PARTICIPATORY MEMORY PRACTICES. Concepts, strategies, and media infrastructures for envisioning socially inclusive potential futures of European Societies through culture

Project Information

POEM

Grant agreement ID: 764859

DOI

10.3030/764859

Project closed

EC signature date 17 August 2017

Start date 1 April 2018

End date 30 September 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 3 406 970,52

EU contribution

€ 3 406 970,52

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POEM (PARTICIPATORY MEMORY PRACTICES. Concepts, strategies, and media infrastructures for envisioning socially inclusive potential futures of European Societies through culture)

Reporting period: 2020-04-01 to 2022-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The European Training Network POEM addressed the urgent need of experts in the heritage sector who are qualified for working with the mediatized memory ecology, the changing socio-technical, organisational, legal, economic and ethical frameworks for the use of cultural materials. With the completion of their research projects, the ESRs have the capacity to mediate between the stakeholder’s memory institutions, civil society, and creative and digital industries in order to empower people across Europe and to initiate future-envisioning creativity and innovation, promoting socially inclusive memory practices. Moreover, the POEM project has created an extensive network of civil society groups, memory institutions, IT and creative industries, and policy makers. The POEM Model and the POEM Toolbox provide instruments for transferring the concepts to a variety of social contexts for implementing participatory memory work in these arenas. The Covid-19 pandemic reinforced the relevance of the digital media infrastructures for memory work in a wide variety of ways.

With the launch of a POEM Community of Practice the network is continuing the transdisciplinary research agenda together with other researchers and research groups for envisioning socially inclusive futures for Europe. The achieved objectives of POEM are:

- The raining of 13 early stage researchers (ESRs) as the next generation of professionals for Participatory Memory Work (PMW) in science, memory institutions, cultural politics, civil society organisations and creative and digital/ IT industries, theoretically advanced, equipped with methodological expertise and excellent orientation in the complex transdisciplinary scientific landscape of memory work; capable of identifying and integrating the perspectives various stakeholders involved; capable of applying a broad set of tools and knowledge;
- Excellent, transdisciplinary research on how socially inclusive Participatory Memory Work on how institutions and people are building connectivities for PMW, including the conflicts and obstacles they face considering modalities of mediatized memory ecologies with their organisational, economic, legal, and ethical structures;
- A model, toolbox, and tools for socially inclusive Participatory Memory Work considering a broad range of stakeholders, practices, and technologies provided on the POEM website.
- New approaches for empowering people of diverse social and cultural backgrounds; provide knowledge, ideas, orientation, and practical advice for change processes towards participatory memory work in institutions; for policy makers offering bottom-up support and an understanding of how socially inclusive public memory can be facilitated and what organisational and political directions need to be set for broad implementation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The training of 13 excellent Early Stage Researchers was organized through the POEM Spring and Autumn Schools, the POEM training programme, secondments with partner organisations and beneficiaries, participation in graduate schools and individual trainings, and an active role with high visibility of the ESRs in the public communication activities of POEM. The progress of the researcher’s professional profile was organized through the POEM training programme on collaborative and open knowledge production, media production and social media trends, research ethics, gender awareness, partnership, co-creation and stakeholder communication. Moreover, individual Career Development Plans were implemented for each ESR to create goal-oriented work on the personal profile according to individual professional plans.

Transdisciplinary Research was set up in cooperation with supervisors, partner organisations, and discussions with outstanding scholars in the field of Participatory Memory Work. During the POEM-ETN, all recruited ESRs developed a solid understanding of the key concepts, contexts, approaches and theories and set up individual research projects, which were intensely discussed during the bi-annual Spring and Autumn Schools, supervisory meetings and with dedicated mentors. In year 2 and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the POEM fellows conducted their empirical research, often based on participatory design and action research approaches. In the joint knowledge production, they progressed collaboratively across scientific work packages by linking relevant concepts to the empirical research and reflecting practical implications for their ESR projects as well as the POEM Model and POEM Toolbox.

The creation of value for diverse stakeholder groups of Participatory Memory Work was organized through the participation of POEM fellows in a variety of public communication activities and knowledge exchange networks within academic research, cultural heritage professional practice and related practical fields. They provided the basis for establishing and fostering the creation of a transdisciplinary POEM Community of Practice with diverse stakeholder groups of PMW, which was launched at the hybrid Closing Conference “Futures of Participatory Memory Work” in March 2022. A model and toolbox for socially inclusive Participatory Memory Work, addressing the mediatized memory modalities, provide materials for diverse stakeholder groups. The developed tools and services of the POEM Toolbox were interrelated and empirically grounded with the ESRs’ research in the second project period and are now available on the project website.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

POEM identified ways on how connectivities for participatory memory can be built successfully from different angles. The modified POEM model provides a conceptual approach to set up and understand relations between memory institutions’ work, people’s and groups memory practices and the relevance of memory modalities, i.e. the infrastructural, mediatized means of memory making. It will establish an understanding of memory making as a future envisioning process for Europe with a strong, socially inclusive civil society sector.

For institutions, POEM findings give advice on how to initiate change processes towards Participatory Memory Work in digital media ecologies. Moreover, transdisciplinary expertise of the next generation professionals, trained in the European Training Network, will support these change processes. A POEM Community of Practice will further facilitate an ongoing knowledge production in this field beyond the ETN’s project runtime.

People and groups' memory practices will be acknowledged in their contribution to public memory making in a broader perspective on those who are not yet visible in the publics. The next generation professionals are aware of these differences and will catalyse change towards socially inclusive public memories in and across Europe and will form and thus strengthen social cohesion.

Hence, social inclusion will be understood as an issue that needs to be considered when media infrastructures are set up for memory making and become part of memory modalities, with particular qualities and problems for collaborative and open knowledge production.

The POEM Toolbox will provide materials for all groups and may become a living workspace for joint and collaborative future development in the context of the POEM Community of Practice.

POEM Model "Participatory Memory Practices" (version 2)