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Power, control, participation

  • Webinar
Event start date:
8:30
Event end date:
17:00
Event location:
Online
Add to calendar:

Organizers: Law School at the University of Eastern Finland together with CORE project

We welcome all scholars from doctoral researchers to professors and practitioners to join.

The themes of our research seminar – power, control and participation – can be approached from many angles. The seminar welcomes contributions based on theoretical or empirical research as well as papers presenting practical examples.

You can participate in the seminar on Joensuu campus or online. Link to participation will be sent to all registered. Registrations by 8 March. Please see detailed information on the event web pages in the address https://sites.uef.fi/vvoseminaari/programme/?lang=en.

Challenges of power, control, and participation may relate, for example, to control of power or to the ways in which participation seeks to broaden democratic practices, be it civic participation or employee participation in corporate governance. Participation can be attached to the questions of limiting or controlling the use of power. The broader themes are also related to the realization of self-determination in human decision-making and, in particular, the ability of vulnerable persons to influence decision-making themselves. Power, control and participation can also have their defects and unexpected consequences. Sometimes it may be relevant to ask, who controls the supervisor and how the supervisor exercises power? There is also a need to observe and consider the construction and purpose of participation. Participation might strengthen the existing power structures and imply acceptance of existing power practices. Different types of engagement arrangements can reinforce incompetence and exclusion. How do the ideas of participation reflect the mechanisms of responsibility and how are control and competences of it constructed? Does participation create a pattern of control besides sovereign power, parliamentary and institutional control? What kind of control and power mechanisms self-control, corporate social responsibility, the promotion of individual rights and participation represent? When knowledge is needed, who provides it and whose knowledge becomes part of the practices of power?

Abstracts to working groups should be submitted directly to the working group conveners on 28.2.2021 the latest. Find more info on tab ‘working groups’.

On 25 March registration begins at 8:30 am and the programme at 9 am. 

Confirmed Keynote 

Power of participatory science? – Tackling scientification of decision making by democratising science.

Taru Peltola, Associate Professor, Department of Geographical and Historical Studies at the University of Eastern Finland, and, Programme for Environmental Information, at the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE.