Session for ECCA rejected...

I received news from the ECCA organisers that the proposal I had submitted for a session to the ECCA conference (in May in Copenhagen), has been rejected. The proposal was to talk about real-world experiences with public participation. To be able to put some nuances and empirically-informed reflections to the participation-enthusiasm that seems to be become increasingly dominant in the climate change adaptation world. For example, what if some actor groups or individuals do not want to participate in a process about climate change adaptation? Perhaps it is in their interest to pursue other avenues than joining a participation process. What if the public is so heterogeneous it does not fit in the envisaged participation process, and the facilitators decide to intervene in the invitation policy? What if some actors have conflicting interests, and do not wish to participate in a joint process with each other? What if some actors or individuals have more resources available than others, and can pull the process towards their own interest?

There were also a couple of other participation-sessions proposed for the ECCA conference. I wonder whether these types of questions will be covered in the other participation-sessions? I wonder also why my session got rejected. The reason the ECCA organisers provided was: “Due to the high volume of submissions, the Programme Committee was obliged to make a strict selection in order to ensure coherence and variety in the programme.” … Would that imply that either this idea was not coherent enough with the rest of the programme? Or that there was already another session covering this idea? Looking at the proposed sessions, I would have thought my idea was both fitting with the rest of the programme, as well as providing a refreshing angle. I can speculate about another reason for the ECCA to exclude this idea. And that is that my session included 4 abstracts, and I had the impression that the organisers were very keen on sessions with 6 abstracts (Why? Well, probably to be able to collect more administration fees). I was very happy with those 4 abstracts, as it fitted with my proposal for a session which was not back-to-back full with speakers, and which provided sufficient time for questions, discussion, and sharing experiences. Sessions which are full with a one-way information flow tend to be over-saturating for the audience. Moreover, it would be rather paradoxal to prefer one-way traffic sessions about public participation above participatory sessions about public participation. (And would this be an example of how a facilitator can influence the agenda?) But, we don’t know the exact selection criteria of the ECCA organisers, for their conference programme. I’m curious how the final programme will look like, and which topics will covered and which not.