Distributing Money to Commemoration : Collective Memories , Sense of Place , and Participatory Budgeting

This article brings the aspect of collective memories (and thus identity) back “in” to facilitate our understanding of the intriguing relationship among memories, places, and deliberative projects. While we observe that the memories of a place assign meanings to it and thereby not only imbue a “sense of place” to local members but also influence the process of deliberation, we claim that the process of deliberation can serve as a place-(re)making opportunity in a bottom-up way. Taking an experimental participatory budgeting (PB) program in Taiwan as an example, we find that collective memories play a role to influence what projects are proposed, what projects win the voting, and how people react to winning projects. In the case of South-Peak, on one hand, the winning projects echo aspects of prevailing commemorative narratives; on the other, the voting results further confirm, connect, and align the local collective memories. That is, a self-reinforcing process occurs. Additionally, we discuss how prevailing memories may change due to significant events so the meanings assigned to a specific place may thus change accordingly. Nevertheless, this is not to say that PB can only be conducted in places of strong memories and thus where a sense of place exists; since the deliberation process itself acts as a place-(re)making chance, we can expect PB to encourage the emergence and/or refreshment of collectivity during its own process. Author Biography Hsin-Yi Yeh is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, National Taipei University. She is interested in collective memory, identity-remembering, political sociology, nationalism, cultural sociology, and cognitive sociology. Her work has been published in Qualitative Inquiry, Journal of Public Deliberation, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Food, Culture, and Society, Symbolic Interaction, Nations & Nationalism, and Memory Studies. Kuo-ming Lin is professor and chair of Sociology Department at National Taiwan University. His primary teaching interests are political sociology, contemporary theories of democracy, social and health policy, and historical sociology. His past research focused on Taiwan’s health politics and civic deliberation. Kuo-ming Lin has organized many events of citizen deliberation sponsored by the governments. He recently helped Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture and Taipei City Government to design and implement participatory budgeting projects.


Introduction
This article brings collective memories back in as a significant factor to unravel the intriguing relationship among memories, places, and public deliberation.The examination of a pioneering participatory budgeting (PB) program launched in Taiwan is the example used to validate our standpoint.In brief, this article claims that, on the one hand, collective memories nurture "the sense of place" among local members and to a great extent determine what projects are proposed during a PB program, what projects are more likely to be chosen, and how local people react to the voting results.
On the other hand, we notice that the process of PB serves as an opportunity for local members to do place-(re)making in a bottom-up way that further aligns prevailing local memories.

A Participatory Budgeting Experiment Launched in Taiwan
Whereas other countries around the world have been involved in PB programs for decades (Sintomer, Herzberg, & Röcke, 2012;Ganuza & Baiocchi, 2012;Wampler & Hartz-Karp, 2012;Stewart, Miller, Hildreth, & Wright-Phillips, 2014), Taiwan society had its first attempt at PB in January 2015 in Beitou (Cheng, 2015).More importantly, several candidates who ran for political election included participatory budgeting in their political platforms in late 2014, so PB eventually drew the attention of people in Taiwan.As a latecomer to PB, we have witnessed a "PB boom" in Taiwan since 2015: Many experimental PB programs have been launched and conducted since then, and people embrace this mode of public deliberation and believe that it empowers laypeople by giving them the right to (re)distribute governmental money/budget.Funded by the central government, Taiwan launched a pioneering PB program in mid-2015. 1In this program, we spent 15 months, invested more than $200,000 US, and selected six communities to execute PB.These six communities are in fairly different locations in Taiwan.On one hand, some are sites in cities and some are sites in rustic villages; on the other, these six communities are spread across the north, middle, and south of Taiwan.A short introduction to how we design this PB program in six communities should go before we delve into the specific case.While we notice variations in these six selected communities (or, say, we intentionally chose 1 A group composed of scholars and research assistants dedicated for decades to promoting and studying public deliberation in Taiwan was invited to plan and conduct the pioneering PB program.To some extent, this program aimed at testing whether PB can be "imported" to Taiwan in general and transplanted to local communities in particular.This pioneering program also attempted to understand how PB should be arranged and modified in Taiwan's social contexts.Being members of this very group allowed us to closely observe these PB projects.communities that vary in aspects), to some extent we standardized the PB process to allow evaluations and comparisons once the program ended. 2 The five main steps that constituted the PB process are described below.
(1) Preparation, promotion, and cultivation: At this stage, we established the program website and a Facebook group and made flyers and posters to promote PB in communities.We also held numerous illustration meetings in each community to explain what PB is, how PB works, and the expected benefit of PB.More importantly, we encouraged locals to sign up to attend the Resident Assembly in the illustration meetings.Last, we held three training camps to cultivate participants' ideas regarding public deliberation, the value of PB, and the skills to facilitate discussion.Some participants who attended the training camps were paid as staff members during the following meetings.
