The concept of participation is currently flourishing in projects, institutions, and policymaking as well as in academic disciplines. This research group is a forum for the investigation of user-generated production and citizen-driven participation across a variety of socio-cultural fields and participatory platforms, e.g. urban spaces, aesthetic co-productions, public institutions, and online environments.
The overall focus of the research group is to investigate, consolidate, critique, and discus the increasing interest in participation. The group will participate in the on-going academic qualification of what citizen/user participation in relation to culture is and involves. Central questions include: How is participation conceptualised and implemented in various fields? What are the logics and motivating forces behind participatory processes? How does participation challenge established institutions? How does participatory methods change research? And what are the socially transformative and democratic potentials and limits of participation?
The research group is open to everyone interested in research in participation. The group has meetings every semester and plan the work according to the interests of its members.
Members of the research group are part of international networks on participation and have organized several international conferences, for example “RETHINK Participatory Cultural Citizenship: When is Citizen Participation Socially Transformative” (2013), “Participation and Cultural Transformation: Transdisciplinary Perspectives and Cross-institutional Practices” (2015), “Cultures of Participation – Arts, Media and Politics” (2018), “Transforming Cultural Institutions and their Users – Current Agendas in the Interdisciplinary Turn to Participation” (2019). Furthermore members of the research group have initiated and are editing Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation. www.conjunctions-tjcp.com
Participants: Birgit Eriksson, Camilla Møhring Reestorff, Carsten Stage, Tina Thode Hougaard, Louise Ejgod Hansen, Jan Løhmann Stephensen, Stine Liv Johansen, Helle Breth Klausen, Susanne Eichner, Tina Louise Hove Sørensen, Cathrin Helen Bengesser, Lise Sofie Houe, Kristine Ringsager, Karen Nordentoft, Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Diana González Martin, Anika Marschall
