Space politics in citizens’ assemblies: how chairs, microphones, and badges arrange participation in the German parliament

Abstract

Why does silence settle over a room once chairs face a stage? Which knowledge gets amplified through a microphone? What shifts when a badge marks a role? Drawing on ethnographic research within the first German parliamentary citizens' assembly, convened by the Bundestag in Berlin, this article examines deliberative participation as a contested, socio-spatially arranged process, attending to the everyday politics through which taking part is enacted, negotiated, and lived. The study introduces the lens of 'space politics' to capture how spatial layouts, epistemic mediators, and credential marks constitute the lived experience of participation. Grounded in Martina Löw's relational theory of space and in dialogue with Santos' notion of technical objects, the framing examines deliberative settings as contested arrangements that co-constitute access, credibility, and recognition. Through ethnographic study with visual methods, the study traces recurrent arrangements across the assembly: in concentric small-working and flexible settings, bodily exchange enabled mutual recognition; in frontal plenaries, staged participation, directional seating, and microphone choreographies concentrated epistemic authority and arranged hesitation. By grounding deliberative democracy scholarship in the everyday politics and material-symbolic textures of participation, this article demonstrates how deliberative settings constitute and, under different spatial conditions, contest internal disparities through lived experience..