Asian American Studies Engages in Deliberative Democracy Dialogues

Sponsored with Community Outreach, Honors Program, Human Rights Institute, Rainbow Center, and Women’s Center at UConn, Tuesday’s lively and interactive conversation about the withdrawal of ordinary citizens from politics follows the National Issues Forums Institute’s series on Democracy’s Challenge: Reclaiming the Public’s Role. Framing the dialogues around three perspectives, break-out groups consisting of eight to ten UConn undergraduates and moderated by faculty and staff, were asked to weigh each approach. They also needed to work through consequences and tradeoffs, and to form a shared sense of direction on how to restore confidence in political participation and lay the foundation for making public choices together.

Keenly provocative but always incisive, Vijay Prashad dissected the historical arc and socio-economic implications of the origins of the current lamentation about politics and government policies. He pointed to the increasingly significant numbers of those among us who are rendered “disposable” – unemployable, redundant, poor, and marginalized – and more generally, the exhaustion of the “utopian” energy and the dearth of imagination that alienate many of us from full and robust participation.  Afraid rather than compassionate, average citizens are reduced to spectatorship and their choices driven more by convenience rather than by the complexity of the commitments that are at stake.

Vijay Prashad (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is author of eleven books, most recently, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World from New Press, chosen by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop as nonfiction book of 2008. He is George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies, and serves on the board of the National Priorities Project.

A recent Knight Foundation funded survey reported that the recession may be exacerbating civic weakness. The new study by the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship found that Florida ranks 46^th in the nation in civic culture, 49^th in volunteering, 48^th in the percentage of citizens who have attended a public meeting, and 37^th in the percentage of citizens who have worked with others to address a community issue. The survey also found that 70 percent of respondents have cut back on their civic participation due to the recession and the battered housing market in the state.

Contact Office of Community Outreach’s Gina DeVivo Brassaw http://www.volunteer.uconn.edu/ to get more involved.