Research projects at the Center for Inter-American Studies

Aging in Data is a research project at the ACT Lab at Concordia University in Montreal, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. It brings together an interdisciplinary network of researchers from ten countries, non-profit activists and organizations.

Duration: 2020-2027

Co-applicant: Roberta Maierhofer

Project leader (for team CIAS): Roberta Maierhofer

Affiliated researchers: Nicole Haring

Affiliated students: Eva Bauer, Anamari Slemensek

Sponsor: Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Aging in Data (AiD)

The history of the Americas shows that camps have been used repeatedly to confine members of numerous groups. These include prisoners, inmates, detainees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, children, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, activists, and victims of political persecution, among others. In public discourse, camps are often associated with short-term humanitarian operations related to the provision of shelter, food and access to legal aid. While some have functioned in this way, scholars from numerous fields - literary studies, American studies, Caribbean studies, cultural studies, and critical prison studies - signal concern about the extensive cycles of punishment and abuse that tend to characterize them, as well as their use as models by governments in other parts of the world. These and related findings prompt us to problematize camps, their operation and assumptions that they are humane, necessary or effective.

This project aims to foster interdisciplinary and intersectional exchanges that creatively navigate the space between "free society" and knowledge about warehousing and a broad typology of camps and camp-like institutions. These include "assembly points," barracks, slave camps, detention and internment camps, prisoner of war camps, labor camps, "black sites," offshore internment centers, concentration and re-education camps, and prisons, among others. Comparative work is welcome. The aim is to formulate critical interventions that help to better understand and respond to the realities of carceral detention, while at the same time exploiting opportunities for future change.

Duration: 2023 to 2025

Project manager: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact persons: Eva Bauer

Affiliated researchers: Nicole Haring, Christian Cwik

Funded by: Province of Styria, City of Graz, PBB Dimensions of Europe (University of Graz) ; University of Puerto Rico

Camps, Carceral Imageries, and (In)Justices

This project is inspired by Amitav Ghosh's (2009) observation of the 'crisis of imagination' (9) when it comes to the failure of literature, history and politics to grasp the dimensions and violence of climate change and environmental degradation. This status quo is explained by the fact that the (post-)industrial world is held back by its current systems and associated patterns of behavior, which are predominantly based on fossil fuels and wasteful consumption. Certainly, the industrial world cannot easily escape the "petro-imaginary" (Banita 151) that defines a system dependent on fossil fuels. Indeed, as modernity has invested in fossil fuels for over 200 years, our dependence on petrochemicals heavily influences our collective imagination. Consequently, as historian Dipesh Chakrabarty has explained, the notion of a low-carbon future is not easy to realize, as "the fortress of modern freedoms stands on an ever-growing base of fossil fuel consumption" (208). The human impact on the planet has increased exponentially in the 20th century, especially in terms of space and time. Because of these recent changes, it is significant to "conceptualize human action across multiple and unmeasurable scales simultaneously" (Chakrabarty 1). However, the Anthropocene and its accompanying phenomena - climate change being the most prevalent - are, according to philosopher Timothy Morton, "hyperobjects". These are phenomena that cannot be understood as a whole by the general public. With climate change, for example, we see and understand the increased melting of glaciers and abnormal weather events. Nevertheless, it is difficult to grasp climate change in its entirety. For author Amitav Ghosh, the Anthropocene represents a significant moment for narratives and storytelling because the Anthropocene challenges "what is now taken as serious fiction" (9). The complexity of individual phenomena and their interrelationships that define the Anthropocene require new narratives, approaches, and theoretical considerations. Inter-American perspectives can provide a new platform to discuss these pressing issues and offer intersectional and interregional reflections. By drawing on non-Western and conventional theoretical and methodological understandings, Inter-American Studies, with its hemispheric perspectives, opens up the possibility of looking at climate change in all its complexities and relationships. Therefore, this project deals with the following topics: (1) Intersectionality and ecofeminism in the Americas, (2) Climate change and indigenous cultures, (3) Inter-American climate fiction and popular culture, (4) Environmental humanities and (5) Inter-American critical theories and approaches.

