Shared and plural memories for new forms of proximity. A pedagogical perspective in neighborhoods with high socio-cultural complexity

Abstract

This paper aims to present intercultural educational perspectives on the role that the traces of local stories stored in socioculturally diverse urban areas can play to promote new forms of inclusive communities within heterogenous educational contexts. The text will focus on some key concepts emerging in postcolonial research (Spivak, 2012a) regarding tensions and relationships between local stories – that today seem to be both plural and collective – and processes of community and identity building. It will try to underline how such theoretical perspectives can help us to read current diverse urban environments as «social laboratories» (van der Veen & Wildemeersch, 2012, pp. 9-11), in which new forms of «human togetherness» can emerge (Biesta, 2012). We will present in this perspective a few short examples from a North-East Italian diverse urban neighbourhood (In Fàula, 2011; Campo Dall’Orto, 2016).