The project Engendering Public Engagement, Democratizing Public Space was inspired by the democratic consultation methods of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women between 1967 and 1970. The project is directed at answering the following question: can a method that involves both in-person discussions and consultations using new information and communications technology facilitate a Canada-wide feminist public policy conversation? The answer to this question will inform the design of a larger consultation of feminists to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 2020.
Engendering Public Engagement project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is led by Dr. Barbara Cameron, Department of Political Science York University. It brings together twenty university and community-based feminist researchers and three partner organizations: the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), and York University’s Centre for Feminist Research (CFR).
The project is divided into two streams. Stream one is organized around five pilot public engagement exercises that test different approaches to engaging feminists in public policy conversations. These exercises are described in detail on this website. Stream 2 focuses on policy, communications and outreach, which includes presentations at the 2017 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the preparation of a (draft) survey of Public Engagement, and work on popularly written policy issues and options briefs.
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
