Online Workshop: Challenging Integration through Everyday Narratives

Several DEMOS teams in five European countries have looked into how minority groups have coped with right-wing populist politics. Now, project researcher Osman Şahin (Glasgow Caledonian University) will present the teams' first conclusions at a workshop of the H2020 VOLPOWER, a project studying community building and social integration, on Thursday (April 29) at 10:15 AM (GMT). 

To conduct their research, project scholars interviewed several groups targeted by right-wing populist rhetoric and examined social media data. They found that several of them deploy defensive strategies to cope with the populist challenge.

These include creating echo chambers, with groups abstaining from communicating with people who do not share the same views with them, self-censorship, and even migration. LGBTIQ+ groups have tried resisting aggressive populist rhetoric towards minority groups in Greece or Turkey by taking to the streets or mobilizing civil society organisations.

The research findings are part of a large research effort of the DEMOS project to assess the impacts of populism on party systems, the media, and citizens. DEMOS will release working papers on these research tasks soon.

The workshop

The two-day online workshop, which brings several scholars exploring integration through everyday narratives, will be streamed live via Zoom application on April 29-30. Information on the access link and the programme are available here.