Duration: 2023 to 2024

Project manager: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Nicole Haring

Affiliated researchers: Eva Bauer

Funding body: Province of Styria

EcoStories aims to achieve the development of a digital eco-narrative toolkit to support teachers in the implementation of critical ecological pedagogy in English as a foreign language teaching, which promotes the development of students' climate, digital and foreign language literacy skills to stimulate and cultivate the ability to imagine a greener and climate-resilient future.

The project will implement eco-narrative activities based on engagement with literary (climate fiction) and museum educational resources, following the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach that combines formal and informal education. Arts-based (creative writing) and digital storytelling activities will also be implemented to promote students' multilingualism in English.

The main output of the project will be a digital eco-narrative toolkit consisting of a competence framework (static and interactive) on critical ecological pedagogy for English language teaching, teacher training materials for prospective and current English language teachers and 6 eco-CLIL units for English language learners at B1+ level. An online eco-narrative training program and three editions of a MOOC course are also planned. The outcomes will be the training of over 120 prospective and current teachers in eco-narratives.

Duration: 2023 to 2026

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Eva Bauer

Affiliated researchers: Nicole Haring, Hermine Penz

Funding: European Commission (Erasmus+)

EcoStories

Our KinderKunstHochschule is characterized by intermedial, holistic, interdisciplinary thinking and action. Artistic and cultural practice and its practical mediation as art education is relevant. Children are confronted with research spaces that focus on the aesthetic exploration of the world.

The artistic view should be familiarized with project-related and cross-genre topics. Staff from universities and teacher training colleges will lead appropriate specialist input workshops.

Artists from a wide range of disciplines will then take up the topics and carry out various art projects with the children.

Duration: since 2022

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer and Theres Hinterleitner

Contact person: Julia Baier

Funding body: OeAd, Province of Styria, City of Graz

KinderKunstHochschule

NarrativeDidactics is a research group at the Center for Inter-American Studies at the University of Graz, founded in 2019, that explores and disseminates innovative approaches and methods that use stories and narrative practices to facilitate learning and teaching processes in education. The idea of Narrative Didactics is to expand the framework of didactics by providing alternative methods and tools to critically engage with the challenges of our time through narrative practices. Members of the research group study, work and teach at Austrian schools, colleges and universities.

Literature Performance Process (LEP)

This project promotes the reading of literature for students through a newly developed approach called the Literature Performance Process (LEP), in which students gain access to and understanding of narratives and related topics of inquiry through a series of stages, with performative methods being a central point. As a pedagogical tool, these performance strategies are embedded within a larger process that oscillates between individual and collaborative processes of understanding (see figure). As performances, reflections and follow-up tasks (writing, new media creations) are combined, literature and the experiences with it are visualized, substantiated and shared. At the University of Graz, the LEP has been tested with current and future teachers as well as language arts students, has proven itself in practice and has been positively evaluated as an interdisciplinary teaching method.

Digital Storytelling
The first experiments in combining multimedia elements with storytelling can be traced back to the 1980s in California. In 1994, the Digital Media Center was founded in San Francisco, which later became the Center for Digital Storytelling and finally the StoryCenter in 2015. The Center played a crucial role in developing and popularizing the practice of digital storytelling, which originally had primarily therapeutic and expressive applications. Scholars and educators worldwide have since discovered and written about the many benefits of educational digital storytelling. However, digital storytelling has not yet reached classrooms and university courses in German-speaking countries.

Diversity Pedagogy
In an increasingly diverse society due to globalization and migration, we are confronted with new and unknown challenges. In order to counteract the formation of parallel societies and promote a multicultural lifestyle, people must learn how to deal with and live with differences. The starting point for this learning process is the classroom, which is in many ways a microcosm. Numerous social problems can be observed when 25 children or young people come together in a room every day. The promising results of digital storytelling in terms of cultural sensitivity, critical thinking and understanding have been discussed by scholars worldwide. Digital storytelling is used as a tool in the classroom to communicate differences, foster understanding and affection, and thereby promote acceptance and appreciation of diversity.

