David Kahane is Professor of Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. From 2010-2016 he was Project Director of Alberta Climate Dialogue (ABCD), a SSHRC-funded community-university research partnership that convened citizens in Alberta to deliberate on climate change policy, and learning from careful evaluation of these processes and their outcomes.
His broader research deals with theories and practices of democratic dialogue and deliberation, with particular focus on understanding the impact (or lack of impact) of innovative citizen involvement processes given the complex democratic systems in which they intervene. Publications in this vein include two edited volumes, Deliberative Democracy in Theory and Practice and Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Contexts: Land Claims, Treaties, and Self-Government Agreements; and articles like “The Micropolitics of Deliberation: Beyond Argumentation to Recognition and Justice” and “Inclusion and Representation in Democratic Deliberation: Lessons from Canada's Romanow Commission”
Kahane weaves participatory and deliberative methods into his teaching and also is interested in how meditation and contemplation can be used in the university classroom. He has won two national teaching awards (the 3M Teaching Fellowship and the Alan Blizzard Award for Collaborative Projects that Improve Student Learning) as well as the Rutherford Award for Undergraduate Teaching, the Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision, the Teaching Unit Award, and the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Teaching Award. Teaching publications include “Mindfulness and Presence in Teaching and Learning” and “Learning about Obligation, Compassion, and Global Justice: the Place of Contemplative Pedagogy.”
He's dad to Solomon (almost eight years old) and spends much of his free time gardening in a permaculture food forest he's creating in the river valley.