SUMMARY

Poverty and exclusion are usually tackled either by the adoption of top-down approaches, where a set of experts dictate a panoply of measures that are supposed to mitigate the hard life circumstances of local communities, or by the development of grassroots, local projects that very seldom go beyond their locality. Social research in particular has been struggling to develop approaches that are sensitive to the concrete life circumstances of local communities, through participatory action research methodologies, yet there is strong evidence that such approaches often fail to deliver a truly bottom-up approach, as well as failing to provide a theoretical mapping of the entire social, political and economic frame that determines the existence of poverty and exclusion. The main aim of the Action is to build and coordinate a strategic collaboration between different researchers and stakeholders that can bring together scattered local communities across Europe in a joint effort to develop a methodology of research that consistently involves members of local communities in the research process, whilst positing their problems against the background of a changing Europe. It brings together people from different backgrounds – multidisicplinary researchers, ethnographers, philosophers, architects, urbanists, artists, volunteers, and community workers – into a model of participatory action research where education assumes a preponderant role in the way participation is conceived and organised. The Action will create the means for the development of a joint research agenda that can overcome the micro-macro divide by articulating local manifestations of poverty and exclusion with broader European policies and identity.

 

 

Participants

 

 

PORTUGAL

Education/Enviromental

MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre (Host Institution)

Mônica Mesquita (main researcher)

mbmesquita@ie.ul.pt

and

Lia Vasconcelos

 

 

Productions

Anonymage - Movie Producer

Vitor Gabriel

 

 

 

UNITED KINGDOM

Education

Manchester Metropolitan University

Alexandre Pais (main researcher)

 

 

 

GERMANY

Mathematics Education

Freie Universität Berlin

Hauke Straehler-Pohl

 

 

SPAIN

Mathematics Education

Universidad de Córdoba

Natividad Adamuz

 

Architecture

Zuloark - Collective of Architecture

Manuel Dominguèz

 

 

BELGIUM

Philoshophy of Mathematics

Ghent University

Karen François

 

 

AUSTRIA

Architecture

Universität Innsbruck

Birgit Brauner

 

 

SLOVENIA

Philoshophy

Institute of Philosophy

Rado Riha

 

 

LITHUANIA

Recreation and Tourism

Klaipèdos Universitetas

Ramunas Povilankas

 

 

LATVIA

Enviromental

University fo Latvia

Raimonds Ernstein

 

 

BRAZIL

Communitarian Education

Brazilian Urban Boundaries Research Group

Cristiane Coppe

 

 

SOUTH AFRICA

Environmental

University of Cape Town

Serge Raemaekers