Final event in Prato
Final event of the “Towards innovative mixed-methods approaches to studying living multiculture in small cities” seminar series organised by Stef De Sabbata, Katy Bennett, Matteo Dutto, Lee Eisold, Alex Govers Lopez, Maarten Loopmans and Giorgia Mascaro and funded by the (USF Seminar Series Awards).
Held in Prato (Italy) on September 9th to 11th, 2024.
About this event
In a new era of global migration, diverse forms of urban mobility, migration settlement, and resettlement have contributed to the reshaping of national populations and localities, paving the way for new encounters, exchanges, and tensions (Neal et al. 2017). In this context, cities are not only the terrain on which these entangled relationships unfold, but these relationships shape them. Indeed, studies on multiculture demand a new focus on place and space because they are vital to understanding how multicultural social relations are enacted and lived.
Informed by the recent postcolonial turn in urban studies that calls for a decentralisation of urban theory (Robinson 2006) and embracing a comparative case study approach (Robinson 2016), this seminar series will bring together academics, early career researchers and practitioners in thinking and learning about mixed-methods research practices (Bennett and De Sabbata 2023) for understanding and describing heterogeneous formations of multiculture across different local contexts: Leicester (UK), Prato (Italy) and Antwerp (Belgium). We aim to explore how a range of diverse historical and material processes have led Leicester, Prato and Antwerp to variously develop the status of “the multicultural” city in their respective countries. We will explore what “multicultural” means in the three different contexts, using geo-spatial, geo-political and cultural lenses to interrogate processes taking place.
The seminar series is structured into four events. This is the third of three online workshops aimed at exploring collaborative research methods. We will then conclude the seminar series with an in-person, three-day event, including training and workshops to bring together these three different methodological approaches and apply them to develop a mixed-method project.
Final event
The seminar series concluded with a final event in Prato on September 9th to 11th, 2024. The aim of the event is to put into practice what discussed during the workshops and allow groups to collaborate in the design of papers, grant applications, other events, etc.
Schedule
Day 1 (Training)
| 09:30 - 10:00 | Welcome, Day plan and Introduction |
| 10:30 - 12:00 | Group Work 1 |
| 12:00 - 12:30 | Walking Tour preparation and instructions |
| 13:30 - 16:00 | Walking Tour |
| 16:30 - 17:00 | Walking Tour Debrief |
| 17:00 - 18:30 | Group Work 2 and Discussion |
Day 2
| 09:15 - 09:30 | Welcome, Day plan and Introduction |
| 09:30 - 11:00 | Funding mix-methods everyday multiculture research |
| 11:30 - 13:00 | Ethics consideration in mix-methods everyday multiculture research |
| 14:00 - 15:30 | Generative AI for qualitative analysis |
| 16:00 - 17:00 | Group work and next steps |
Day 3
| 09:15 - 09:30 | Welcome, Day plan and Introduction |
| 09:30 - 11:00 | Everyday multiculture and governance |
| 11:30 - 13:00 | The role of scale in conceptualising and mixed-method analysis |
| 14:00 - 15:30 | Emotions and imaginaries of territory, time and public spaces |
| 16:00 - 18:00 | Group work and discussion |
Materials
Where possible, we have made the information and materials related to this seminar series available through our OSF repo.
Acknowledgments
This workshop is supported by a Seminar Series Award from the Urban Studies Foundation, grant reference: USF-SSA-230312.
