Workshop E: Sharing Stories - Building Bridges: Digital Storytelling as Academic and Activist Method (also Cult J)

In challenging times like ours, it is not always easy to find the right words for thought thoughts. Nevertheless, the capacity to deal with differences in a constructive and differentiated manner is a of crucial importance for the development of a sustainable democratic culture - even tough political polarisation seems en vauge. Academic and activist intellectuals experience a backslash from public discourse. Already achieved accompaniments and fights, like LGBT Rights in the USA or Women's Rights in Afghanistan, seem to crumble in an uprise of far-right and fascist politics. But nevertheless, more and more people use their voices in new found ways to criticise and mobilize against these inequalities. Be in "conflict zones" like Ukraine and Afghanistan, or in the so-called West, especially younger generation gathered together on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and other digital platforms in telling their stories and sharing their vision of a better future. Would you like to learn how to combine academic knowledge production with activistic engagement, and in doing so, use digital storytelling to bring people across the internet together? Then join us for our workshop-series on digital storytelling and learn all methods and tools you need to make use of it in your work with young people. Given this context, the proposed workshop series ‘Sharing Stories - Building Bridges: Digital Storytelling as Academic and Activist Method' wants to gather youth students of all levels to equip them with the competences to make use of digital storytelling methods in the work as academics and empower them as academics to engage in activism.