(2) The Resident Assembly: In this step, people in each community voluntarily attended the Resident Assembly to share how their community can be improved (or, say, what they would like to change regarding their living environment). 3People attending the Resident Assembly were randomly assigned to small groups (8-10 people in each group) and, with help from the trained facilitators, brainstormed to generate ideas.Each Resident Assembly lasted 3 hours and participants could propose six to eight ideas to go into the next stage.
(3) Project refinement by representative(s): While the assemblies yielded several great ideas that participants supported, the ideas were usually rough.Therefore, at the end of the assemblies, our staff members invited representatives who proposed the ideas to engage in the project-refinement procedure.In this stage, representatives from the assemblies worked to transform the ideas into practical candidate projects.
(4) Project exhibition and voting gathering: After the refinement procedure, projects were exhibited for 7-10 days.Project exhibitions were open to everybody who cared about PB and offered a chance for people to become familiar with the candidate projects.
Right after the project exhibition, we held a voting gathering in each community to let people vote for their preferred projects.Each community could have three winning projects and each project could be funded to about $3,300 US. 4 2 Nevertheless, this is not to say that all steps were 100% identically conducted in the six communities.Because the stationed research assistants are different, they have their own characteristics and style in execution details.Every two communities had a stationed full-time research assistant and several parttime research assistants.
3 Each community had one Resident Assembly; that is, we held a total of six Resident Assemblies. 4 Six communities had 18 winning projects and around $60,000 US were thrown in.
(5) Winning project fulfillment: The PB did not stop after the winning projects were elected; we moved on to monitor the fulfillment of winning projects to ensure their completion.
"South-Peak" is one among these six pioneering communities; it is situated in the rural area of south Taiwan.In the following sections, we focus on the PB process in South-Peak.5

Relationship among Memories, Places, and Deliberation Processes
For decades, scholars have been devoted to investigating how collective memory works in the social world and influences individuals' daily life (Halbwachs, 1925(Halbwachs, /1992;;Olick & Robbins, 1998).Although the "memory boom" in academic study originates from students' attention to diasporic identity, post-colonialization experiences, transitional justice, and drastic collective trauma such as wars, the findings of the memory-study approach surely can be applied to illustrate various-be it different characteristics or distinct social scale-communities (Olick, 1999).Memory is socially constructed: Through mnemonic socialization, people in a specific community are guided to learn what should be remembered and what needs to be forgotten (i.e., knowing the memorability).As a result, every community can be regarded as a mnemonic community: Through their specific mnemonic lens, individuals not only remember their shared past, present, and future, but they also re-"member" to be a part of this very community (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985).
Thus, one of the most significant arguments of the memory-study approach is that collective memory is tightly related to social identity (Zerubavel, 2003a).Among other relationships, the relationship between memories and places has received considerable attention from scholars (Creswell, 2004;Harvey, 2001).Stokowski (2002) points out that "places are more than simply geographic sites with definitive physical and textual characteristics-places are also fluid, changeable, dynamic contexts of social interaction of memory" (p.369).Similarly, Stegner (1992) says, "No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments" (p.x).That is, places go beyond merely physical existence, and people attach to places through memories (Cohen, 1985;Said, 2000;Soja, 1989).Additionally, students remind us of the even more complicated relationship between collective memory and place: Because place attachment (or, say, place identity) is intensified by the awareness of place history, place attachment leads people to understand the history of a place (Lewicka, 2008).A mutual reinforcement can be observed.Following this logic, some scholars even claim that collective memory all too often is spatially constituted (Hoelscher & Alderman, 2004).
The sense of place is a social construction that leads people to identify with specific places (Stokowski, 2002), which indicates that place-making (through memories) as a social process needs to be analyzed.Scholars of memory study have illuminated how collective memory is constructed strategically in general, and their observations can facilitate our understanding of place creation in particular.Three aspects of their findings are worth mentioning here.First, although "memory" seems to be completely abstract, it finds various sites to represent itself materially.While it is difficult (if not impossible) to exhaust the sites of memory, sites such as street names, kitsch, national sport games, mass media, national flags, maps, histories, textbooks, museum, traditions, and bodies are listed as sites where memories are stored and represented (Alderman, 2006;Bodnar, 1992;Cerulo, 1995;Nora, 1989;Sturken, 2007).Second, different types of collective memory based on how individuals obtain the memory are articulated.For instance, embodied memory, prosthetic memory, and cognitive memory are significant categories often covered (Connerton, 1989;Landsberg, 2004).Last, because collective memory is inevitably selective and goes hand in hand with collective oblivion, students of the memory-study approach discuss the mnemonic techniques that are employed in memory construction (Zerubavel, 2003b).Among others, because story-telling plays a crucial role in memory-building (and thus identity-building), "plots" that we can observe in master commemorative narratives are highlighted.Heroes, villains, turning points, watersheds, beginnings, and endings are all elements frequently used in narrations to exaggerate or dramatize historical events.Consequently, plotlines contribute to the remembrance of stories (and thereby memories and identities) (Zerubavel, 1994(Zerubavel, , 1995)).
In fact, scholars devoted to elaborating place creation bring up similar investigations.
