The idea of cosmopolitanism remains multifaceted and fit for purpose. It may be seen, for example, as a philosophical concept, or viewed as a theoretical and empirical tool used to describe and
understand contemporary society, culture and interculturality. But cultural theory and empirical research have not remained stagnant, and a number of recent ideas have been proffered as further
theoretical and empirical tools. These include the concepts of postdigitality and postmigrancy. The “post” in these terms does not denote an end (of digitality or migration), but the transformation of a society indissolubly interwoven with digitality and migration. Cramer (2014:13, 17) sees the “post” in postdigital as denoting a “continuation” rather than a rupture, as indicative of the “messy state of media, art and design after their digitization”, eradicating the distinction between old and new media. Similarly, the term postmigration implies that the structures of society have been
fundamentally altered by migratory processes (Foroutan 2019); supposedly clear dichotomies of “migrant”/“native” or “assimilated”/“segregated” become dissolved, while established distributions
of resources and power structures have increasingly been called into question and become renegotiated. Indeed, the mere fact of continuously shaping a (post)migrant society and of being
immersed in super-diversity with cultural and linguistic implications (Blommaert/Rampton 2011) needs to be accepted (Foroutan 2019). Thus, the new theoretical and empirical postmigrant and
postdigital realities call for new perspectives on the concept of cosmopolitanism and adjoining concepts, such as Europeanism. These ideas, though very applicable to European societies and lifeworlds, are not limited to Europe but are found and may be investigated in a variety of contexts.

In our conference, we engaged with the undeniable fact that migration and digitalization are deeply intertwined with our daily reality and have greatly left their mark on society. This also, of course, changes our thoughts and perspectives on cosmopolitanism.

The online conference took place from June 26 to July 7, 2023.

Presentations

• Gerard Delanty (University of Sussex)
  Understanding Socio-Cultural Change Today: Reflections on Cosmopolitanism and Europeanisation (watch on YouTube)
• Fabio Mauri (DG MEME)
  Memes, the Common Language of the European Public Sphere? (watch on YouTube)
• Mark Ryan (University of Limerick)
  Queer Cosmopolitanism in a Digital Space: Narratives of Progress and Exclusionary Practices (watch on YouTube)
• Roman Lietz (University of Mainz)
  Educasts on Digital Cosmopolitanism (watch on YouTube)
• Maria Rieder (University of Limerick) and Marta Giralt (University of Limerick)
  The ‘Tell your own Story’ Project – Using Media to Develop Cosmopolitan Mindsets in a Diverse and Changing Urban Space in Ireland (watch on YouTube)
• Denise Holguín (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
  Critical Cosmopolitanism for Intercultural Language Education in the Context of Migration: A Multidimensional Understanding for Pedagogical Intervention and Data Analysis (watch on YouTube)
• Çiğdem Bozdağ (University of Bremen / University of Groningen)
  Cosmopolitanism From Below and the Multilingual Use of Digital Media Among Young People in the Postmigrant Society (watch on YouTube)
• Sandro Accogli (South Europe Youth Forum)
  Immigration, Participation and the Post-Digital (watch on YouTube)
• Nicholas Potter (Amadeu Antonio Stiftung)
  Viral Hate and Digital Propaganda: Far-Right Populism Online (watch on YouTube)
• Alina Jugenheimer (Independent Scholar)
  Constructions of Threat to the »Volk« in Right-Wing Online Discourses (watch on YouTube)
• Luisa Conti (University of Jena) and Fergal Lenehan (University of Jena)
  Experiential Hermeneutics and Social Media: Facebook Comments and the German Newspaper Bild (watch on YouTube)
• Simon Pistor (University of St. Gallen)
  Varieties of Cosmopolitanism – Cultural, Constitutional, Contestative – and Social (watch on YouTube)
• Fergal Lenehan (University of Jena)
  Internet History, Platform History & Platformisation: A Methodological Discussion (watch on YouTube)
• Hervé Saint Louis (Université du Québec)
  Migration From Twitter: Black Mastodon’s Predicament (watch on YouTube)
• Emilian Franco (LMU Munich)
  Contaminated and Cosmopolitan Imaginaries in Brazilian AI Research (watch on YouTube)
• Naika Foroutan (Deutsches Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung Berlin)
  Migration Today and Tomorrow – Reflecting the „Post-“ in Postmigrant Societies (watch on YouTube)
• Jutta Brennauer (BetterPost [Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen])
  Media Visibility & Diversity in a Postmigrant Society (watch on YouTube)
• Roman Lietz (University of Mainz) and Carmen Pereyra (University of Jena)
  Unlikely Fraternities Between Argentina and Bangladesh: A Postcolonial and Postdigital Football Tale (watch on YouTube)
• Hong Van Nguyen (Perspektiven of Color)
  Narratives, Participation and Social Media (watch on YouTube)
• Guillermo Echauri (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
  Cosmopolitanism Through the Digital Mediation of International Students in Barcelona (watch on YouTube)
• Nick Ludwig (University of Jena)
  Learning to Feel at Home Anywhere: Digital Experiential Learning as a Tool to Facilitate Cosmopolitanism and How Learning can be Investigated with Virtual Action Learning (watch on YouTube)
• Milene Mendes de Oliveira (University of Potsdam)
  Navigating Digital Interculturality on Zoom: Duelling Between Interactional Practices and Assumptions of Ideal Intercultural Interactions in Search of “Intercultural Competence” (watch on YouTube)
• Andrea Barcaro (University of Lisbon)
  Nomadic Art – Decolonising the Human and the Posthuman (watch on YouTube)
• Yolanda López García (Chemnitz University of Technology)
  Exploring Whitexicans’ Narratives of Europeanness in the Postdigital Field of Action (watch on YouTube)
• Carmen Pereyra (University of Jena)
  “Why doesn’t Argentina have more Black Players?”: The Twitter Reaction to an Article Published in The Washington Post, Between Postcolonialism, Postmigratory Views and Racism Denial (watch on YouTube)
• Britta Schneider (European University Viadrina) and May Rostom (Aix-Marseille University)
  Cosmopolitan Language Cultures and Overcoming Methodological Nationalism in Linguistics. Insights from Transnational Migrant Networks (watch on YouTube)
• Bernd Meyer (University of Mainz) and Roman Lietz (University of Mainz)
  The Cosmopolitan Promise of Translation Apps (watch on YouTube)
• Alexa Robertson (Stockholm University)
  Cosmopolitanism and Communication Rights in a Postdigital World (watch on YouTube)

