The junk playground as agora: Designing spaces to re-invigorate democratic participation

In this paper, I suggest that there is an urgent need to design new spaces and possibilities for democratic participation. With inspiration from the tradition of “adventure playgrounds”, I argue that play design can contribute to expanding the participatory repertoire within deliberative democracy. Two design experiments are presented and discussed through the prism of self-determination theory and the findings point to a new understanding of democratic participation and the intrinsic, civic motivation that drives it. By shifting focus from the classical deliberative ideals of rational discourse towards sensorial, open-ended exploration and creation, new democratic possibilities emerge. It is argued that such opportunities can foster a sense of collective joy, which is seen as vital to healthy democratic societies.