For instance, they argue that places need to be represented and to be narrated to be remembered and thus to be created (Lewicka, 2008), that story-telling is tightly related to place-making (Johnstone, 1990), and that the invented past and traditions play a significant role in place-making (Said, 2000).Since the sense of place is socially constructed with techniques and strategies, and definitely is neither neutral nor natural, we are directed to highlight the politics of place: After all, place-making is an inherently political and moral act (Creswell, 2004). 6Among other salient issues, "how deliberation processes and public involvement influence place-(re)making" merits students' attention (Stokowski, 2002, p. x).Scholars even argue that new models of deliberative democracy may foster less politicized, more civic, and more democratic approaches toward place-(re)making due to diverse groups of people and alternative voices engaging in these constructing processes (Forester, 1999;Hajer, 1995).
While agreeing that public deliberation and participation may influence place-(re)making, we suggest that no sufficient and systematic academic investigation of the intriguing relationship among memories, places, and deliberation processes exists. 7dditionally, we claim that the relationship among these three factors must be examined, instead of being assumed.Public deliberation projects (in our case, PB programs), on the one hand, let people get involved in place-(re)making processes in a rather bottomup way; on the other hand, such projects serve as chances to examine the place-(re)making processes.By closely observing deliberation processes, the sophisticated relationship among these three factors can be further illuminated.Issues such as how given collective memories work to influence the deliberative processes, how public participation acts as a chance to (re)define collective memories and place attachment,8 and how deliberation programs function to encourage the formation of sense of place and people's identity toward "our" place, to name a few, can be detailed.
Deliberation programs always occur in places; nevertheless, "place" is a rather hidden dimension in existing public deliberation studies. 9Echoing scholars' suggestion that more empirical research should be conducted-not only to facilitate our understanding of place-(re)making processes, but also to determine the role of public deliberation in them-this article provides a thick description and analysis of the South-Peak case.sources, as members of the deliberative team responsible for planning and executing the PB pioneering programs, we had opportunities to closely observe PB processes in South-Peak. 10 We derived valuable information from more than 50 hours of ethnographic investigation (and the yielded field notes) as well as 15 in-depth interviews with South-Peak residents who participated in various stages of our program, facilitators in the Resident Assembly, and stationed research assistants.Other materials such as newspaper articles, TV news special clips, and books on the history of South-Peak-environmental protest in particular-served as supplemental data to enrich our understanding of South-Peak.
When entering these six communities, our team openly announced that these PB programs were pioneering and experimental projects.The goal was to ensure that PB can be properly "imported" to Taiwanese contexts and to see whether we should modify the PB procedures to better fit them into local circumstances.We also let locals know that our team would gather data from all steps.Moreover, when programs ended, we selected significant actors and invited them to participate in the in-depth interviews.
All the gathered data were carefully coded according to the aspects that we wanted to examine, for instance, why specific ideas and projects were proposed, participants' reactions to the voting results and winning projects, participants' evaluation of the PB process, reasons that led participants to vote for specific candidate projects, and the collective memories that interviewees mentioned (and the different components of them).

Money Goes to Commemoration: Voting for/with Memories
Located in southern Taiwan, South-Peak is a secluded and beautiful village on a mountain where only about 850 people officially register as current residents and fewer than 400 are usually there.South-Peak can be divided into four main areas, and when a visitor first comes to this village, he/she will notice that most of the residents are elders.
People who are in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s constitute the majority.These seniors rely on planting fruits to make their living.It is difficult to find young and middle-aged people in South-Peak: Younger generations usually immigrate to urban areas for better job opportunities and educational institutions.Only during long weekends and holidays do the younger generations return to visit and help with farm work.
The promotion of "Community Building" and the implementation of "Rural Village Revival" as central governmental policies in the mid-1990s resulted in more resources and people (such as so-called "community-designers") arriving in South-Peak.
However, young people who came to "help and learn" merely stopped for a short time and eventually left.Moreover, while young visitors brought in new concepts and ideas for agricultural services, the elders in South-Peak found it hard to follow their suggestions: For practical considerations, some ideas (e.g., "100% organic and pesticide-free") were simply too adventurous for them to try.
Held in the Community Center, both the Resident Assembly and voting gathering steps of our PB experiment had a high participation rate: More than 20% of the usual residents showed up.While most of the usual residents of South-Peak are illiterate,11 they came to the meetings to propose projects that they believed could improve their village, to learn what the candidate projects were, and to vote for their favorite projects (to decide how the budget should be distributed).When asked about participation at PB meetings, most of our interviewees said that "a lot of people attended," and interviewee D even pointed out that, …when you were doing the publicity, didn't I tell you that all villagers would come to the meetings?...People who didn't attend must have had other things to do and thus couldn't make it…If people were busy, they sent at least one person in their That is, from interviewees' perspective, the entire South-Peak village participated in the PB processes; although some may not have been able to attend, they sent at least one representative to show their support.Even though this is an exaggeration, it does reveal the atmosphere of public participation in South-Peak.

