Stakeholder engagement is a crucial conceptof extension education. Engagement expressesdemocratic values of the land-grant mission byproviding opportunities for stakeholders to influenceprogram planning, including setting the agenda andnegotiating resource allocations. In practice, theconcept of engagement guides the formation ofpartnerships among extension, communities, industry,and government. In the area of sustainableagriculture, however, stakeholders may conflict,presenting challenges to the engagement process.Results from a study of a Canadian sustainableagriculture program, produced using culturalanthropology and participatory action research, detailchallenges of the engagement process that led toreconstruction of (...) a farmer-extension partnership.Notable in the early phase of the reconstructionprocess were critical reflection, stakeholder forums,exclusion through caucusing, and coalition building.An argument for a neo-pragmatist view provides atheoretical basis for understanding counterintuitivedimensions of engagement revealed by the study. (shrink)

I make the case for thinking of Obama as a pragmatist, talk about the influence of his community organizing experience, and then reflect on some difficulties of implementing those "pragmatic democratic" values as president. I call attention to some arguably pragmatic but undemocratic features of his presidency, notably, a tendency to technocratic and top-down management. In response to complaints about Obama from a politically liberal orientation, I will defend his actions as pragmatic.

The article deals with the social pragmatist approach to the political conception of community, especially in light of the challenges posed by the tendency to view democracy without community and blur the problem and boundaries between conflict and reconciliation. KEY WORDS – Community. Conflict. Democracy. Pragmatism. Reconciliation.

A plea has been made for replacing the perspective of “symbolic interactionism” with a new interactionist's perspective—“radical interactionism.” Unlike in symbolic interactionism, where Mead's and Blumer's ideas play the most prominent roles, in radical interactionism's, Park's ideas play a more prominent role than either Mead's or Blumer's ideas. On the one hand, according to Mead, the general principle behind the organization of human group life was once dominance, but it is now “sociality.” On the other hand, according to Park, this (...) general principle is now and has always been dominance. Blumer takes a position much closer to Mead's than Park's arguing that the general principle underlying the organization of human group life is sociality. Under certain special conditions, however, it can become dominance. Although like radical interactionism, symbolic interactionism is rooted in pragmatism, unlike in radical interactionism, symbolic interactionism is still plagued with strains of utopian thought, among which the notion of sociality is the most virulent. Sociality may be the principle on which human group life is organized in heaven, but, down here on earth, it remains organized on the basis of domination. Thus, radical interactionism provides a much-needed antidote to the idealistic overtones still found in symbolic interactionism. (shrink)