This blended mobility CIVIS course will introduce participating students to the field of Public Social Sciences and Humanities, with an emphasis on Anthropology, Ethnography, and Folklore Studies (AEFS).

The ‘Public’ here means a shift in the dissemination of the knowledge that these disciplines produce, especially concerning issues of wider public interest, such as: Inequalities and inequities regarding access to resources, participation and recognition, belonging and homemaking or discrimination and racism. How do people and communities respond to these issues? How do they create belonging and acceptance or build communities around these issues? How do public state and non state institutions and organisations support community building? What can critical Human/Social sciences contribute to enable processes of community-building? These are some of the questions we will address in this program.

The ‘Public’ also means to not just work with and speak about communities, but to actively engage with stakeholders and members of the civil society and work jointly on solutions. These are e.g. museums, NGOs, local communities or neighbourhood associations.

AEFS, with their theoretical foundations and methodological apparatuses, are ideally placed to explore these social and communal issues as mentioned above. Yet, the challenge that these disciplines face today is to turn this potential into reality, return their knowledge to people and communities and engage with them once more, as scholars and partners.

Throughout this course, we will discuss how the concepts and methods of these different disciplines can contribute to this endeavour. Students will work in small groups on projects with an applied character. They will gain hands-on experience and learn how to work in an inter- and transdisciplinary fashion in order to achieve a better understanding of the contemporary societies we live in and the changes they undergo.

The physical mobility part will be running from 5 to 9 May 2025 and will take place in Bucharest, Romania.

• Students will visit public institutions, organisations and NGOs as well as local urban communities.
• They will work in smaller groups (around 10-15 students) on designated projects, which involve training fieldwork exercises, e.g. in the form of interviews and participant observation. The information gathered will be critically reflected, assessed and analysed and developed into group project presentations, taking place at the end of the week.

The virtual part will be running from 16 February 2025 to 30 April 2025.

The virtual part of the course will be consisted of 5 consecutive online sessions during which the main theorethical approached of each stream will be dealt with. Dates are to be further decided upon based on the number of students enrolled and their preference for the streams.