Voting for Memories: The Winning Projects Are…
After a series of steps, participants in the PB program were asked to vote for three In the project "No Regret for the Past, No Fear of the Future," the proposers wanted to employ the PB budget to remodel a part of one historic home into a Story Hall.The Story Hall then would be a place to exhibit pictures and stories of the 10-year environmental protest in which most people in South-Peak participated: From 2002 to 2012, South-Peak residents went against a construction company which planned to establish a dumping site on the upstream river inside their community; residents wanted to avoid polluting the environment in general and poisoning the water in particular.The Story Hall is proposed as a place to preserve this long-term protest experience.Second, the project "A Light Trip to South-Peak Brick Bread Oven" aimed at upgrading a brick bread oven and letting villagers employ this bread pit to teach travelers bread-bakingusing the local specialty longan and oranges to add flavor-as an attraction to drive the light trip business in South-Peak.In terms of the project "The Cattle Site," the proposer claimed that a statue of a cow, a calf, and a shepherd should be created and put in a specific place as the entrance image.
According to the voting result, we can claim that participants of the PB in South-Peak mainly voted for memories and the budget went to commemorations.That is, all three winning projects were proposed due to something that was memorable.More interestingly, any collective memory contains three components: the shared past, the shared present, and the shared projected future; the winning projects of our PB program in South-Peak perfectly correspond to these three aspects.To be brief, we maintain that "The Cattle Site" project commemorated a shared past, the "Story Hall" project highlighted a shared present,12 and the "Light Trip to Brick Bread Oven" indicated the broadly accepted projection of a shared future (see Table 1 We suggest that the reason attending South-Peak residents voted for these three projects-the shared past, present, and future-can be explained by people voting with memories: Our participant observation and in-depth interviews led us to notice that, in addition to a relatively clear territorial boundary, being supported by strong standardized commemorative narratives and thereby collective memories, South-Peak has an impressive collective boundary.Story-telling facilitates the construction, maintenance, and reproduction of collective memories (Berger, 2006;White, 1978White, /1985) ) and therefore fosters (re)making the sense of place (Johnstone, 1990).
Stories serve to increase the memorability and work to make specific aspects of past, present, and future turn into a (relatively) robust memory for people.As Ryden concisely points out, "places do not exist until they are verbalized, first in thought and memory and then through the spoken or written word" (as quoted in Stokowski, 2002, p. 372).
People's sense of place is (re)created and (re)confirmed through language and discourse.
That is, place-(re)making is rooted in narratives.Not only is story-telling a commonly seen way to align and refresh collective memories among South-Peak residents in their usual daily life, but also stories are told and spread by proposer(s) and supporters of the three winning projects to motivate others to vote with memories in this PB program. 14In this section, we analyze the reasons that guided us to argue that villagers in South-Peak voted with memories.Nevertheless, we should add that, under many circumstances, the social actors themselves were not clearly aware that telling stories could be a great strategy to promote their proposed projects or to embed their ideas into collective remembrance.Moreover, villagers in South-Peak more often than not did not wittingly notice that their voting decisions could be classified into supporting different mnemonic aspects to be commemorated: It is us (as researchers) who analytically arrive at these investigations and findings based on collected data.
Based on the voting results, it is easy to conclude that story-telling is the best campaign strategy in PB: The narrations guided people to perceive that certain projects should be supported more than others.Following, we provide details of how these winning projects narrated their own significance through story-telling.First, proposer(s) and supporters of "The Cattle Site" told a story which memorializes memories of a past in which hundreds of cows were raised in South-Peak.Several interviewees mentioned why they considered this a crucial project which should earn the budget: It is nice to have a cow (statue) in our Cattle Site.When people come here, they can easily understand that this is an area called a "Cattle Site."Seeing those two cows' statues, people will know where they are (Interviewee C).
I have had this idea since a long time ago.I always tried to seize a chance to propose putting a cow statue here.This is because, while our area is named the "Cattle Site" because we had many, many cows around here, none is here nowadays (Interviewee H).
…This area has been called a "Cattle Site."Nevertheless, there is not a single cow around; therefore, I think that we should make a cow statue… (Interviewee J).
"Cattle Site" (pronounced "Gu-Diaw-A" in the local parlance) is one of four areas within South-Peak.According to the interviews, the main goal of this project is to "make sense" of the area's name by erecting statues: After all, ironically, without a single cow around nowadays, it is hard for visitors and even newer generations to understand the meaning of "Cattle Site."Additionally, the statues are created to commemorate a shared past that most of the older population experienced decades ago.That is, the proposers expect that, in South-Peak, every time people pass by these statues, the shared past of raising cows and planting rice will be refreshed.
Interviewee H detailed that story for us: Let me tell you the story…and this is for commemoration….When I was a kid, here were cows for people to raise.Here was a rich man, and this old man passed away.In the village…he owned a large amount of land…and he bought lots of cows to let others raise them…If a cow was sold, the people who raised the cow for the rich man got half the money, and the rich man got the other half….This is the way we did business in the past….
