Book Launch: Pygmalion Democracy: If you build it, will they come?
We had a wonderful book launch of our book Pygmalion Democracy: If you build it, will they come? on Friday September 25, 2026. Several authors provided presentations of their chapters, and the three co-editors, Paul R. Carr, Eloy Rivas-Sanchez and Gina Thésée, also contributed their analysis. The event was joyous, insightful, full of solidarity, passion and compassion, and we sought to collectively cultivate a process informed by Freirian dialogical engagement. There are no easy solutions, and we are in a time of extreme belligerence, threat, polarisation and chaos. We hope that our humble contribution to the debate might help further efforts at building a meaningful, critical and engaged democracy. And the video is relatively long at two and half hours but we hope that the long-form format will be of interest to some/many. Many thanks to all fo the contributors, to the publisher, to our research assistants and everyone involved. One last point: the book is available for free, in open access: https://scienceetbiencommun.pressbooks.pub/pygmaliondemocracy/
Here's the VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBDow9kVG1g
The book launch highlights an important point about democracy: building democratic systems is not enough if people do not feel included or heard. I think open discussion and equal chances to share ideas can help communities become stronger. During a busy college term, I turned to write my btech assignment when I struggled to balance research and deadlines. It taught me the value of breaking difficult work into smaller steps. Learning and taking part in discussions both need patience and effort. Nice post.