Workshop: Narrations and communities
Narrations and communities:
building communities for making citizenship.
The workshop “Narrations and communities: building communities for making citizenship” will address the issue of narrations as practices for building communities’ identities. This workshop is the contribution of the INSITE Project, a EU Coordination Action, whose goal is fostering the dialogue between researchers and practitioners on “How to build a sustainable society, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible” [www.insiteproject.org]. A Manifesto of Social Sustainabilityhas been issued as an outcome of this CA . The WP7–“Generalized ICTs”, directed by Denise Pumain (University of Paris, France) focuses on the primary functionality of information and communication technologies, conceived as that of augmenting human learning, both individually and collectively: to this respect, also cities and museums, at macro and meso level, respectively, have this role.
Which specific infrastructures enable interactions that enhance the exchange of information, as well as the acquisition and creation of new knowledge? We are not referring here only to the places formally in charge of this purpose, such as schools, universities, research or cultural centers, theaters and museums. We mean public spaces ‑ designed or activated by users ‑ to enhance interactions amongst people, such as squares, urban gardens, meeting places, Fab Labs, hybrid venues, just to name a few of them.
What is the role of narrations in the design and activation of such spaces and within the interactions of their users? Who is creating these narratives and for whom? Which are the infrastructures, practices and languages able to convey information, and at the same time to support the dialogue and the interaction within and across communities?
These are the core research themes of INSITE, aimed at contributing to the issue of “building an inclusive Europe” that encompasses all EU’s multiple identities, and therefore different narratives, also by means of a smart and reflexive use of ICT, on which the European Commission has been investing in the last decades.
The European Commission is currently looking for actions and instruments capable to encourage citizen participation, with respect to ever-changing communities in which we are living, and it is more necessary than ever to include those who come to be part of the European Community from a certain point onwards. With a focus on narrative practices relevant in building communities, being themselves social practices and not mere self-narrations, in the workshop we intend to focus on how the many narrative practices ‑ deep-rooted in the history and processes of humankind ‑ are changed and how they are used nowadays.
More info here.