Communicating about social justice in participatory budgeting in the United States: ‘Coming together’ to benefit communities

ABSTRACT Participatory budgeting (PB) is a public deliberation process designed to advance social justice by engaging geographical community members, especially those from oppressed populations, in collective decision making about spending public funds to improve their community. This 2.5-year, applied, ethnographic, community-based study of two PB processes implemented in Denver, Colorado, examined participants’ social justice discourse during their deliberations. The findings revealed three themes: participants’ listening to marginalized voices, people from oppressed populations engaging in the PB process, and community members ‘coming together’ to benefit oppressed populations. The findings illustrate discursive themes that advance social justice during PB deliberations, and, from an applied perspective, suggest that to recruit and retain participants from oppressed populations, as well as to engage in deliberation that promotes equitable outcomes, PB organizers and facilitators in the United States should promote participants’ communication about those themes during their deliberations.