The craft and theory of public participation: a dialectical process

Abstract

This article proposes the craft-theory dialectic as a novel way to conceptualize advancement in the field of public participation. In this perspective, the field is characterized by a rich base of experiential knowledge and a scattered, but growing literature on theory. The chief challenge is to coordinate these two ways of knowing in an iterative, integrative fashion that enables practice to learn from theory and theory to learn from practice. Promoting the development of the craft-theory dialectic should be a central focus for the field. Toward this end this article identifies several key research topics that need attention, explicates these with vignettes from the literature, and discusses the challenges associated with addressing them.