…we united together.Otherwise, we planted various fruits here…we are famous because of our fruits, the best fruits!If it was built (the dumping site), all fruits would be poisoned, who will buy fruits from us?No one will!So, we would rather die than surrender (Italics added, Interviewee H).
All we have are here.Here is a river; if it was built (the dumping site), then we would be totally doomed.The water would be of no use anymore.That should never happen…It is impossible for me to move anywhere else (Interviewee J).
As one elder said, we would rather die because of coldness and hunger than let our following generations be killed by poisoned water.Therefore, during our protest…even when a cold wind came…our elders refused to go indoors to keep themselves warm…why did they insist?They wanted to protect our homeland for the following generations…(Interviewee G).
In addition, we notice that the protest functioned to enhance the solidarity among villagers: …because I am a resident of South-Peak…It is terrible to have a dumping site here.Thus, we all participated in (the protest).Nobody forced us to do so and nobody asked us to attend: We were more than willing to go to the protest.
(Before the protest) We only got involved in our personal business….afterthe protest, we now had this community, and this is what we all share…and people go here (community center) to chat if they have leisure time (Interviewee C).
People chose sides actively, and they came to the protest by themselves…We stuck together tighter than ever before.Because of the protest, people now knew each other well: We had meetings together, had marches together…We took the touring bus to Taipei (to protest) more than 10 times…During the 10-year protest, we were all together….webecame much closer to each other (Interviewee A).
Our community consciousness formed after (the environmental protest)…the influence was huge, the solidarity increased…We didn't know each other before… people only cared about their own business…people rarely interacted with others, and our life fields were school, home, and our farm….No, there was no sense of collectivity….(IntervieweeG).
Second, the close examination reveals that participation in the environmental protest is perceived as an honored experience for villagers.Many interviewees narrated juicy details of their heroic behaviors for us: …every time I went to the protest, I was in the front.I was always in the forefront during the protest.When the policemen saw me, they said, "Here comes the bad guy!" Once, I was so mad…I took out a utility knife from my pocket, I almost cut his belly…the policemen chased me, they pressed one of my hands brutally and I could not move it at all, but I used the other hand to grab their clothes; they were scared….I was the most radical one: The protest cannot be "too soft," it did need one or two people who acted violently (to intimidate them)…(Interviewee J).
We elders fought (for justice) regardless of our own safety.When they wanted to close their iron gate, I stopped it…the policemen hit me and knocked out my teeth (showing us his fake teeth)…(Interviewee L).
(When going to the protest) not too many people paid attention to us.There were 200 policemen and spiky barricades in front of the government buildings.What we saw on the TV before was already deployed and we saw it personally during the protest… (Interviewee G).
The protest turned out to be a great success; hence, villagers were even invited to teach other towns how to protest, which further contributed to make the protest an honorable near-past event: …they (another town) asked us to go there to teach them.They begged us to teach them how to conduct a protest.We took a tour bus to go there….(IntervieweeJ).
Third, in the story telling, plots such as hero and villain are clearly referenced.In addition to all the villagers who attended and put in effort in the protest being defined as "heroes," the current local leader18 and his wife were frequently mentioned as "heroes" who stood out to lead the protest and were forced to give up their original jobs in the government.A "villain" is identified generally as the shared enemy who welcomed the construction company to build a dumping site in South-Peak for his own profit which would result in a terrible crisis and long-term suffering for the villagers: ….all for "this" (used his two fingers to form a small circle to indicate "money")!I said several times, you "sold out" other villagers and even your ancestors as well…then there would be no one on your side (Interviewee L).
He took "that" (money) from them (company)…He owed lots of money…the company planned to build a dumping site and he took money from them, and it is the beginning of everything….We fought for it for 10 years…(Interviewee J).
He was bribed because of the dumping site…The whole village suffered a lot…We villagers suffered terribly for more than 10 years (Interviewee H).
Fourth, the whole protest process is invented and standardized as the South-Peak Sacred War, which lasted for 10 years and should be seen as a turning point.The memorability of this Sacred War is deemed as inevitable, and it should be preserved and remembered by all: I would like to emphasize that the preservation of those pictures is the utmost important issue.Those pictures were put here (in the community center)…I seized this chance (PB program), we have a historic house there and no one is using it…that is why we can employ that space to do it (Story Hall)…I expect that all people who care about it can see it, and all the following generations.That's our anti-dumpingsite story (Interviewee A).
In brief, simply judging from the project's main title ("No Regret for the Past, No Fear of the Future"), we can see that this project aimed to connect a shared past and a shared future by implying a shared present.