conference program

Digitalization has rapidly transformed the planet. Technological developments continuously open up a myriad of new possibilities in daily human experience. Indeed, the Internet has penetrated material reality to such an extent that it is now, often, impossible in many contexts to disentangle the material from the virtual. In this “postdigital” (Cramer 2014; Knox 2019) scenario, the digital and the material intertwine and the intersubjectivity of lifeworlds develop, thus, relatively freely in a hybrid space. The encounter with ‘newness’ becomes indeed potentially accessible at the touch of a button 24/7, and learning becomes a lifewide experience, covering a myriad of new digital and potentially global contexts, beyond the local. New connections with other people and their artifacts are continuously occurring. These new connections foster learning processes which lead to personal and cultural transformations; the ground upon which new connections develop.

The conference took place over three days:

29 June 2022: online
30 June 2022: hybrid (online & in presence at the ‘Dornburger Castles’, near Jena, Germany)
1 July 2022: in presence, at the ‘Dornburger Castles’, near Jena, Germany.

Presentations

Wednesday, 29 June 2022

• Fergal Lenehan & Luisa Conti (University of Jena, ReDICo)
  Welcome to the Conference and an Introduction to ReDICo, 29 June 2022 (watch on YouTube)
• Nektaria Palaiologou (Hellenic Open University)
  Intercultural Communication and Digital Education during the Covid 19 Pandemic: Inclusion or Exclusion? (access on request)
• Eleni Antoniadou, Nektaria Palaiologou, Zoe Karanikola (Hellenic Open University)
  Challenges Teachers Face and the Need for Digital Resources (watch on YouTube)
• Siobhán Brownlie (Le Mans University, University of Manchester)
  ‘Global Classroom’: Postdigital Connecting across Continents (watch on YouTube)
• Milene Mendes de Oliveira, Mario Antonio Tuccillo (University of Potsdam, ReDICo)
  Learning and Participation in the Online Intercultural Game Megacities (watch on YouTube)
• Christine Fenech, Janice Darmanin (Institute For Education Malta, KIDS4ALLL), Luisa Conti, Klara Räthel (University of Jena, KIDS4ALLL)
  Peer Learning Buddies – Building an Inclusive Learning Environment for Migrant and Non-Migrant Students (watch on YouTube)
• Tanja Schroot, Giulia Maria Cavaletto, Roberta Ricucci (University of Torino)
  Digital Competences in the Educational Sphere: Knowledge – Skills – Attitudes – A Case from Italy
• Roman Lietz, Magdalena Loska (University of Mainz, ReDICo)
  “Integration Takes Place On-Site” – An Integration Paradigm on the (Postdigital) Test Bench (watch on YouTube)
• Virginia Signorini (Independent Researcher)
  When Devices Divide – Accessing Education in Covid Time for Migrants and Refugees Students across Europe (watch on YouTube)
• Marina Karkouli, Georgios Panagiotopoulos, Zoe Karanikola (University of Patras)
  Teachers’ perceptions on the 4th Industrial Revolution and Digital Transformation (watch on YouTube)
• Fergal Lenehan (University of Jena, ReDICo)
  Learning by Scrolling? The Twitter Thread as Cosmopolitan Potentiality and Lifewide Informative Textual Offer (watch on YouTube)
• Public Reading and Discussion: Nuala O’Connor (Author) with Fergal Lenehan and Lymor Goldstein
