Elected and non-elected representation and participation in central, regional and local government in Ireland is impeded by a lack of ethnic and gender diversity (Immigrant Council of Ireland, 2020; Galvin et al., 2022; Ntaliou, 2025) and analyses of this lack of diversity fail to adequately acknowledge the wider significance of intersectional exclusion in local decision-making (Begum and Sobolewska, 2024). The absence of migrant and ethnic minorities from Irish electoral politics mirrors politics globally (Gherghina et al., 2025; Crawford et al., 2023) while the political climate becomes increasingly polarised (Hangartner and Sprig, 2024).
Drawing on assemblage and intersectional thinking (Bastia et al., 2022) and a unique creative methodology, this paper analyses the work of a pilot research project which seeks to enable deliberative engagement between a group of women from diverse migrant backgrounds, their wider community, and local government in Co. Kildare. Part of the Horizon Europe programme INSPIRE (Intersectional Spaces of Participation: Inclusive, Resilient, Embedded) (2024-2027), the pilot has developed and used a set of creative methods including drawing, film and Q Methodology to explore the group’s experiences of inclusion and exclusion and self-advocacy (Piper, 2013) and to mobilise a set of stakeholders to envisage and design a participatory local government space for women from migrant backgrounds.
The paper considers how a creative methodology (Mandalaki et al., 2022) can engage intersectional and assemblage principles to identify factors, conditions and mechanisms that contribute to inclusive, resilient and embedded local participation and to the goal of building and testing with a range of stakeholders how migrant women’s voices may be effectively embedded in local government decision-making.
