Building Inclusive Societies:
Diversifying Knowledge and Tackling Discrimination through Civil Society Participation in Universities
DIsmantling walls, building bridges
antiracist feminist alliances for a radical education
international conference, july 7-8 2022
This international conference concludes the BRIDGES project (Building Inclusive Societies: Diversifying Knowledge and Tackling Discrimination through Civil Society Participation in Universities, October 2019 to July 2022), an initiative born out of a partnership between various European universities and social organisations with a common purpose: to address the practical ways in which higher education institutions can eliminate discrimination and promote social inclusion.
The BRIDGES conference is open to all those interested in creating new ways of understanding the production and exchange of knowledge from an antiracist feminist perspective: students, researchers, teachers, activists, artists. We believe in the importance of betting on interdisciplinary transversal spaces, to share practice and theory around shared struggles.
The BRIDGES monograph, Dismantling walls, building bridges: Creating antiracist feminist alliances within, outside, and against universities (forthcoming from FAC press), will be presented during the conference.
Venue: La Bonne, C/Sant Pere més Baix, 7 Barcelona
Language: The conference languages are Spanish and English; there will be simultaneous translation from/to these languages.
Registration deadline: 10 June 2022
Fees: There are no fees to participate in the conference, but places are limited.
Invitation letters: If you need an invitation letter to receive institutional support from your university or organisation, or for visa purposes to travel to Barcelona, please email hello@buildingbridges.space.
For more information and to register, visit buildingbridges.space/conf-en/.
building solidarities
feminist and anti-racist practices in higher education
online summer school
29 june-23 july 2021
BRIDGES draws on Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodologies to develop a range of open access curricular materials and pedagogical tools geared at making universities more inclusive of socially marginalised groups, whilst challenging the colonial, heteropatriarchal, racist, and authoritarian structures of higher education, research, and academic knowledge production. In particular people who encounter barriers due to intersecting discriminations based on “race,” ethnicity, language, religion, citizenship status, gender identity and expression, sexuality, class, age, and disability. BRIDGES uses the PAR methodology of Narrative Productions (NP), which consists in a horizontal co-production of knowledge that seeks to eliminate hierarchies between ‘researchers’ and ‘researched’ by validating the theoretical importance of situated, experiential, and marginalised knowledges.
All of BRIDGES’ research “outputs” are available on the project’s Virtual Lab:
- BRIDGES Toolkit with strategies for dismantling structures of exclusion and transforming university curricula from a decolonial feminist perspective.
- BRIDGES Course, “Building Solidarities. Feminist and Anti-racist Practices in Higher Education,” a course curriculum designed using participatory research methods adapted to curricular design. It was test-taught in a virtual summer school (2021) and revised based on participants’ feedback.
- BRIDGES Monograph: Dismantling walls, building bridges: Creating antiracist feminist alliances within, outside, and against universities. An open access monograph of narrative productions (forthcoming in July 2022 from FAC press).
BRIDGES constitutes a strategic partnership between university-based researchers and civil society organisations in 4 European countries (Spain, Germany, the UK, and Greece). These are:
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain)
- Sindillar: Sindicato Trabajadoras del Hogar y del Cuidado (Barcelona, Spain)
- Institute of Sociology, Justus-Liebig Universität (Giessen, Germany)
- an.ge.kommen e.V. (Giessen, Germany)
- University of Brighton (England)
- Feminist Autonomous Centre for research (Athens, Greece)
- Office of Displaced Designers (Lesvos, Greece)
BRIDGES TOOLKIT
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
