Contemporary societies around the world, including in Europe and Australia, are increasingly confronted with challenges related to radicalisation, xenophobia, antisemitism and exclusion. The intensification of these phenomena in recent years has demonstrated that what is required is not only institutional and governmental interventions but, above all, long-term educational and cultural strategies that foster dialogue, critical awareness, social understanding and cohesion. These tensions play out most acutely at the margins, in the spaces shaped by the experience of migration, displacement and social transformation, where communities negotiate belonging under conditions of uncertainty and change. It is also here that the most effective responses often emerge.

This event combined expert input with practical, participatory learning and discussion. It focused on cultural productions, institutions and various forms of mediated expression, together with the individuals who produce them or operate within and through them, as key sites of intersectional leadership, resistance and belonging. Participants discussed how institutions and cultural actors construct authority, build trust and respond to conditions of division and crisis, and will share strategies they can apply in their own communities and organisations.

This event was organized with the support of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Jean Leadership Emerging from Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Gender in Australia and the EU, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Select resources are available as the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Briefing Papers.