Citizens’ Memories and Imaginaries: Democratic Citizenship

The citizen science research project Citizens Memories and Imaginaries: Democratic Citizenship investigates the imaginaries of Jewish, queer, and migrant citizen groups in post-Nazi Austria from 1945 until today, specifically imaginaries formed through memories: How are memories and imaginaries from Jewish, queer and migrant communities manifested within majoritarian narratives of Austrian society? How do members of these communities position themselves in relation to broader hegemonic discourses of state and nationhood in Austria today? To what extent are counter-discourses to dominant historic narratives performed in these communities? And how do they challenge the predominant construction of citizenship? Democratic citizenship constitutes the outcome of a process of political performativity through e.g. remembering, retelling, reimagining and is based on a constant seeking of dialogue and opposition to the differentiations of the majoritarian citizens from those who are not or should not be citizens. It is the performance of this process by citizens themselves that this project seeks to facilitate. The proposed project is a relative novelty, combining citizen science with arts-based research. Imaginaries are a collective and relational form of knowledge that is experiential, pluri-spatial and pluri-temporal. CS and arts-based research are an innovative way of gaining insights onto such imaginaries and their potential for democratic citizenship. The exploration of memories and imaginaries of the three marginalized communities is timely and has the potential to inform the citizen humanities.

In the "Citizens' Memories and Imaginaries" project (TCS 119; 2022-24), a team of researchers (Marina Gržinić, Jovita Pristovšek, Sophie Uitz) focused on three types of communities: Migrants, Queers and Jews, in the Austrian context. The project dealt with highly sensitive social and community issues such as traumatic and problematic processes of exclusion of individuals and communities in societies. In a series of Memory Labs - an innovative format of Citizen Science research that incorporates artistic research - we explored what we call the 'citizen imaginary': a collective and relational form of knowledge. Artists and researchers collaborated with citizen scientists to critically examine what it means to be a citizen. Through mixed artistic practices - photography, rap, poetry, sketches and graphic recordings - we explored how we can develop collective strategies to confront conditions of exclusion and marginalization. We embedded the project in existing citizen science networks in Austria (Österreich forscht and OeAD), through which we established relation with 3 different high schools, with whom we developed topics together: class 6B from BORG Guntramsdorf, class 2AHL from HLW Biedermannsdorf, class 7A from BRG6 Marchettigasse. We have also worked with researchers from Austrian civil society organizations: the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW), the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI), the University of Education Upper Austria (PHOÖ); and invited rap artist Esra Özmen aka EsRAP, visual and performance artist Ndidi J. Iroh, the drawing artist Felix Deiters and the school intern Munar Khalid-Biiq. The project provided a framework in which citizen scientists, scholars and artists came together in an art-based, co-creative space to rethink questions of (non-)citizenship and democracy. It conceptualized the idea of democratic citizenship as the outcome of a process of community performativity through a co-creative process of remembering, retelling and re-imagining. With the Memory Labs, the project offered an encounter and a platform to rethink and resist the distinction between citizens and non-citizens. It offered the (young) generation the opportunity to re-imagine, rethink and materialize the idea of the future. Within the general field of Citizen Science in Austria, the project stands out for three reasons. Firstly, on a content level, it deals with social issues on topics such as democracy and community, belonging, exclusion and participation. It has therefore also contributed to the co-creation of new knowledge in this area. Secondly, on a methodological level, linking Citizen Science with artistic and art-based research is still rarely practised. The project as such informs the Citizen Humanities. Third, in terms of social orientation, it contributed to community building and empowerment through community engagement, racial, class and gender diversity, the promotion of social inclusion and the creation of alliances between different marginalized communities and civil society institutions.