Polyphony

Our research for this project started with a word that was repeated seve- ral times in the introduction presentation - the word stakeholders.

The EU Policy Lab prides itself on having in place multiple channels for citizens to give their input and participate in decision-making and in sha- ping EU policies, from online forms to Citizen Assemblies dedicated to specific issues. But when we looked more closely at these formal proces- ses, supposedly designed to make space for all stakeholders to participate, we began to see a pattern of figure vs. ground, where voices and experien- ces are excluded not from lack of good will, but because they are demo- graphically complex, because their experience is too specific to be seen by a state, because they are unable to participate through the channels offered to them, because of disability or lack of literacy, or because they cannot access the information they would need to make a decision.

We began to see this pattern present also in many other processes brid- ging people and institutions, formal and informal - from social services and benefits to healthcare and the workplace to the dynamics of nightlife. In places where you are offered options for participation, and choices bet- ween options, and yet the very formulation of a choice already excludes you from participating.

We materialised our research as a series of five branching narratives, based on situations we have encountered, in the format of a Choose- Your-Own-Adventure book, but turning the format against itself: Using it to demonstrate how infrastructures of participation put in place to enhance choice and agency, also delimit who can participate in civic life and in what (pre-defined) ways. Hidden in the structure of the narratives are endless loops that cannot be escaped without cheating, entire storyli- nes that cannot be accessed without an insider letting you in, faux choice situations where the cost of option is impossibly high, and absurd tempo- ralities where the urgency of analog reality fails to make an impact on the inbuilt slowness of bureaucratic processes.

The Storylines

The storylines in these Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books trace diver- se perspectives grounded in personal experiences of participation, and exclusion, across different systems.

Jiexian‘s book follows an elderly person‘s attempt to access urgent he- althcare, through conveninet digital channels that they lack the literacy for.

Josephine‘s book tells the story of participation in an industry that is very much based on social cliques, where the information you need to make workplace decision is itself a privileged access.

Mihyun‘s book is a story of social participation, showing how digital social circles become exclusionary by their very structure, leaving you without a community in analog life.

Gittit‘s book shows you getting locked into the formalised process of im- migration, and how sometimes the information needed to complete these processes isn‘t available through any formal channels, but only through experience.

And Linda‘s book tries to take you through what a night out in Amster- dam feels like, revealing the many visible and invisible systems that shape how, when, and for whom participation becomes possible.

Reflections

As the next iteration of the project, we are considering a workshop for- mat, that invites both citizens and policymakers to participate in. The idea is for participants to create their own Choose-Your-Own-Adventu- re book, allowing them to untangle and reflect their own positionally in regard to a set topic.

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books can offer a methodology for unders- tanding the systems of participation available to oneself, and in a second step enabling others to perceive a certain reality through someone else’s perspective.

Since many policymaking panels are based on unifying outcomes often at the expense of nuanced details, we recognized the need for an archival tool that preserves and shares these individual, detailed experiences.

We felt that choosing a character to explore the systemics and embody our analysis helped us surface blind spots and break down complexity in a delicate and detailed way. The format of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventu- re book is a playful one - you are excited to have all these choices and the ability to participate and affect the narrative, but then there‘s a moment of let-down where you find that the choice itself is already excluding you.

We thought it was important to give the research a physical, tangible form. Not because of some kind of pastiche, but because it reflects the fact that many of these processes do happen online, but they affect the offline reality of the person facing them. The process of going through.