Differing from the previous two projects, we claim that "A Light Trip to South-Peak Brick Bread Oven" is a proposal which led villagers to imagine a shared future.The proposer narrated a story which depicted a future in which villagers of South-Peak would see many tourists come to South-Peak and money from the tourism: As a winning project in the PB, it is obvious that many (if not all) other villagers broadly accepted the shared future that this project sketched.We suggest that several elements are incorporated in the project, including the light trip as a desirable way to draw people, keeping tourists as long as possible in South-Peak, and encouraging people to consume more.Moreover, intriguingly, other interviewees told us that they "wove" this project into a larger picture of commemoration/remembrance and thereby decided to vote for it.An excerpt from our field notes perfectly reveals this: there is a wall which exhibits hundreds of pictures: They were taken by villagers themselves, even young kids, to record their daily life… G pointed out that when people put their dough into the brick bread oven to bake, during their waiting, they can take a look of the pictures on the wall to understand South-Peak more deeply, and there are wooden chairs for them to sit casually…(field notes on May 20, 2016).
That is, in the projected shared future, the historic home -which is possibly employed to serve as the Story Hall because of the PB program-is created not only as a place that is highly imbued with memories, but also as an attraction to lure tourists to stay longer.By bringing the Story Hall and the local fruits into the story-telling, the proposed shared future embedded itself into other aspects of commemorative narratives.
Interviewee A had a similar idea: The brick bread oven and the Story Hall will both locate in the same place.It is great for South-Peak to have them…There was no place to hang posters of the environmental protest…It is a bonus that the planned space for the Story Hall is so close to the brick bread oven… These three winning projects guided South-Peak residents to perceive the most significant aspects of their life through story-telling and to a great extent determined which projects earned more votes.Stories that were (re)told worked not only to (re)define the shared past, present, and future for South-Peak, but also to (re)connect South-Peak residents to their place with collective memories.Nonetheless, we should add that stories and narratives told by the proposers and supporters during the PB process by no means came from a void.Quite the contrary-learning both from our formal in-depth interviews and informal interactions with South-Peak residents-we noticed that the winning projects to some extent echoed the prevailing narratives in South-Peak.It is the PB program that encouraged the (originally informal spreading) narrations to be "formally" organized and told to earn villagers' votes and, thus, the master commemorative narratives were confirmed. 19The seemingly perfect correspondence between winning projects and South-Peak residents' commemorative narratives is constructed and socially made-instead of a natural, neutral, and inevitable existence.Hence, even villagers who proposed other projects and did not vote for these three projects expressed an understanding of these winning projects' significance and easily accepted the voting results:20 …It depends on the significance.Participants of PB gave priority to the most important projects.While our proposed project did not win, we will have chances in the future…We can propose our idea later.We need to start with the most momentous ones.For instance, we desperately need to have a Story Hall to hang posters, then others can visit it…(Interviewee B).
A quick summary of the voting results in South-Peak is "money goes to commemorations" and participants of PB voted for/with memories.We observe both irrational and rational considerations in the voting results: On the one hand, people wanted to commemorate critical people, events, and objects by having both narrations and physical sites to represent and store abstract collective memories.On the other hand, they voted for a shared future that not only can be well connected to the shared past and present but also that welcomes more tourists and profits into South-Peak.More interestingly, we claim that, due to this very PB program, the locals determined how South-Peak should be remembered and how tourists should gaze upon it as well (Urry, 1992).
The PB program gave residents a chance to throw money into what they collectively deemed inevitable but couldn't find resources to fund.Although $3,300 US for each winning project in this PB program seems like only a little money, for villages such as South-Peak in Taiwan, it is quite a sufficient budget to fulfill small projects.
Moreover, many villagers told us that, although government offers funding and resources for them, usually that money is either strictly regulated or allocated by local leaders.The PB program is the first attempt to let the villagers collectively and freely decide where to distribute the money, and the symbolic meaning of the PB budget is salient.As a result, the PB program served to formally confirm and structure the master commemorative narratives in South-Peak in a "bottom-up" manner, which advanced their legitimacy.A self-reinforced process occurred-the sense of place encouraged local residents to participate in the PB process, and the PB process further consolidated (and even redefined) the sense of place-and we in fact witnessed a place-(re)making process happen.
More Discussion: "We, the South-Peaks" In this section, advanced discussions of the intriguing relationship among memories, places, and deliberation processes are provided and we divide them into four main aspects: the role of local leaders in refreshing specific dimensions of collective memories, the various types of memories which are involved, the sense of place that has been nurtured by memories and how this sense of place can possibly be replaced, and the minor alternative memory which exists in South-Peak (but lacks incentive to raise a formal challenge).
First, while the local leader couple-generally regarded as "heroes" who led the environmental protest and thus as "savers" of South-Peak in the narrations-did not propose any project in the Resident Assembly, they were invited to give a short talk at the beginning of the Resident Assembly which refreshed locals' collective memories of participating in the environmental protest.To some extent, this explains the reason that the "Story Hall" project could win the highest votes: Most of the villagers were still immersed in the protest experiences and "the protest" is frequently addressed to motivate them.An excerpt from our field notes regarding the short talk of a local leader's wife supports our argument: It is obvious that her five-minute talk at the beginning of the Assembly aimed at encouraging all the participants.She told them that while participatory budgeting is a completely new mode for public participation and discussion for them, and despite most of the participants being illiterate elders, "since we are the South-Peaks, we can surely do it!"She addressed the participants as "We, the South-Peaks" at the beginning of almost every sentence.She mentioned the 10-year South-Peak Sacred War as an honored experience that all the South-Peaks successfully fought for and should be proud of and never forget (and even the following generations and visitors should know).…She said, since "we, the South-Peaks" can survive the environmental protest, we can conquer anything: Hence, needless to say, we can perform well in today's Resident Assembly!...Even sitting in the back of the room, which is far from her, the short talk gave me goose bumps: It is definitely a touching speech (field notes on Dec. 20, 2015).
