Designing climate assemblies for the most disadvantaged

This paper examines how participants of climate assemblies experiencing different forms of disadvantage – from illiteracy to data poverty – engaged with evidence and information as they take part in deliberation. Drawing on the case of the world’s first Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency, this paper will foreground the lived experience of participants experiencing extreme hardship as they engage with expert testimonies, information booklets, wikis, and other forms of evidence. Understanding how the most disadvantaged participants experienced climate assemblies allows scholars and practitioners to critically examine taken-for-granted assumptions in mini-public design such as the time and resources assembly members have to go over information packets, qualities of a ‘suitable witness,’ the role of technology in conveying complex messages, as well as judgements about what counts as ‘fair’ and ‘diverse’ knowledge. Overall, this paper makes a case for examining climate assemblies from the perspective of their most disadvantaged participants, and, in so doing, generate actionable insights on how future assemblies can curate information that is sensitive to different forms of hardships participants experience that constrain their capacity for full participation.