Intergenerational storytelling
The "Intergenerational Feminist Microphone" method was developed by May Chazan during an intergenerational workshop with women activists in Montreal as part of the ACT research project. The aim of the project was to use digital storytelling as a tool for transferring knowledge between generations and to deconstruct the common image of older people as knowledge providers. The feminist methodology developed is also valuable for education, as it encourages critical discourse on certain topics across generations.

Feminist Narrative Practices
The idea of feminist narratives goes back to the long-standing feminist tradition of consciousness groups and the concept of the 'personal is political'. The idea is to use them as a pedagogical tool to produce narratives and then examine them through an intersectional feminist perspective to ultimately deconstruct the gendered stereotypes and assumptions present in the narratives. Digital stories as well as literary narratives are an ideal tool that can be used in educational settings to critically scrutinize narratives through an intersectional feminist lens.

Duration: since 2019

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Andreas Schuch

Affiliated researchers: Nicole Haring, Fabiana Fazzi, Nina Reibenschuh, Martina Braunegger, Hermine Penz, Christina Hochstrasser, Dagmar Wallenstorfer

Funded by: Province of Styria

Narrative Didactics Website

Ageing, Communication, Technologies (ACT): Experiencing a Digital World in Later Life

The research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, examines changes in ageing experiences and technology use. The project is led by communication scientist Prof. Dr. Kim Sawchuk (Concordia University, Montreal). As part of the project, an international consortium of experts is working together on issues relating to cultural aspects of age(ing) in the context of communication and technology. The focus is on "digital ageism", digital age discrimination, which generates inclusion and exclusion effects, as well as its effects in a digitalized world. In addition to analyzing this phenomenon, the project will also develop strategies for change.

The Center for Inter-American Studies is represented in the project by the European Network in Aging Studies.

Project staff at the University of Graz:
Roberta Maierhofer, Ulla Kriebernegg, Barbara Ratzenböck

****************************************

Guest lecture by ACT researcher Murray Forman at the Center for Inter-American Studies

Cooperation with ACT takes place in a variety of ways. In March 2015, for example, Prof. Dr. Murray Forman, ACT Co-Applicant, presented his research work as part of a guest lecture at the Center for Inter-American Studies.

Murray Forman is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Northeastern University in the USA. His research examines media landscapes and cultural aspects with a focus on popular music. For over twenty years, Forman has been studying hip-hop culture from a cultural studies perspective, contributing significantly to the establishment of the field of hip-hop studies. In addition, Prof. Forman was the first recipient of the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Research Fellowship at the Hip-Hop Archive, the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University.

His well-attended guest lecture at the Center for Inter-American Studies was titled "Old in the Game: Age and Aging in Hip-Hop" and focused on conceptions and representations of age(ing) in hip-hop culture.

Although hip-hop is still often associated with youth practices and the tastes of a young generation, this is no longer the case; generational turbulence plays a decisive role in contemporary hip-hop. Prof. Forman's lecture therefore explored the ways in which the past (as wisdom, tradition and legacy) is constructed and established in the hip-hop context. By focusing on alternative cartographies of age and ageing, Forman enabled new perspectives on forms and representations of hip-hop "elderscapes".