In the local leader's short talk, both how 'we, the South-Peak' should behave during the PB program and how 'the South-Peak' should be remembered by the following generations and tourists are defined.
Second, in addition to story-telling, other types of memories were involved as well to guide villagers to perceive the memorability and thus to determine what projects will get more votes.Collective memories are always invented and maintained in multiple ways. 21For example, we observe embodied memories (Connerton, 1989) in which villagers remember the significance of a specific project because they personally experienced events; many villagers raised cows in their childhood and knew the "Gu-A" in person.The project "Cattle Site" thereby enjoyed an advantageous position to attract votes.Furthermore, sites of memories (Nora, 1989) where memories of specific experiences of events can be stored also contribute to refresh people's remembrances: Hence, when the experiences of the environmental protest were preserved in various sites-such as documentaries, books, news reports, and pictures-it became difficult (if not impossible) to forget the importance of this protest for villagers.For villagers who participated in the PB program, South-Peak does use the historic home as the Story Hall and the physical site to collect and store memories.As for the imagined shared future, to some extent, it has to rely on prosthetic memories (Landsberg, 2004) for construction: The proposer and supporters of the brick bread oven project needed to borrow accustomed to the repertoire of public participation: During the period of protesting (the dumping site), we met every week.EVERY week.All the villagers came to the meetings…People who got the information regarding the meetings always attended…Think about it, the effort and energy, not to mention the money we threw in it.Examining the commonly told and thus remembered stories of South-Peak, it is obvious that the sense of place has been altered due to the environmental protest.Before the environmental protest, people perceived South-Peak as a place in which most people are clan relatives: A story of a brother and sister who fell in love with each other, and due to the incest taboo, eloped to South-Peak to marry and multiply was frequently mentioned. 25Nevertheless, according to our gathered data, while people in South-Peak were tied by "blood," they lacked frequent interactions with others.After the environmental protest, the sense of "South-Peak as a collectivity" emerged: That is, the perceived and emphasized meaning of South-Peak switched from a clan-related one to a public-related one.More intriguingly, at least for many (if not all) locals, the latter works much better to encourage them to participate in public issues and to go beyond private realms: It is huge (the influence of the environmental protest).It is about solidarity.We didn't know each other before (the protest)…More than 80% of our villagers are clan relatives; nonetheless, I didn't know them….Locals surely knew who is whose son, but we rarely saw each other and there was no interaction (Interviewee G).
Investigating the PB program in South-Peak shows that the sense of place that was nurtured in the environmental protest created an atmosphere that encouraged people to engage in public participation and therefore the PB program.Meanwhile, the PB program worked to let South-Peak "formally" determine the memorability (or, say, do the place-(re)making) in a bottom-up way and earned budget to further represent the memories.
Fourth, beneath the seemingly unanimous collective opinions, we did find alternative voices (Popular Memory Group, 1998).We should not be so naïve as to assume that the community of South-Peak is a monolithic bloc.Nonetheless, while alternatives did exist, their supporters were few but also willing to attend PB voting gathering, even accepting the voting results.In brief, South-Peak is a place with high social trust in other community members and low (if any) internal challenge to current local leaders.
Interviewee I gave a suitable description of the general atmosphere in South-Peak: Hmm…the South-Peak village is "everybody all together."We did not distinguish between rich or poor, we did not care whether others are rich or poor…The utmost priority for us is, we are TOGETHER.When I go out, I do not have quarrels with others, I just do not do things like that.Following the same logic, people would never treat me badly.
Undoubtedly, the current strong sense of collectivity present throughout South-Peak stems from fresh collective memories of the protest since it had just ended.More importantly, being regularly refreshed, we can expect that "the South-Peaks" would keep being immersed in the honored experience of emerging victorious in a fight.After all, for them, this indicates that David did sometimes defeat Goliath even though David is old this time.On one hand, the halo effect of the 10-year Sacred War will continuously rub onto the collectivity.On the other hand, the repertoire of public discussion/participation that people learned during the protest period will be unceasingly practiced on occasions such as PB.

Conclusion
The core idea of participatory budgeting is to empower laypeople by giving them the right to decide how a specific proportion of governmental budget should be spent.
Moreover, studies of participatory budgeting reveal that living in a specific place per se facilitates residents to propose projects that can more effectively (re)distribute money (budget) to significant items (Speer, 2012;Wampler, 2012).While agreeing with these observations, this article examines (instead of assuming) the influences of the deliberation process.More importantly, we attempt to illuminate the intriguing relationship among memories, places, and public deliberation programs (here, PB).
