Contemplative Democracy: Politics, Practice, and Pedagogy

Contemplative practices are increasingly mainstream in the United States. From meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, to writing, walking, and gardening, contemplative practices aim to cultivate embodied awareness, attunement, and attention. What is the political value of the attentional ecologies created by the "Mindfulness Revolution"?

In Contemplative Democracy, Shannon L. Mariotti explores how contemplative practices represent a form of world-building that is valuable for meaningful democracy and an overlooked form of ordinary political theory. As Mariotti shows, what appear to be mostly apolitical, self-cultivating activities--even ones that require withdrawal from society--can also make us more attuned to how we interact with the wider world in any given moment. Meditative practices can advance the goals of autonomy and community that are implied by the concept of democracy. Bringing disparate fields into dialogue, Mariotti highlights resonances between how theorists talk about meaningful democracy and how ordinary people talk about contemplative practice. Analyzing theorists, such as Jacques Rancière and Gloria Anzaldúa, alongside qualitative interviews, participant-observation, and a case study, this book integrates political theory--a discipline shaped by "The Enlightenment"--with meditative practices questing after other forms of "enlightenment."

Reimagining the work of political theory, employing feminist approaches, and with a focus on educational spaces and democratic modes of pedagogy, Mariotti examines contemplative practices as spaces where ordinary people do the work of democracy, creating new political imaginaries, finding new selves, and founding new states of being. Further, Contemplative Democracy is an inclusive, accessible, and embodied book that reveals how the larger body politic may be reshaped by the everyday work people do in their own bodies.