Play in the Democratic Assemblage - Exploring the Agentic Materiality of Junk

Studies on democratic participation focus mainly on the human subject, who is often por-trayed as a rational, autonomous actor. What is entirely overlooked, and often actively dis-regarded, by this ontological perspective is the role of material objects. The materiality of ballots and voting booths in elections or banners and megaphones in street protest, is, we argue, crucial to understanding democratic participation. If the established scholarship on democratic participation considers objects at all, they are conceptualized as mere instru-ments. Agentic human subjects are understood as masters over passive, innate objects. This overlooks the affective role of material objects in participatory processes. In this paper, we employ new materialist assemblage theory to (a) reveal the crucial role of objects and their materiality in participatory processes and (b) make sense of their affective nature. New materialism departs both from rational choice but also from social constructiv-ist thinking in proposing the innate vitality of all things. It focuses on the materiality of hu-man and nonhuman bodies as well as physical objects and conceptualizes their agentic in-teraction as assemblages. Empirically, we draw on the example of the junk playground as a space for democratic en-gagement. Through an ethnographic investigation of three junk playground experiments, we trace the affectivity of discarded materials as participants in playful democratic encounters. Based on participant observations, interviews and a textual analysis of letters written by play participants, we find that material objects affect and interact with human subjects in varied ways. The interplay between human bodies and material objects results in demo-cratic assemblages, in which body language, performative enactment, and material expres-sion is often more important than verbally articulated, rational arguments. Rather than as rational, autonomous masters, humans appear in this reconfiguration as responsive partici-pants that react to multiple stimuli and interpellations and are entangled in affective as-semblages. Based on our analysis, we argue that the democratic assemblages emerging through play-ful engagement prefigure other possible democratic futures. They realize a different demo-cratic microverse in the here and now, which allows for more imaginary and open-ended exploration and experimentation. Through the invitation to play, imagine, and enact the self in new settings, alternative democratic futures can be prefigured. We are interested here in the local enactments, where a different reality, or multiple different realities, are made real through democratic participation. At the very least, our analysis demonstrates the crucial role objects and materiality play in democratic participation. This has important consequences for those designing, developing, and enacting participatory processes. It has the potential to broaden participatory reper-toires, but it also calls for attention to a wider range of emergent properties, forces and elements that affect the process of participation.