New Challenges on the Urban Periphery

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This project builds on the Banlieue Network (BN) project led by the PI and Co-I in 2012-2014. BN addressed segregation in Greater Paris, France, by building a network of scholars and practitioners and creating interdisciplinary knowledges and resources made accessible to civil society groups, through an innovative Summer School in 2013. However, over the last decade, inequalities in the French banlieue have worsened considerably due to a combination of local and international trends including rising mistrust for institutions in marginalised urban areas, growing stigmatisation and isolation, disproportionate exposure to the Covid-19 pandemic, the decline of active citizenship in young residents and State-promoted gentrification through, for example, global sporting events that displace working-class residents. While these issues have recently become relevant to many marginal neighbourhoods in the Global North, they have been affecting vulnerable urban areas in the Global South for much longer. After completing the BN project in 2014, the PI and Co-I have worked with communities in Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City where they successfully tested Co-Creation, a methodology with a measurable impact developed during BN's 2013 Summer School in Saint-Denis. This arts-based knowledge production method seeks to promote active citizenship and creativity to share knowledges and build resilience in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Evaluative methods were used to assess the impact of Co-Creation for participating communities. Co-Creation methods and knowledge sharing between resilient communities in the Global North and South can help policy makers and grassroot organisations in the French banlieue consolidate their understanding of urban deprivation and develop new hands-on solutions to the arising new challenges. We therefore propose to return to Saint-Denis, one of France's most stigmatised cities which is currently attracting public attention as the future site of the 2024 Olympic Games to:1) Disseminate Co-Creation to a focused audience of urban policy makers and practitioners accustomed to top-down approaches, familiarising them with alternative ways of co-designing practical solutions in collaboration with civil society partners;2) Extend the impact of BN both in France and in the Global South by broadening the network to include new stakeholders, NGOs, artists and policy makers from these contexts and engaging them in sharing best practice;3) Build bridges between stakeholders and youth activist groups in France, Mexico and Brazil to stimulate new ways of thinking about urban peripheries.These objectives will be achieved through a set of creative events and outputs, including the following:a) Two interactive training workshops in Co-Creation methods delivered to policy and practice audiences;b) A 12-week artist-led multimedia workshop, training young adults in creative writing, filmmaking, photography, event organisation and communication;c) A photography and short film contest resulting in a 2-day short-film festival and a photographic exhibition;d) Five international discussion panels conducted face-to-face but involving speakers from the Global South participating via Zoom;e) A series of documentaries created by workshop participants on the theme "A citizen in my neighbourhood" and shared with local and global audiences to stimulate debate and broaden understanding between participants.The project will be facilitated by a Greater-Paris-based NGO, European Alternatives, and a Project Management Committee including artists, NGOs, institutions, grassroots organisations and venues in Saint-Denis. The project will build a lasting legacy by producing a series of Co-Creation training materials and 15-minute podcasts subtitled in three languages to be made accessible via BN's website and YouTube channel for global audiences. A policy brief will maximise impact and promote new approaches to the key new challenges.