  Includes the reading of a new commissioned short fiction text “Of Wineapples and Acorns”, reacting to the topic ‘Digital Interculturality’ (watch reading and discussion on YouTube)

Thursday, 30 June 2022

• Edlira Gugu (University of Elbasan), Ema Kristo (University of Tirana)
  Digitale Transformationskultur – Fall Albanien, Schwerpunkt Hochschulbildung
• Elisa Hofmann (University of Jena)
  Digital Tools for Data Collection and Analysis (Workshop, presentation on request, watch on YouTube)
• Judith Wolf (University of Jena)
  Novel Virtual Communication in Times of Crisis: Insights into Learning Processes of Hospital Employees during the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Pia Diergarten (University of Jena)
  ‘Bildung’ and Artificial Intelligence – Anthropological Aspects Concerning Higher Education (watch on YouTube)
• Rawan Tahboub (University of Jena)
  Virtual Exchange as a Mechanism for Digital Education
• Shayan Aqdas (City Postgraduate College for Women, Punjab)
  The Impact of Online Classes on Students’ Learning in the Context of Covid-19 in Pakistan
• Vlasis Manolias (Hellenic Open University)
  An Overview of E-Learning Platforms for Learning Greek as a Second/Foreign Language: Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Evaluation (watch on YouTube)

Friday, 01 July 2022

• Fergal Lenehan (FSU Jena, ReDICo)
  Welcome to the Conference, 01 July 2022
• Luisa Conti (FSU Jena, ReDICo)
  Lifewide Learning – When Transcultural Learning Becomes Ubiquitous
  
• Emilian Franco (LMU München)
  Learning to Code on Open Source Platforms: About the Need for a “Digital-Autocratic” Mindset
  
• Claus Ehrhardt (Universität Urbino)
  Sprechhandlungen in öffentlichen Räumen – Eindrücke von einem binationalen Seminar in hybridem Format
  
• Nicole Brandstetter (Hochschule München)
  Interkulturelles Wirtschaftsenglisch im Wandel – Ergebnisse einer Befragung im Rahmen des Masterstudienprogramms „Systems Engineering“
  
• Beatrix Kreß (Universität Hildesheim)
  Interkulturelles Lernen im (post-)digitalen Raum: I’ve become relaxed to it – Sprachliche Formen der Selbstreflexion von Lernprozessen und didaktisierende Zugänge in Expatriate-Youtube Vlogs (Workshop)
  
• Jürgen Bolten (FSU Jena)
  Scimification – Affektive Einstiege in ganzheitliche virtuelle Lernprozesse
  
• Presenting authors: Daniela Gröschke, Laura Malik, Jael In`t Veld;
  Other authors: Judith Kehl, Priscilla Krachum Ott, Maja Schachner,  Sophie Hölscher,  Patricia Kleßen, Anke John
  Perspectives on Diversity in Thuringian Schools
  
• Alina Jugenheimer (Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e.V. Berlin)
  Rechten Online-Diskursen entgegentreten: Möglichkeiten politischer Bildung online
  
• Yolanda López García (FSU Jena)
  Rethinking Interrelations between Lifewide Learning, Migration and the Postdigital Everyday
  
• Steffen Höhne (HfM Weimar)
  Die digitale Transformation und die Kultur – Perspektiven der Produktion, Distribution und Rezeption von kulturellen Gütern und Angeboten
  

Drawings: Akemi Paz, CC-BY-NC

conference topic

conference program

abstracts

In this symposium on September, 20, 2021, we introduced our ReDICo project, and reflected upon the state of the art within Intercultural Communications scholarship, Internet Studies and how they may be combined.