Video of the guest lecture by Murray Forman

Duration: 2013-2020

Co-applicant: Roberta Maierhofer

Project leader (for Team CIAS): Roberta Maierhofer

Affiliated researchers: Barbara Zach

Funding body: Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada

ACT

Internment and internment camps in the Americas, 1939-1948

With the declarations of war in September 1939, thousands of formal German citizens on the British and French Caribbean islands - among them numerous Austrian refugees - became enemy aliens. In the following months, the governments in London and Paris began to consider the internment of these enemy aliens. The Blitzkrieg of 1940 made mass internment and evacuation a reality. Thousands of enemy aliens and evacuees ended up in internment and transit camps on various islands in the Caribbean. After Cuba entered the Second World War in December 1941 in agreement with the USA, the Cuban government also began interning enemy aliens in camps. Some of the internees remained in camps until 1948. The research deals with the history and archaeology of the internment camps in the British colonies of Jamaica and Trinidad, in the French colonies of Martinique and Guyane, in the Dutch colonies of Curaçao, Bonaire and Surinam as well as the camps in Cuba. Our research focuses on the politics behind the internment measures and the construction of camps on the one hand, and on life in the camps on the other, taking into account the different categories of internees, residents, refugees, evacuees, temporary workers, men, women and children. Transatlantic and inter-American perspectives enable us not only to see the perpetrators and victims, but also to look at the people in the colonial societies in which internment camps were set up.

Duration: 2020 to 2022

Project manager: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact persons: Nicole Haring

Affiliated researchers: Christian Cwik

Funded by: Province of Styria, City of Graz, PBB Dimensions of Europe (University of Graz) ; University of Puerto Rico

CAMPS Injustices and Solidarities in America

Lit Up Your Phones: A Digital Toolkit for ESL/EFL Classroom to Combat Social Inequalities in Times of Covid19 Crises (DigLit)

The two-year project aims to promote critical engagement with diversity and equality and to counter social inequalities through the use of accessible technologies (smartphones & free apps). Learners will engage with young adult literature and use apps to create digital narratives, e.g. short videos. A toolbox with didactic guides and a collection of youth literature will be created. The target group is B1+ ESL/EFL learners, teachers and students.

Duration: 2021 to 2023

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Nicole Haring

Affiliated researchers: Hermine Penz

Funding body: European Commission (Erasmus+ program)

Cultural narratives, processes and strategies in the course of life
Based on a cultural studies-gerontological method, the research project examines the relevance of rituals and customs as cultural heritage in the course of life. The self-perception of age and ageing in the narrative is the focus of the investigation, whereby the juxtaposition of collective (cohort) and individual identity will be given special consideration. In theoretical terms, the project is essentially based on the concept of "anocriticism" developed by Roberta Maierhofer in the 1990s. This was created by Maierhofer in connection with Elaine Showalter's term "gynocriticism", which helped to make it clear that age(ing) is not only constructed and defined biologically, but also culturally, and that we therefore "age by culture", to use Margaret Morganroth Gullette's term. Germaine Greer established the term "anophobia" to describe the fear of old women. Maierhofer subsequently developed the concept of "anocriticism", an interpretative approach that allows individual experiences of age(ing) to be recognized and understood as resistance to normative ideas. Based on these preliminary considerations, two questions were developed:

1. How are processes and strategies of collective and individual identity construction in the course of life defined and narratively constructed as part of cultural heritage?
2. What methods and theories can be developed for interdisciplinary research questions relating to individual and collective identity constructions that define experiences and practices as cultural heritage?

In addition to answering these research questions, it is also a declared aim of the project to disseminate research findings as widely as possible in order to support the development and networking of institutions and networks in the still emerging field of aging studies.
An essential measure to achieve this goal is the embedding of the project in the ENAS working group ENAS InheritAGE, an international and interdisciplinary group of experts dealing with the interdependencies of age(ing) and cultural heritage in terms of cultural representations.

Duration: 2015-2018

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Oana Hergenröther

Affiliated researchers: Barbara Zach

Funded by: Anniversary Fund of the Austrian National Bank

Genoese, Florentines, Sephardic Jews and the Europeanization of the Americas, 1492 to 1530
No other region in the history of mankind experienced a stronger and more lasting Europeanization than the Americas, by which we mean South and North America as well as Central America and the Caribbean. Europeanization began in 1492 with the discoveries and conquests of the Genoese navigator and merchant in Castilian service Christopher Columbus. The discovery of America was the consequence of Portuguese and Castilian expansion in the southern Atlantic of the West African region, whereby the pioneers of this expansion were mostly Genoese, Florentines and Sephardic Jews. The costs of these projects were borne by Genoese and Florentine banks such as the Banco di San Giorgio and the Banco Cambini in Genoa or the Banco di Medici in Florence. In their pay were expansionists such as Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci or slave traders such as Bartolomeo Marchionni and Juanoto Berardi. In addition, there were various other investors and investor groups, such as the Centuriones, the Di Negro and the Spinola, also based in Genoa, or Sephardic and neo-Christian investors from Castile and Aragon, e.g. Luís de Santángel, Gabriel Sánchez or Abraham Senior.

