Making Community Development Through Cultural Policies

Author(s):

Elisa Bortolamedi(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 09, Communities and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

09:00-10:30

Room:

W3.09

Chair:

Lejf Moos

Contribution

Is it possible to developing community building new cultural policies?

The goal of this research is to verify how public spaces planning can be an opportunity, for the municipalities, to improve the sense of belonging of the citizens and to build social network on the territory. One of the new challenges for the public administration is to contrast loneliness, promote places where to meet and give to the citizens opportunities to socialize.

In mountain valleys, peripheral areas far from the major cities, where sometimes access to the services can be difficult; set social and cultural policies that aims to social meeting and to citizen involvment it becomes crucial.

This research will study the building process of the new Library of Pergine Valsugana, through the project “The library that I wish”.

I taken into consideration to do a Case study. Case study is a research that aims to understand social matters thorugh studying natural situation. the goal is to produce descrition, to develop hypothesis and test it producing explanations (Robert E. Stake 1995, Robert K. Yin 1993).

Participatory action research is also a interesting methodology, is a power- building process, is conducted by the very people who are affected by a problem and will work to bring about a solution; this kind of research empowers by linking knowledge of problems to the actions taken (Rubin e Rubin 2008).

Still I don't know wich research strategy to use.

The project, “The library that I wish” will take place in the territory of the municipality of Pergine Valsugana, a small city (20.000 inhabitants)in the province of Trento in north Italy.

The aim is to promote the creation of a new identity of the library, build with the community, the acts aims to improve the citizen participation in furnish and decorate the library and to stimulate the interest about the new library, building networks to create a shared surrounding through ages and interest.

Method

I will propose to the community some activities with the aim to start a dialogue with the municipality, doing proposal, observation and sharing ideas. In the neighbourhoods will be installed boxes to collect ideas about the library, in the municipality journals it will be attach a form that citizens can fill and put in the boxes. Some public sessions will be set to collect sensations and emotion with emotive maps and using needle method. Target finding Conferences, Open Space and Participative Mapping are instruments taken into consideration. Collaborations are planned with the schools, the youth centre, senior centres, social services, social cooperatives. With the stakeholder we will set some concrete and creative activities to reach the goal to improve the sense of belonging of children and families in public spaces.

Expected Outcomes

Through the action and activity outlined I expect to reach results in terms of: citizen’s participation in the creation of specific spaces in the new library’s structure, participation in the definition of social and cultural policies related to the library, triyng to open the library’s spaces to other organization (youth centres, social cooperatives, association, senior centre, schools). Concepts such as participatory planning, participatory democracy, citizen’s involvement are really topical, and the bibliography is very wide. This presentation aims to make an overview about principles, experiences that taken place in Europe with a special focus on the small communities in peripheral territories. The description of Trentino South Tyrol’s demography and territory can help to understand the communities where the project “The library that I wish” will take place.

References

Bauman, Z. (2000) Voglia di comunità. Bologna: Il Mulino. Bobbio, L. (2006) Dilemmi della democrazia partecipativa, in Democrazia e diritto, vol.44, n.4, pp.11-26. Bobbio, L., Lewanski (2007) Una legge elettorale scritta dai cittadini, in Reset, n.101, pp.76-77. Elias, N.(1987) Involvement and detachment. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Forester, J. (1999) The deliberative Practitioner: encouraging participatory planningprocesses. Cambridge: MIT Press. Ganuza, F. E. (2006) Democrazia e partecipazione: I bilanci partecipativi in Spagna. In Democrazia e diritto, n.3, pp. 70-86. Ginsbrog, P. (2006) La democrazia che non c’è. Torino: Einaudi. Martini, E., Torti, A. (2003) Fare lavoro di comunità. Roma: Carocci Editore. Noto, G., Lavanco, G. (2000) Lo sviluppo di comunità. Milano: Franco Angeli. Owen, H. (1997) Open Space Technology. User’s Guide. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler. Reason, P., Hilary, B. (2001) Handbook of action Research, Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage Publications. Ripamonti, E. (2006) Sviluppo di comunitò e progettazione partecipata. In SKILL, n.31, Milano. Rubin, H., Rubin, I. (2008) Community Organizing and development, fourth edition. USA: Pearson Education, Inc. Seung, J.L., Yunji, K., Phillips, R. (2015) Community Well-Being and Community Development. Springer. Stake, E. R. (1995) The art of case study research. Sage Publications, inc. Yin R., “Case study research” 2003 Sage, Thousand Oaks.

Author Information

Elisa Bortolamedi (presenting / submitting)

Free University of Bolzano

Pergine Valsugana

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