Social sciences and Humanities going public - Research and practice with, in and for the society

This blended mobility CIVIS course will introduce participating students to the field of Public Social Sciences and Humanities, with an emphasis on Anthropology, Ethnography, Literary and Folklore Studies and Education (AELFE).

The ‘Public’ here means a shift in the dissemination of the knowledge that these disciplines produce, especially concerning issues of wider public interest, such as:

• inequalities and inequities regarding access to resources,
• participation and recognition,
• belonging and homemaking,
• discrimination and racism.

How do people and communities respond to these issues? How do they create belonging and acceptance or build communities around these issues? How do public state and non state institutions and organisations support community building? What can critical Human/ Social sciences contribute to enable processes of community-building? These are some of the questions we will address in this program.

The ‘Public’ also means to not just work with and speak about communities, but to actively engage with stakeholders and members of the civil society and work jointly on solutions. These are e.g. museums, NGOs, local communities or neighbourhood associations.

AELFE, with their theoretical foundations and methodological apparatuses, are ideally placed to explore these social and communal issues as mentioned above. Yet, the challenge that these disciplines face today is to turn this potential into reality, return their knowledge to people and communities and engage with them once more, as scholars and partners.

Throughout this course, we will discuss how the concepts and methods of these different disciplines can contribute to this endeavour. Students will work in small groups on projects with an applied character. They will gain hands-on experience and learn how to work in an inter- and transdisciplinary fashion in order to achieve a better understanding of the contemporary societies we live in and the changes they undergo.

The members of our dynamic team of academics have had a long-term and productive collaboration relating to this BIP, which has been running for the past four years. We are combining our efforts to teach jointly the three streams into which our programme will be divided, so that our students may have the benefit of truly interdisciplinary perspectives, aligned with CIVIS’ strategic goals, such as inclusiveness, collaboration, a well-balanced geographical distribution of students and staff, and co-creation of knowledge and skills, proven by the extensive interaction with stake holders that we are planning to have.

Main topics addressed

We have identified three broader common fields, which are strongly interlinked, but for practical purposes we use them as separate themes (and streams) to organise the teaching around them:

1. Museum and Material Culture and the formation of identities. This includes institutional collections and heritage sites as well as institutions such as state organized culture knowledge banks, and non-professional heritage institutions such as the internet. Important museums and archives expressing and promoting heritage aspects and practices in contemporary Athens will be visited during the course. Students will engage with the material collections and work together with the communities relating to these objects to understand the importance objects play for communities.
2. Folklore, Orality and local culture - focus on the formation of identities. Comparative folklore, local/public folklore, urban folklore/urban culture, folklore and/in education. Students will explore public spaces, such as streets and buildings, collect narratives and/or folkloristic expressions and research the meaning and practice of them for the creation of collective memories as well as for identity production.
3. Migration and Diversity – focus on identities, social inclusion and education. In this stream students engage e.g. with migrant, diasporic and refugee communities and individuals and research what migration means on the everyday level and how migration/movement impacts on groups' or individuals' belonging or non-belonging. Students learn e.g. how state institutions and N.G.O.’s establish programs and tools and foster and support inclusion and education and how those targeted respond to them.

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, the students will:

• gain an understanding of what publically oriented social sciences and humanities may mean;
• learn about the prominent research and dissemination methods employed in the orientation of these disciplines towards a wider audience and develop a critical and constructive perspective on their uses;
• explore and understand the ways and strategies through which local, regional, national and transnational identities are forged in the public sphere by means of joint academic and grassroots, i.e. community- and stakeholder-derived, exchanges in contemporary Europe;
• expand and deepen the students’ knowledge regarding issues and challenges in the fields of material culture, local culture, narratives/oral tradition, folklore and migration, as they have developed in the social sciences and the humanities with an emphasis on contemporary Europe;
• appreciate the value of the comparative perspective when applied to the study of material culture, local culture, narratives/ oral tradition, folklore and migration in contemporary Europe;
• receive training in these methods;
• acquire an understanding of the interdisciplinary theoretical background of the methodologies used when addressing issues associated with the ‘Public’;
• be able to use this knowledge to complete the tasks assigned to the students and solve problems that require critical thinking;
• exchange knowledge across disciplines and universities.

Additionally, some of the CIVIS and EU priorities that our BIP intends to work on with students and social partners include social equity, inclusiveness, a collaborative orientation, co-creation of knowledge and skills jointly with stakeholders, and emphasis on a well-balanced geographical distribution of our human (students, teachers, public speakers) and academic resources (interdisciplinary methodologies, theories, environments and ethnographic examples).