What is the materiality of participation and why is it important?

Materiality in the development of general participation arrangements

The first example concerns participation in ongoing administrative preparations, such as additional zoning in the area in connection with a new solar power plant. Archon Fung's (Fung, 2006) classic article highlights how an invitation to participate that is open to everyone leads to highly selective participation in a town hall discussion. The invitation is sent to every household, but only some of the residents feel that the issue is relevant to them. Only some of them actually attend, and of those who do, the majority remain silent, with only a small number queuing up for the one microphone available to say what they have to say, i.e., participate in the discussion. Fung uses this as an example of the impact of participant motivation on participation selection principles, but the example is even more relevant to the material construction of a form of participation (“participation format”).  

There are many different influencing factors. A mailed invitation only reaches some of the residents early enough for them to arrange their participation. On the other hand, if it arrives too early, many people will forget about it. Only some residents would actually be able to get to the venue (e.g., the town hall or school) where the event is being held, given their work, family, other commitments, and where they live. This is not random, but rather, as Fung emphasizes, everyday materialities emphasize the participation of the well-off. Attendance is also influenced by who feels that the chosen location is a place they want to go to: for example, the town hall may be an unfamiliar and even intimidating place for many. Whether a person feels it is worthwhile to even try to organize themselves to attend an event is also influenced by their experience of participating in similar events in the past. At the event itself, participants may also quickly notice that there is a long queue for a single microphone, where they would have to stand for a long time in full view of everyone, waiting for their turn to speak, without knowing whether someone has already said something important to them in previous speeches. It is also not obvious how the event will be recorded and how its results will be used, let alone how decisions will be made based on them.   

In principle, the ideal of open and equal participation is filtered through material arrangements to become highly selective: those who participate in the discussion are those for whom the issue is particularly pressing for some reason, who have time, who believe in themselves, who can organize their daily lives, and who have had positive experiences from previous participation and its effects. In addition to influencing who participates, the material arrangements also have a significant impact on what and how participants can express their views.

The situation could be remedied by modifying the material arrangements, the "format" of participation. In addition to sending invitations by post, they could also be sent via electronic channels and (as the unit price of the invitation decreases) on several occasions. It would be possible to enable comments to be sent electronically both from home and from the event, and to extend the time frame for sending them. To increase interactivity, it would be possible to display previous discussions insofar as the commenters have marked their comments as public, rather than intended only for the designers' information. Instead of a separate information package on the draft plan and the somewhat cumbersome targeting of comments, comments on the plan could be organized on a map so that comments can be pinned to the point on the map to which they relate. This change in format would also improve the designers' ability to utilize the comments received, as they would be more precisely targeted.

At the event itself, everyone can be given a tablet on which they can either write their comments directly into a digital comment box or choose to have their comments displayed on a large screen for everyone to see. Instead of a microphone at the front, a wireless microphone can be passed around the room, and the tablet can show when it is your turn to comment. If a map application is available, the speaker can click on it to make it visible to everyone, which makes the comment much more relevant to the audience. The organizers can also record comments made verbally so that the recording is visible on the screen, making it clear that they have been taken into account. A summary of the results of the event can be published, indicating how they will be taken into account in the planning and how and when the final decisions will be made.

All this can be done solely within the format of an open hearing, and the cost of implementing it is not unreasonable in today's world. These measures do not eliminate the inherent selectivity of municipal discussions held in open events with open invitations, but they have the potential to significantly reduce and change this selectivity and also to significantly improve what planners and decision-makers gain from the consultation – vague and poorly targeted comments are difficult to take into account in a useful way.

Materiality in creating new participatory approaches

Another example concerns multidisciplinary long-term planning, the “upstream” of policy-making, i.e., the foresight work that precedes actual policy-making. If, for example, the topic is anticipating the energy transition in a workshop, our experience is that people who are not experts in the energy sector tend to remain quieter than their expertise would allow. This, in turn, perpetuates the practice of energy planning being carried out within a narrow circle of professionals in the field, even though it is now recognized that the energy transition will change the structures of production and consumption across society, beyond the areas of expertise of energy experts (Hyysalo et al., 2017). 

When multidisciplinary planning is carried out on the future directions of the energy transition, there are many things that can stand in the way of credible contributions from participants outside the field. For example, using the wrong order of magnitude for the power or capacity of production facilities will immediately raise eyebrows among energy experts, easily embarrassing and silencing participants from other fields. This kind of thing happens easily. For example, a single 7,000 kW wind turbine generates 30% of its maximum capacity per year, which is 7 MW * 0.3 * 24 * 365 = 18,396 MWh, or 18 GWh, which is just under the annual electricity consumption of 1,000 single-family homes. A 350 MW wind farm produces 919,800 MWh, or 0.9 TWh, which is the power required by Helsinki's households. Hey, did I just get confused with megawatts, gigawatts, and terawatts in terms of power and annual production (no, I didn't, but I did return to the word "power," which should have been "annual production"). Here are three things that are obvious to those who work with energy on a daily basis, but difficult for others to remember fluently: Power units ending in 1000, which fly around the workshop very quickly; annual output, which jumps to the next 1000-ending number from peak power, e.g., 0.3*24*365, and then their connection to, for example, transmission networks, where one should remember to convert the output back to power. A similar unit exercise is repeated in many places, for example when dealing with the expected decline in production and installation costs for renewables in relation to the required yield. Without daily number crunching, a large part of the attention of participants outside the energy sector goes to this calculation, and after the first mistake at the latest, things can get quiet. 

