Project

“Global South” 22-23 aims to develop some of the results obtained within the Act for the Disappeared project, concerning the numerous people who were kidnapped and disappeared during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). These results were obtained through creative and participatory methods within the project of Dr. Dani”ele Rugo (Brunel University London) and Prof. Carmen Abou Jaoude (Saint-Joseph University) under the British Academy's Heritage, Dignity and Violence programme funded in 2019.

This project seeks to continue and extend the existing work on the fate of the disappeared in Lebanon, on political violence and its historical memory, integrating it with a comparative reflection in the Italian context in the second half of the 20th century. Emphasising the historical, sociological and political differences of the two contexts, the intention is to address the common issue of using participatory and creative methods to deal with the difficult themes of memory, political violence and terrorism in Italy and Lebanon.

The project envisages the mobility of second-cycle students in both directions: from Italy to Lebanon in May 2023 (from 21 to 27); from Lebanon to Italy in June 2023 (from 18 to 25). The students belonging to the ALMA Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna were selected within the Master's degree courses in "Scienze filosofiche", "Semiotica", "Pedagogia", "Progettazione e gestione dell’intervento educativo nel disagio sociale", "Scienze dell’educazione permanente e della formazione continua" and within the FILCOM PhD program in "Philosophy, Science, Cognition and Semiotics" (some of them attended the transversal skills course "Competenze di Cittadinanza Globale"); those from Saint-Joseph University in Beirut were selected from the Arab Master's programme in “Democracy and Human Rights”.

The active participation of the students is essential for the project's objectives, in particular for the in-depth knowledge and awareness of issues related to trauma and the memory of violence in post-conflict situations; for the elaboration of a concrete experience of global citizenship and belonging to transnational communities; for the extension of inter-cultural and trans-generational dialogue modalities; for addressing and above all preventing violence, abuse, trauma, building sustainable paths towards justice and peace; finally, for the learning and elaboration of shared meanings related to the themes proposed by the project itself.

The two teams will also consist of representatives of three NGOs involved: Act for the disappeared, Laban and Krila Teatro dell’Oppresso. The scheduled activities will focus both on the dissemination and sharing of knowledge, through more traditional practices such as seminars and lectures, and on capacity building activities, through artistic and creative practices such as theatre of the oppressed and the projection and discussion of video materials in public sessions, in order to maximise the impact and dissemination of content. The overall project framework was conceived to fully reflect the teaching and research interests of both the UniBo proposers and the Lebanese partners; the envisaged methodology intends to enhance the creative and bottom-up approach, responding directly to the multidisciplinary spirit of this call.

The reference professors and representatives of the organisations involved have been meeting online since January 2023 to discuss the methodological details and coordinate the activities of the mobility periods. A project website has been set up and an unstructured staff unit with organisational functions has been recruited (Activity M-0).

The following activities will be carried out during the first mobility period in Beirut:

•  A cycle of public lectures on the theme of memory, violence and collective trauma in the Lebanese and Italian context, organised by Act for the disappeared and held by USJ and UniBo professors and complementary to the cycle of lectures held in the following mobility period (by Act, USJ and UniBo).
•  Commented visit of the two project units to the places of political violence and its memory in Beirut (by Act).
• Public screening and round table discussion starting with the film Darker than the Surrounding by Daniele Rugo, co-produced by Carmen Abou Jaoude (2023) (by Act)
• Theatre workshop (Part I, by Laban)
• Theatre workshop (Part I, byr Unibo-EDU + Krila Teatro dell'Oppresso)

The following activities will be carried out during the second mobility period in Bologna:

• a cycle of public lectures on the theme of memory, violence and collective trauma in the Lebanese and Italian contexts, held by USJ staff (by Act, USJ and UniBo).
• a cycle of public lectures on the theme of participatory theatre methodology as a tool for the transmission of memory, held by UniBo professors involved in the project and by the representative of the Laban association (by Unibo-EDU + Krila Teatro dell'Oppresso).
• Public screening and round table discussion from the film Darker than the Surrounding by Daniele Rugo, co-produced by Carmen Abou Jaoude (2023) (by UniBo-FILCOM)
• Commented visit of the two project units to the places of political violence and its memory in Bologna, Marzabotto e Montesole, Museo per la Memoria di Ustica, Stazione di Bologna, (by UniBo-FILCOM)
• Theatre workshop (Part II, by UniBo-EDU + Krila Teatro dell'Oppresso).
• Theatre workshop coordinated by Farah Wardani (Part II, by Laban)

All activities are conceived in an integrated and harmonious manner, and are intended to contribute, although to varying degrees, both to the specific objectives of the project and to the Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the United Nations, within whose framework they were conceived - in fact, the project responds to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) number 4 (Quality Education), 5 (Gender Equality) and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). The project is also part of the strategic objectives of North-South collaboration set out in the agreement between UniBo and UNESCO for the Chair in Global Citizenship Education. This collaboration focuses in particular on countries bordering the Mediterranean.

Professors from the two partner universities and NGO representatives will meet online for a debriefing after the mobility phases. A series of follow-up interviews will be conducted with the students to gather their impressions and comment on their experiences. The indicators chosen to measure the achievement of the expected results are qualitative and not quantitative. The experiences developed will also be integrated into the pedagogical practices of USJ and UniBo professors following the end of the project, and potentially repeated in local contexts or around themes other than the one explored here.

The recordings of the activities will be distributed through dedicated website and social networks for their use beyond the chronological limits of the project.