The long and particularly strenuous voyages across the Atlantic were the result of the scientific revolution in seafaring triggered by the European Renaissance. The new findings in astronomy, physics and cartography were responsible for the invention of new nautical instruments, new types of ships, new types of sails and new charts. The shipyards of Venice and Genoa produced ships on the assembly line for the first time, and a new working-class culture shaped production conditions. This European modernity of the seas encountered the old and still medieval, feudal and Catholic structures of the Iberian Peninsula and shaped the dimensions of the Europeanization of the Americas for the next 250 years.

Duration: 2020

Project management: Christian Cwik

Contact person: Verena Muth

Funding body: University of Graz - funding from the call for proposals "1/2020 - start-up funding" as part of the profile-building area "Dimensions of Europeanization"

in the context of popular culture, especially music
The thematic focus of this fellowship project is on the question of gender and age(s) in the context of popular culture, especially music.

Since the reality of our lives is shaped in different ways by globalization and digitalization processes, whereby social spaces are culturally diverse and digitally networked, the question arises as to whether digital technologies enable or hinder (inter)cultural exchange and global communication with regard to the perception of age(s) and gender. Particular attention will be paid to cultural and media consumption, such as music and film, as well as cultural representations in contemporary European literary works. In this context, gender-specific experiences of men and women and their attitudes towards ageing in relation to media and music consumption will be compared and a deeper understanding of contemporary and changing representations of age and ageing will be gained in order to integrate age(ing) into the image of man. In addition, the question of how digital transformation processes influence women and men in different phases of life and age will be investigated.

The project is closely related to the project "Gendering Age: Representations of Masculinities and Ageing in Contemporary European Literatures and Cinemas", so that the intersectionality (gender/age/race/class ...) of identities in Europe as well as North, Central and South America can be further researched beyond its 3-year duration.
**************************
Past events:

Getting in trouble, necessary trouble. A Discussion on Black Lives Matter. Online Panel Discussion (29 January 2021, University of Graz)

Gender and Age/Aging in the Context of Popular Culture. Interdisciplinary Online Symposium (23 June 2021, University of Graz)

Duration: 2020 - 2021

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Roberta Maierhofer

Affiliated researchers: Nicole Haring, Murray Furman

Funding body: Elisabeth List Fellowship Program for Gender Studies University of Graz

Styria Meets the USA

The research project "Interpreneurship: Styria Meets the USA" brings together the Styrian entrepreneurial spirit with the "American Entrepreneurial Spirit" in research, teaching and practice by means of interdisciplinary and intercultural - but at the same time regionally anchored - forums and formats that address different target groups. Economic thinking and action as well as business practices do not exist in a cultural vacuum, but are rather an integral part of culture. Under Americanist leadership - a discipline that sees itself as an interdisciplinary mediator - Interpreneurshipimplements a series of "key actions" in research, teaching and public relations with several intra-university (e.g. Center for Inter-American Studies, Center for Entrepreneurship and Applied Business Studies), local or regional (e.g. Styrian Chamber of Commerce, Province of Styria) and international cooperation partners (e.g. US Embassy).

The activities within the framework of this interdisciplinary project include i) a lecture series (publicly available on YouTube), ii) two thematically focused proseminars, and iii) a series of on-site activities with Styrian entrepreneurs. In addition, Interpreneurshipprovides i) a special issue in the journal JAAAS: The Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies (Gold Open Access), ii) a guidebook for culturally sensitive and efficient communication between Styrian and US participants in the Annual Transatlantic Entrepreneurship Academy 2020 (an exchange program between the University of Graz and Montclair State University in the US state of New Jersey) and young entrepreneurs, and iii) an image film documenting the interpreneurialactivities of the project as well as those of Styrian entrepreneurs. The film will be produced in cooperation with the US-American film and television producer and film scholar Dr. James Forsher and the cultural association Kunstkessel.