The situation can be remedied by reorganizing the material. If a simple workshop discussion does not work, the structuring of future energy scenarios can be anchored, for example, on a game board where different forms of production and consumption are represented by pieces, with power represented by a strip of one color and the size of the strip indicating the amount of power. Additional strips of another color can be attached to the strip to indicate the resulting annual yield. Transmission connections can be marked with the color of power and their capacity size, and annual consumption with the color of annual yield (if necessary, on monthly strips graded for each month's consumption). And so on. As a result, instead of mental arithmetic, participants can focus on effective consideration of, for example, the growth of solar and wind power capacity and the adequacy of transmission connections in various changes in industrial structures and electrification development. More advanced examples of such redesigned tools include transition arenas (Hyysalo et al., 2017; Lukkarinen et al., 2020).

Material participation in the everyday energy transition

The third example concerns citizens' voluntary action in sustainability transitions. If we look at Finland's voting map and attitudes toward climate change, the climate and energy transition is most important to city dwellers, while its significance is considered minor or even denied in sparsely populated areas. However, if we look at the progress of the low-carbon energy transition in Finland's housing stock, the picture is completely different. Nearly 80% of Finnish single-family homes have one or more air source heat pumps, and recent studies suggest that more than half of single-family homes are starting to have three or more heating sources, most of which are renewable (Numminen et al., 2023; Silvikko et al., 2025). At the same time, half of Finns live in apartment buildings in city centers, which are still connected to district heating, which is still produced using biomass and natural gas. People's initiative and peer support have been key to the energy revolution in detached houses. There are over half a million Finnish-language posts in online energy discussion communities about the procurement, maintenance, production, markets, and so on of renewable energy technology (Hyysalo, 2021). At the same time, technically more skilled neighbors have been important local pillars of support in the adoption of new technology (Heiskanen, 2023). Citizens have widely supported the Carbon Neutral Municipalities initiative, which already includes more than a third of Finnish municipalities. The everyday energy transition is therefore not divided along party lines, but is based on the fact that energy renovations make sense for many different people in many different ways: economically, in terms of self-sufficiency, technical interest, expertise, and so on. Ordinary citizens' knowledge of energy also creates conditions for their views and expertise on the practical implementation of the energy transition to be better incorporated into the preparation of future policy measures (Heiskanen, 2023; Silvikko et al., 2025). 

So what does the materiality of participation matter?

In summary, it can be said that materiality matters a great deal. It is central to the development and planning of democratic practices. It helps to identify citizens' skills, which is important from the perspective of recognizing and acknowledging participation. It also highlights activities in areas where Finns set a good example of shared success, but which are easily exaggerated into arguments in the media and political debate. Focusing attention on material participation is therefore also essential from the perspective of reducing polarization.

The materiality of participation is particularly important in managing long-term sustainability transitions in a democratic society. Sustainability transitions, such as achieving a low-carbon energy system and transport, are long-term, complex, and knowledge-intensive processes. The preparation of the policy measures they require is easily confined to a small circle of top experts, even though the effects of the processes affect citizens on a broad scale. Without a conscious effort to expand participation and involvement, this situation provides fuel for polarizing political mobilization. Expanding participation in the way that is needed, in turn, requires new ways and formats of participation.

Text: Sampsa Hyysalo

Photos: Katie Baumez, Unsplash & Mia Sorri

References: 

Fung, A. (2006). Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance. Public Administration Review, 66(s1), 66–75. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00667.x

Heiskanen, E. (2023). Engaging “unusual suspects” in climate action: Cultural affordances for diverse competences and improvised identities. Frontiers in Sustainability, 4, 1197885.

Hyysalo, S. (2021). Citizen activities in Energy Transition. Routledge.

Hyysalo, S., Marttila, T., Temmes, A., Lovio, R., Kivimaa, P., Auvinen, K., Pyhälammi, A., Lukkarinen, J., & Peljo, J. (2017). Uusia näkymiä energiamurroksen Suomeen -Murrosareenan tuottamia kunnianhimoisia energia- ja ilmastotoimia vuosille 2018-2030. Aalto Yliopisto.

Lukkarinen, J., Marttila, T., Saarikoski, H., Auvinen, K., Faehnle, M., Hyysalo, S., Kangas, H.-L., Lähteenoja, S., Peltonen, L., & Salo, M. (2020). Taloyhtiöistä tulevaisuuden energiatuottajia: Muutospolut vuoteen 2035 ja murrosareena tiedon yhteistuotannon menetelmänä. https://research.aalto.fi/files/65272540/SYKEra_39_2020_Kansalaisenergiantuotanto_1.pdf

Numminen, S., de Villafranca, M. S., & Hyysalo, S. (2023). Päälämmityslähteestä monilämmitykseen: Suomalaisista pientaloista on tullut toisiaan täydentävien ja vuorottelevien energiajärjestelmien hybrideitä. Alue Ja Ympäristö, 52(1), 62–76.

Silvikko, M., Numminen, S., & Hyysalo, S. (2025). Characterizing hybrid heating in the households: Diverse configurational arrangements premised on citizen’s agency and peer-support. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 55, 100958.