalization of minorities in public policy. The workshop will be interactive, with two sets of short panel presentations, each followed by small-group discussion organized around prompt questions to help identify concrete policy proposals.
In the first half, we will look at a range of political and political-economic factors influencing distrust and how these can be tackled. The second half will focus on more inclusive practices of listening including deliberative democracy and combatting the marginalization of minority voices.
This is the fourth and final in a series of FREE workshops organized by Professor Naomi Waltham-Smith to explore the potential for research on listening, sound, and music to inform policymaking. These workshops will bring together academics from multiple disciplines with think tanks, NGOs, grassroots and other civil society organizations, lawyers, and others working to influence policymaking to discuss key issues and to identify opportunities to collaborate.
If you wish to attend, please email naomi.waltham-smith@music.ox.ac.uk no later than noon on Monday 2 September. Spaces are limited due to the interactive nature of the sessions.
Learn more about the workshop series here: www.auralflaneur.com/open-workshops