Interkulturelle Sommerakademie, Online, 20. September 2021

ReDICo-Symposium „Interkulturalität in (post-)digitalen Kontexten“

9:30 Begrüßung und Vorstellung der wissenschaftlichen und strategischen Zielen des BMBF- Forschungsverbundes ReDICo (Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively) (Watch presentation on YouTube)

9:45 Inwieweit kann Post-Digitalität als „lebensweltliche Hybridität“ verstanden werden? Workshop – Moderation: Dr. Luisa Conti, PD Dr. Fergal Lenehan, Dr. Roman Lietz

11:15 Pause

11:30 Interkulturelle Studien und Internet Studien – Nebeneinander oder Miteinander? Vortrag + Diskussion – PD Dr. Fergal Lenehan & Dr. Roman Lietz (Watch presentation on YouTube or download paper)

12:15 Mittagspause

13:15 Scimification. Affektive Einstiege in ganzheitliche virtuelle Lernprozesse Vortrag + Diskussion – Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bolten (Watch presentation on YouTube or download paper Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)

14:00 Pause

14:15 Internationale virtuelle Zusammenarbeit. Wie entsteht ein echtes Miteinander? Vortrag + Diskussion – Dr. Luisa Conti, Dr. Milene Mendes de Oliveira & Barbara Nietzel, M.A. (Watch presentation on YouTube or download paper)

15:00 Pause 15:15 Digitale Tools zur Datenerhebung und Auswertung in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften Workshop – Dr. Elisa Hofmann (Watch presentation on YouTube or download paper)

16:45 Pause 17:00 „Online-Seminare interaktiv gestalten“ Interaktiver Vortrag – Sabine Vana-Ströhla und Tommy Schmidt

18:30 Informeller Austausch zum Tagesabschluss

ReDICo organised a panel about Digital Intercultural Communication for the Section of Intercultural Communication and Multilingual Discourse at the annual GAL (Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik) conference in Würzburg (15-17 September 2021). You can download the full program here.

You will find all presentations held by ReDICo members at the Digital Intercultural Communication panel here:

GAL Sektionentagung 2021, Online, 15. September 2021

ReDICo-Symposium „Digitale Interkulturelle Kommunikation in Wirtschaft und Kollaboration“ und “Digitale Interkulturelle Kommunikation in Lehre und Lernen”

15:05 Business English as a lingua franca in intercultural simulation games via Zoom: a case study Vortrag + Diskussion: Dr. Milene Mendes de Oliveira, Universität Potsdam (Download paper)

17:10 Language and power: reflexions around dynamics of exclusion and self-exclusion in online role-playing games Vortrag + Diskussion: Dr. Luisa Conti, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena & Dr. Milene Mendes de Oliveira, Universität Potsdam (Download paper)

GAL Sektionentagung 2021, Online, 16. September 2021

ReDICo-Symposium „Digitale Interkulturelle Kommunikation als Verbindung von Linguistik und Kulturstudien“

09:00 Diskursive Herstellung von Identität und Sozialer Kohäsion im virtuellen Raum Vortrag + Diskussion: Dr. Roman Lietz, Universität Mainz (Download paper)

09:30 Heimat wird Netzwerk. Reflexionen über Diaspora-Gemeinschaften im postdigitalen Zeitalter Vortrag + Diskussion: Dr. Luisa Conti, Universität Jena (Download paper)

10:00 Intercultural Communications and Internet Studies: A Parallel Academic History, and the Need to Unite? Vortrag + Diskussion: Dr. Fergal Lenehan, Universität Jena (Download paper)

16:00 WeltCafé: Zustand und Zukunft der Digitalen Interkulturellen Kommunikation Moderatoren: Dr. Milene Mendes de Oliveira, Universität Potsdam & Dr. Roman Lietz, Universität Mainz