Experience, expertise, and the rational ideal: Funds of knowledge and influence in Oregon’s decision-making bodies

Abstract

Building on longstanding debates about communicative rationality in policymaking, this article introduces the “funds of knowledge” approach to identifying how individuals access and utilize information in public discourse. Drawing on 46 interviews with first- and second-generation immigrants serving on public decision-making bodies in Oregon, the authors analyzed a subset of individuals who used their lived experience, rational expertise, or both while engaging in their respective bodies. Based on interviewees’ perceived level of influence over policymaking, the authors present new insights on the importance of knowledge expression in designing participatory spaces that aim to be inclusive in increasingly diverse communities.

Keywords:

• Communicative rationality
• funds of knowledge
• immigrants
• influence
• public participation

Notes

1 We acknowledge that though decision-making bodies do make decisions and policy recommendations, most of the bodies is this study represented advisory groups that have no formal, binding decision-making authority over policy.

2 One of the interviews was conducted and analyzed in Spanish.

3 For further details about participant selection and preliminary interview analysis, see Melendez et al. (2021).

4 Multivoicedness refers to the multiplicity of individuals’ experiences that have shaped them and which they bring to a context (Engeström, 1999).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alex Renirie

Alex Renirie holds an M.S. in Conflict & Dispute Resolution and M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon. She is Program Co-Director with Healthy Democracy, a leading practitioner of deliberative democracy in the United States.

José W. Meléndez

José W. Meléndez is a learning scientist/urban planner. His research applies concepts and methods typically associated with the learning sciences to investigate planning contexts where findings inform and expand related practice and theory.