Promoting Listening in the Public Sphere : Practitioner’s Perspectives in Malmö

Abstract: This essay examines how projects aspiring to improve the democratic inclusion of minorities are intended to change how the majority society listens. Assuming that the recognition of marginalized individuals as political equals is central to social change, the recognition of their voices in public spheres is deemed crucial for empowerment. Recognition of voices in the form of listening is presumed to require that marginalized individuals learn to formulate effective claims to be listened to. In Sweden, residents with a foreign background are often met with initiatives claiming to promote political participation, but the effectiveness and intentions of these initiatives remain contested. Therefore, local projects intended to improve democratic inclusion are evaluated based on what their work does to develop the capabilities of project participants to make such claims. Semi-structured interviews with practitioners working for different NGOs and a study association in Malmö surveys commonalities in the local context regarding how organizations develop these political capabilities. The interviewee’s depictions of their work are compared to a theoretical framework explicating what is needed to promote change. The theoretical framework relies on ideas on what to achieve, which presents what listening should be and how marginalized groups are to be included in common deliberations, with ideas on how this should be achieved, which presents a critical pedagogy appropriate for the specific context. Relevant reflective practices and modes of action promoted by the organizations are discerned in a qualitative content analysis. A very diverse picture of the relations between methods used by the organizations and the theoretical framework appears. A minority of the presented methods clearly relate to this theoretical framework while most methods do not include the crucial criterion of critical awareness of social injustices. Although the practitioners overall agree on the theoretical ideas concerning the meaning of listening and the structures of exclusion, the depicted methods do not directly answer to the issues they agree on. Several methods rather focus on developing practical knowledge, self-awareness, and a positive attitude toward political interactions. Although political capabilities are promoted in the depicted methods of the organizations, these capabilities appear inapplicable to claim a right to be listened to and thus not effective to challenge profound power inequalities. The results indicate that residents with a foreign background learn capabilities to cooperate rather than to claim rights.