Taking South-Peak's case as an example, we provide a thick description of how memories and the sense of place worked through the PB program and how the PB program served as a chance to contribute to place-(re)making by considering ordinary people's voices as well.By redirecting attention to memories and places while observing deliberation projects, this article deepens our understanding of the conducting process and the effects of participation and involvement.Also, the case of South-Peak (while having its own particularities) has fruitful empirical implications.Among others, officials and elected personnel can realize that PB does act as a chance to let laypeople voice their opinions and do place-(re)making in a democratic style.
In South-Peak's PB, although multiple logics can be observed-for instance, identities plus profits-we can easily see the traces of memories and places.The whole PB process is heavily influenced by people's collective memories (and thus place attachment).On one hand, collective memories not only guided people to propose projects but also led people to vote for specific projects.Projects that told stories which echoed the prevailing commemorative narratives won.On the other hand, with a strong sense of collective memory and thus collective identity, it is the commitment to their place that led villagers to accept the winning projects and deem them as the most significant and deserving items for the distribution of money.Differing from other communities in which we conducted PB, 26 most South-Peaks (if not all) with whom we interacted knew well what the three winning projects were and they, to various degrees, participated in the project fulfillment process as well.Last, PB itself can also serve as an opportunity to refresh and align people's collective memories, place attachment, and thus collectivity: Consider the short talk given by the local leaders at the beginning of the Resident Assembly and, moreover, before the voting gathering, how the project proposers and supporters tried to convince others to vote for their projects by (re)telling stories.That is, the PB worked to further "officially" confirm, connect, and structure the master commemorative narratives; it also functioned to advance the legitimacy of place-(re)making-the nurturing of sense of place-in a bottom-up style in South-Peak.
Through analyzing South-Peak's case, we reveal that the kinds of projects favored by laypeople in PB can sometimes be predicted by the prevailing commemorative narratives.Also, to a great extent, people's sense of place comes from their collective memories.Nevertheless, this is not to say that PB can only be conducted in places where strong collective memories and thus senses of place exist.After all, South-Peak is an extreme case of collective consciousness, and the public deliberation process itself can facilitate place-(re)making.According to our data, gathered in various communities where PB was held, it is still possible for PB to encourage the emergence of collectivity (and a sense of place).Moreover, communities that lack prevailing collective memories-usually in urban areas-still have their own PB style.Future studies should delve into the systematic comparison of PB in places with various degrees of collective memories and thus collectivity.
family (such as their wives) as "representatives" to participate: To see what happened, and to know what needed cooperation (interviewee D, italics added, May 21, 2016).
favorite projects out of eight candidate projects.The three winning projects (from highest votes to lowest votes) were as follows: (1) No Regret for the Past, No Fear of the Future: The South-Peak Environmental Protest Story Hall, (2) A Light Trip to South-Peak Brick Bread Oven, and (3) The Cattle Site (Gu-Diaw-A): Entrance Image and Cultural Innovation.
…Why the brick bread oven?The light trip can bring crowds, and "where there is crowds, there is business."This is an eternal principle.If tourists want to come (to South-Peak)…think about it, each one only needs to spend 100 dollars…People bring business…Now people come to South-Peak for a light trip…nevertheless, South-Peak needs a way to let tourists kill time: The brick bread oven can serve this need.It is a way to kill time: People can make DIY [do it yourself] breads, they can start from flour and dough, and they can use the seasonal fruits that we plant to add special flavors… Tourists generally spend only a half day in South-Peak and leave: In the past, in only 3 or 4 hours, they have finished their light trip in South-Peak.Yet, if you have a brick bread oven right here…people will stay here for a whole day!Therefore, remodeling the brick bread oven means more people and more money will flow into South-Peak.The more people, the better (boldface added; Interviewee D).
…Interviewee G guided us to the Story Hall…G pointed out that the Story Hall and the brick bread oven are both located inside the historic home which was kindly donated for public use by one villager.G told us, with such close proximity to each other, people who visit the Story Hall can also learn how to make breads in the brick bread oven.More importantly, G led us to walk to the other side of the historic home;

Story-telling as the best campaign strategy 14
Think about the effort!It is 10 years!(Interviewee B). 23 It was regular.People came to learn what the next step (of the protest) was at night.People's hearts were tied together…In terms of the number of participants at our gatherings…at least 30…Every Sunday night after dinner, people gathered there.It became a habit.Sometimes if it rained and he (the local leader) came late, they called…He (the local leader) told them that "It is rainy and we should cancel the meeting," but they replied "We are already here and are waiting for you!"…It also included our trip to Taipei to plead.We spent 35,000 NTD dollars 24 a day for the tour bus and had to leave South-Peak at 3:00 a.m.Since we had to go there, we wanted to go to every important governmental unit.So, the bus had to depart at 3:00 a.m.(Interviewee G).