![]() The idea of a critical space is part of the intellectual tradition that views higher education as a transformative social institution. Overall, this article aims to advance the idea that deliberative theory can be the basis for a broadened vision of organized inquiry, one that activates the results of traditional scholarship to develop proposals for social change while serving as a model of participatory democracy in the public sphere. In the third section, I develop my model of critical space by anchoring it on the developments in deliberative theory. I argue that scholars also need to be conceptualized as direct participants in deliberative democracy. Based on my literature review, I find that scholars are portrayed in the literature either as facilitators of deliberation in the classroom or subject matter experts in minipublics or public deliberation. I aim to address this gap in the second section by situating my discussion on critical spaces within the subfield of deliberative democracy and higher education. I conclude this section by identifying a gap with the way critical spaces are theorized thus far. ![]() In the first section, I begin by providing an overview of the literature on critical spaces in the field of higher education. This article aims to answer these questions by proposing a model of critical spaces anchored on the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. How can we design critical spaces that can fulfill the transformative role of higher education? How can scholars play an active role in global deliberations about some of the world’s most pressing issues? How can critical spaces be a deliberative, global, and consequential enterprise? Critical spaces, one could argue, play a role in subverting the logic of neoliberal universities. Far from the notion of college and university professors staying comfortable in their ivory towers, scholars’ deliberations in critical spaces aim to reach wider populations and contribute to shaping public opinion and policymaking. These spaces consider knowledge from various disciplines and intellectual traditions, as well as underlying norms and values that inform participants’ views. In the field of higher education, ‘critical spaces’ are conceived as places for scholars to deliberate on shared problems. ![]()
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