Entrepreneurial thinking and action, as well as its cultural appreciation, are not only a core component of the US national identity, but are also understood as a desirable ideal in large parts of the Western world due to the cultural-diplomatic dominance of the United States, which ranges from the popular cultural "from dishwasher to millionaire" myth to the current start-up paradigm. In Styria, too, being an entrepreneur, doing business and being an entrepreneur are capitalized on, even if the entrepreneur does not have the same status as in the United States. From a cultural studies perspective, challenges of understanding and communication can be recognized here, which can be counteracted by adequate translation. "Translating" here does not only mean overcoming linguistic barriers, but also intercultural understanding and explaining sometimes complex values.

European American Studies, which understands America as a transatlantic and interdisciplinary dialog, offers an ideal perspective from which to understand America from a European point of view, but also to see Europe - and the states and regions within Europe - through an American(ist) lens. With the aim of thinking, teaching, learning and practicing globality in the provinces in mind, Interpreneurshipopens up untapped potential for cultural-economic knowledge transfer and cross-border entrepreneurship by means of an intercultural approach based on cultural and economic history.

Duration: 2019-2021

Project management: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Stefan Rabitsch

Affiliated researchers: Michael Fuchs, Stefan Rabitsch, Viola Moisesbichler

Funding body: Department of Science and Research Province of Styria

Ageing Masculinities

The primary research objective of this project is to analyze the social constructions of aging masculinities and their cultural representations in contemporary European literature and cinematography.

The study explicitly aims to

(a) better and more comprehensively understand the inter-relation of masculinities with a variety of social factors specifically associated with men's ageing: older men's health; social inclusion and exclusion; sexualities and emotional relationships; and stereotypes of ageing;

(b) to explore men's experiences of and attitudes towards ageing in different European cultures by identifying similarities and differences, both at the national and transnational level;

(c) to gain a deeper understanding of ageing masculinities in and through cultural representations; and

(d) to share the results of this project with other researchers, practitioners and policy makers to help design strategies and policies that promote greater equality in the field of gender and ageing.

While aging studies focus on youth and gerontological studies of either older women or "ungendered" portraits of aging (Saxton and Cole 2012), this project explores the gendered characteristics of the male aging process. By applying an interdisciplinary body of theory from masculinity and ageing studies, this cultural studies analysis aims to have a powerful impact by crossing the traditional boundary between the social sciences and humanities and by demonstrating that not only do social perceptions of masculinity shape their cultural representations, but that they simultaneously influence the social (de)construction of gender and ageing.

The members of the project team, who are based in Estonia, Ireland, Israel, Austria, Spain and Sweden, are academics from various disciplines (inter/American studies, sociology, gender studies, gerontology, film studies, linguistics, literary studies/comparative studies, psychology, ethnology, musicology and media and communication studies). They research and teach at the universities of Aston (Birmingham), Barcelona, Bar-Ilan (Ramat Gan), Birkbeck College (University of London), Castilla-La Mancha (Ciudad Real), Galway, Gävle, Graz, Madrid, Murcia, Örebro, Potsdam, Rostock, Södertörn, Stony Brook (New York), Tallinn and Valencia.
MascAge project presentation (video)
**************************
Events:

• MascAge Online Seminar Series: Analyzing Social Constructions of Ageing Masculinities and Their Cultural Representations in Contemporary European Literatures and Cinemas (Spring 2021)
• Masculinity and Aging. Lecture by Roberta Maierhofer as part of the Monday Academy of the Center for Continuing Education of the University of Graz (April 19, 2021, 7 pm - ATTENTION, CHANGE OF DATES)
• Masculinities Aging Between Cultures: Methods and Concepts in Dialogue (April 22-23, 2021, Rostock)
• Open Online Workshop: Older Audiences Longitudinal Study (October 15, 2020, Montreal)
• 5th International Conference on Men and Equal Opportunities: Men who care (September 3-4, 2020, Tallinn)

