Making Change

Text

Making Change was a collaborative research project between the Centre for Digital Cultures and the Hivos Knowledge Programme (October 2013–September 2015) that questioned traditional understandings of social change in the Global South and aimed to build more adequate frameworks to address the idea of change in the context of common knowledge, networked media and information societies. Making Change called for a critical understanding of change that allows us to recognize new forms, functions and methods of change practices, with an emphasis on tactical media and digital interventions. The project collected these multiple und diverse experiences through conversations, interviews and on-the-ground collaborations with different groups and communities in emerging information societies. The purpose of the project was to identify processes of change as part of the Global South discourse, and create prototypes for a knowledge commons that facilitate the creation, exchange and integration of knowledge, thereby affecting and initiating processes of social and political change in the region. Making Change was hosting production-oriented workshops called “Production Sprints” to facilitate the convergence of actors and ideas. These sprints did not have a traditional conference structure where knowledge is imparted, but had been spaces of knowledge exchange between change-makers around processes, narratives and experiences of change. Making use of multi-modal forms and formats of knowledge production (text, image, audio, etc), participants were asked to group around four topics: crises, ecologies, infrastructures, and networks of change. In June 2014 the first Production Sprint with participants from Southeast Asia took place in Bangalore; and in February 2015 the second Production Sprint with participants from Latin America took place in Bogotá.

Funding

Funding Category

HIVOS Knowledge Programme

Status

Completed