Dignified Spaces in a Plural Europe

Teachers from four different universities and different disciplines have co-planned and co-conducted a Virtual Exchange course dealing with spaces of cultural and religious communities in UNIC cities. The course consisted of meetings twice a week and field work of the students in their respective cities.

The course was held for graduate and upper-level undergraduate students across disciplines in the universities of Cork, Rotterdam, Bochum and Istanbul, and ran from February to April 2022. Online classes convened on Mondays and Wednesdays for Zoom sessions of ca. 60 min at 2 p.m. (Cork), 3 p.m. (Rotterdam & Bochum), and 4 p.m. (Istanbul).

The project focused on politically, socially, and spatially marginalized communities in the urban centers of the UNIC universities and their access to dignified spaces. Of particular interest were cultural and religious communities that come to Europe through migration and international linkages and that need specific places and spaces that serve as meeting places to preserve cultural and religious identity.

Thus, this course aimed to capture and make visible different perspectives on space and dignity of cultural or religious communities in diverse European cities. Students have located and visited religious and cultural minorities in their respective hometowns. They have talked to people, taken pictures, or recorded audio-visual data. We aimed to compare the situation in four cities (Cork, Rotterdam, Bochum, Istanbul) and thus expanded our analytical horizons of spaces of dignity.

Course work involved researching relationships to these spaces via ethnographic research, including non-traditional creative outputs like audio-visual formats, maps, posters, and drawings. 

Assignments:

Assignment # 1 (20 %): Students prepared a work program for their own fieldwork, including ethical integrity, methods (online or on-site), an interview guide, etc. Submission deadline: Mar 11th, 2022

Assignment # 2 (20 %): Presentation of preliminary results from students’ field work (“online field work” if necessary). Presentations on April 4th and 6th, 2022

Assignment # 3 (60 %): Final paper or audio-visual/digital product (for graded students). Submission deadline: April 30, 2022

Mentoring activities: Lecturers guided their students through practical and scientific support in their respective home universities, regarding field work, assignments, and the preparation of presentations for their respective sessions.

Challenges: Academic calendars do not correspond in the involved countries. Finding a time slot in the week and in a day proved very difficult since we were situated in three different time zones.

Voices of students: The feedback we received from students was very positive. They enjoyed the international flair of this project and the ways they could bring in their own ideas in an interdisciplinary and intercultural setting.

Find further information here.

A co-authored article on the course was recently published in 'Mediapolis' journal: Dignified Spaces in European Cities: A Co-teaching Experiment – Mediapolis

Dr James Kapaló, Dr Martin Radermacher, Dr Katharina Bauer, Dr Nazli Ozkan and Dr İpek Rappas