In cooperation with the initiative “Road 2___” (Begeisterhaus) organised by a consortium of the MIGRATION HUB Heidelberg, the Raumfänger and the Makerspace (all located at the DAI, German American Institute, Heidelberg), this research-based seminar on post-migration dealt with key themes such as ‘Social Future and unfolding’; ‘Right for development’; ‘Stories of many’; ‘Do-It-Yourself-Together’. The “Road 2___” project consisted of several smaller festivals in the Heidelberg city space and organised around these key themes. Our seminar group participated in the festivals and organised smaller events.N
Beside the applied nature of this course, we discussed in class theoretical issues around postmigration and the Road_2 initiative as a major example of it. We were interested to ask which agents shape and are involved in political, economic, environmental and social implications in a postmigration urban context? As postmigration describes “social negotiation processes” (Foroutan 2015), mutual respect and understanding, the production and exchange of knowledge, becoming informed citizens, and belonging to a particular community, neighbourhood and city we investigated in class and in participation observation aspects such as “What kind of skills of participation, enquiry and communication are developed in order to think about political, spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues? How do they enable responsible action in private and public spaces? What kind of imaginations do people create and employ for considering other people’s experiences and to think about, express and explain views that are not their own? How do people create transculturality as activist and civil practice in order to achieve another future for their families and communities?”
As outome of our cooperation with Road_2, students contributed small blog entries to the related Road_2 Blog as result of their seminar projects.
Cathrine Bublatzky 