Resignifying democratic inclusion: a decolonial intersectional framework for radical political participation

Amidst a historical continuum of inequality and democratic backsliding - now exacerbated by contemporary crises - the call for inclusion and equality has been increasingly pressing. Yet, the concept of inclusion has been criticised for implying the action of someone including someone else, embedding an unbalanced power relation. While deliberative and participatory mechanisms like citizens’ assemblies enable citizens’ participation as informed equal partners, persistent power dynamics still maintain structural oppressions - rooted in gender, race, class and other constructed hierarchies - with marginalised groups and knowledges being excluded from meaningful participation. This paper proposes resignifying democratic inclusion, as practices of including, through a decolonial intersectional feminist framework, which integrates the critical insights of both decolonial and intersectional feminist contributions. While these normally drawn on two distinct but interconnected traditions, they converge in the commitment to challenging existing power structures and valuing marginalised experiences and subjectivities. This synergy prompted scholars to assert that decolonial and intersectional traditions should be entwined to effectively challenge systemic imbalances. Together, they form the basis for a decolonial intersectional feminist framework for improving citizens’ engagement in policy-making practices. I argue for, first, a deep acknowledgement of power relations within deliberation, and second, a reconstruction of deliberative participation drawing on the contributions of radical feminist theories. Decolonial intersectional inclusivity, referring to the design of inclusive practices, is about being decision-makers among decision-makers, moving beyond tokenism to facilitate equitable co-creation through the sharing of power. Challenging structural oppressions, this approach envisions deliberation as a care-centred, accessible network of relations among pluriversal, embodied subjectivities. Its aim is to collectively produce transformative social, political, and cultural change, interweaving theory and practice. Deliberative spaces must be understood as temporary communities, where intersecting privileges and oppressions dynamically shape both collective and individual identities. Practices must therefore be designed to acknowledge, redefine, and redistribute power relations, fostering deliberation that is accessible, situated, caring, pluriversal, collective and transformative. The paper seeks to identify key feminist and decolonial principles for designing deliberative democratic engagement that lives up to aspirations of radical equality and inclusion.