Networked Communities as Dynamic Co-Created Learning Environments

This project seeks to challenge the ways in which dominant constructions of community have been tied to dominant modes of research, by co-designing a programme of arts and humanities research that will open up the workings of communities, examining communities from the standpoint of those who have everyday experience of, and strong connections to and within, these communities. At the core of the proposed project is a desire - by community partners and academics - to create accounts of communities that do justice to their collective wisdom, dynamism and connectivity, as well as their transience, their needs to transform, and their responses to change, in ways that reflect the lives of those involved rather than the needs of externally imposed disciplinary regimes. This research recognises that there can no longer be clearly demarcated boundaries between 'academics' and 'community partners' in a genuinely co-designed research project. Rather, there are groups of people (research partners) who share a mutual recognition of skills and experiences that allow them to commit to a 'new scholarship' that reflects their collective identities as members of communities who seek new understandings about how their communities function and interact with other such communities.

This proposal has been prepared in co-operation with the intended beneficiaries of the work, to ensure that all the investigators are fully engaged from the outset. Without the beneficiaries, there is no project. This means that the project itself provides the critical pathway towards societal impact. All the investigators (academic and community) are committed to working co-operatively and to ensuring that their work is transparent and transferable to others. The project builds on an established academic/community relationship that has experience in delivering social impact.