Publications:

• "Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you" by Margaret O'Neill and Áine Ní Léime (NUI Galway)
• Ageing and ageism in the age of coronavirus and cocooning by Michaela Schrage-Frueh and Tony Tracy (NUI Galway)
• Roberta Maierhofer: "Clash of generations" or lived intergenerationality: Visages Villages (Agnès Varda, FR 2017): The work of art as a presence of shaped human existence. An anocritical reflection. In: Limina 3, 1: Clash of Generations? (2020) 192-214 [open access].

Project duration: 2018- 2022

Head of the Austrian sub-project: Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Oana Hergenröther

Affiliated researchers: Rüdiger Kunow, Heike Hartung, Oana Hergenröther, Matthew Sweney, Lisa-Nike Bühring, Barbara Ratzenböck, Florian Pirker, Nicole Haring

Funded by: European Union (ERA Gender-Net Plus program), FWF

Digital Storytelling Toolbox for Diversity Training in Schools

Digital storytelling was developed in the 1990s and combines oral storytelling with digital technologies. This teaching and learning method is used to promote the digital, intercultural and linguistic skills of pupils and students in all areas of education. It involves creating a short video (digital story) based on an aspect of one's own life, which is prepared in terms of language and technology.

In class, the project encouraged students to see storytelling as a possibility and not just to understand their own story in terms of diversity and change. This awareness was developed through telling one's own story by remembering an event related to family, celebration and food and sharing it with others using the method of digital storytelling. Both storytelling and listening led to a perception of commonalities in the diverse narratives on the topics of food, family, festivals, which were developed in individual or group work with the help of software and hardware.

MYSTY was an Erasmus+ project and a partnership of universities, schools and NGOs from the United Kingdom, Italy, Austria and Hungary. The following educational institutions in Graz were involved in the project:

• University of Graz
• GIBS - BG Georgigasse (Graz International Bilingual School)

Project objectives:
At the end of the project, the following materials were available for use in the classroom:

• Learning materials for use in the classroom
• Instructions for creating a digital story and conducting a workshop
• Thematically sorted collection of digital stories

Learning outcomes:

• Improvement of language skills
• Promotion of media and IT skills
• Increased awareness of diversity in all areas
• Intergenerational work
• Development of social skills
• Promotion of intercultural competence

Project duration: 2016 - 2018

Project management Austria: Hermine Penz, Roberta Maierhofer

Contact person: Hermine Penz

Affiliated researchers: Andreas Schuch

Funding body: European Commission (Erasmus+ program)

MYSTY

Development of a didactic feminist approach

Doctoral project by Nicole Haring

This doctoral project will develop a critical tool for narrative analysis of an inter-American literary collection that will ultimately lead to the development of a feminist didactic approach that focuses on intersectional aspects of race, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation. This new approach to teaching literary and cultural texts will thus provide a didactic tool for literary and cultural analysis in educational settings where established narratives are questioned and gender assumptions and norms are challenged. By emphasizing the intersections of race, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation, the chosen literary corpus will therefore "unsettle gender" (Butler) and offer insights into intercultural and intergenerational dynamics that are often difficult to address in educational contexts. The title - Inter. Narratives - emphasizes the intersectional, intergenerational and interregional approach of my dissertation. Established feminist literature and theory will provide an understanding of social, political and cultural assumptions as narratively constructed concepts that constrain the individual in terms of both gender and age. A narrative analysis of literary characters will provide a critical examination of identity and social structures as they emerge in individual life stories. This feminist didactic approach will not only emphasize the importance of critically engaging with established narratives, but will ultimately function as a tool in educational contexts to critically question and dismantle (gender) norms and assumptions and provide the individuals involved with means to defy established and limiting normative social conventions.

Project duration: 2021-2023

Project management: Nicole Haring

Contact person: Nicole Haring

Affiliated researchers: Nicole Haring

Funding body: ÖAW Doc Scholarship