[PeDAGoG] New article – Evolving Prefigurative Politics in an Intentional Community: The Auroville Citizens’ Assembly Pilot

[Suryamayi Aswini Clarence-Smith]

Dear All,

I am happy to share my latest academic article – *Evolving Prefigurative
Politics in an Intentional Community: The Auroville Citizens’ Assembly
Pilot*
<https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8DF9EFQSSQRMIEAX5YNM/full?target=10.1080/07393148.2024.2376425#abstract>–
coauthored
with Lesley Branagan in New Political Science.

It will be of particular interest to anyone interested in prefigurative
politics, direct and deliberative democracy, Citizens' Assemblies, and
intentional communities – specifically Auroville (India).

Abstract

In this paper we explore how a Citizens’ Assembly project in Auroville –
the largest intentional community in the world – sought to prefigure new
practices in collective decision-making. A Citizens’ Assembly model is a
democratic innovation that enacts a deliberative mode of political
decision-making by everyday citizens. It has been used by diverse bodies,
from social movements to nation-state governments around the world.
Auroville’s 2021 Citizens’ Assembly pilot – concerning a water vision for
Auroville – is a unique case study that enables us to make a distinctive
contribution to the existing academic scholarship concerning Citizens’
Assemblies and prefigurative politics on two grounds. Firstly, Auroville is
an intentional community shaped by specific spiritual and self-governance
values – an uncommon setting for a Citizens’ Assembly that supports us to
make specific empirical offerings not seen in the literature on Citizens’
Assemblies to date. Secondly, given that Auroville’s pilot Citizens’
Assembly sought to prefigure the community’s foundational ideals of “human
unity” and “unending education” in its collective decision-making practice,
we connect our analysis to the academic scholarship concerning
prefigurative politics. In doing so, we uniquely draw together the
scholarship concerning Citizens’ Assemblies and the literature concerning
prefigurative politics to explore whether such democratic innovations have
a transformative effect on the political contexts they are embedded in,
which we freshly consider with a focus on local scale, and the role that
institutionalisation might have in terms of ensuring the reproduction, and
thereby lasting impact of such experiments, or conversely their
nullification.

*Dr. Suryamayi Aswini Clarence-Smith *
(She/Her)
Researcher, Educator, Activist
suri at berkeley.edu
Skype: Suryamayi
LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/suryamayi/> | ResearchGate
<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Suryamayi-Clarence-Smith>

My book, Prefiguring Utopia: The Auroville Experiment
<https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/prefiguring-utopia-in-auroville>, is
published by Bristol University Press:



*Other Publications:*

   - 2024 (Forthcoming) “Evolving Prefigurative Politics in an Intentional
   Community: The Auroville Citizens’ Assembly Pilot” *New Political
   Science*.
   - 2024 (Forthcoming) “Prompting Spiritually Prefigurative Practice:
Collective
   Decision-Making in Auroville, India.” *Eco‐communities: Surviving Well
   Together.* Ed. Jenny Pickerill.
   - Clarence-Smith, S. (2022) “Prefiguration and Utopia.” *The Future is
   Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics. *Ed. Lara Monticelli.
   Bristol University Press.
   - Clarence-Smith, S. and L. Monticelli (2022) “Flexible
   Institutionalisation in Auroville: A Prefigurative Alternative to
   Development.” *Sustainability Science* 17*.*
   - Le Hunte, B., K. Ross, S. Clarence-Smith and A. Rosegger (2022)
   “Lessons from Utopia: Reflections on Peak Transformative Experiences in a
   University Studio in Auroville, India.” *Palgrave Handbook on Learning
   for Transformation*. Eds. A. Nicolaides, S. Eschenbacher, P. Buergelt,
   Y. Gilpin-Jackson, M. Welch, M. Misawa, A. Lim.
   - Clarence-Smith, S. (2021) “Auroville: An Experiment in Spiritually
   Prefigurative Utopian Practice.” *Transgressive Utopianism: Essays in
   Honour of Lucy Sargisson*. Eds. Lyman Tower Sargent and Raffaella
   Baccolini. Peter Lang (Ralahine Utopian Studies).
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