Please feel free to download my PhD here. Its a bit big, so only included the actual Thesis (4.9 mb). If you would like the Appendices (11.7mb) just contact me, yeah? However, if you do download it, I feel I should warn you about you're getting yourself into, so here's the first paragraphs of the abstract:

"In the UK, over the past two decades, participatory art practices – particularly those funded by Government/Local Authorities – have been employed to address issues such as community cohesion, social inclusion, or to assist groups perceived as marginalised. This has created an over-arching impetus for this kind of work to be ameliorative, seek consensus and eradicate conflict. The public sphere, however, is an inherently conflictual zone, constructed of debate, discourse and difference, and this creates a disjuncture between the intention of commissioning participatory practices and what these practices can feasibly achieve. This research examines the place of conflict in institutionally commissioned participatory art projects. Defining ‘conflict’ as the iterations of power that challenge the certainty of our hegemonies and/or our place within the world, it aims to address the instrumentalisation of the practice and asks: how can conflict be productive in participatory art practices?

Once you figured all that out, let me know - it'll be good to know just what the heck I've ranting on about...