Dr Nina Ebner and Dr Matina Kapsali
Funding period: 1 June 2025 – 31 December 2025
Type of funding:
Other Grants
Partner organisations: University of Manchester (United Kingdom)
Lead organisers: Nina Ebner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, El Colegio de México and Matina Kapsali, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Manchester.
Contact: Nina Ebner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, El Colegio de México
This research project was funded by a Knowledge Mobilisation Award grant.
Abstract: “Grassroots infrastructures: collaborative methods and the co-creation of community organizing resources” is a collaborative, co-creative initiative that brings together two community-based organizations, academics, and artists to produce animated videos that will serve as organizing and political educational tools. In addition to the animated videos, the proposed project will feature two knowledge-sharing workshops and a community-based launch event.
This initiative builds on insights and ongoing collaborations developed during the USF-funded International Workshop, “Grassroots Infrastructures and Urban Social Reproduction” (May 2024). While this project contributes to ongoing scholarly debates about how urban communities respond to crises of social reproduction through everyday practices and organizing (Tanyildiz et al., 2021; Kapsali, 2020; Williams and Tait, 2023), its primary contribution lies in its collaborative methodology—one that prioritizes community-led knowledge creation and the use of creative tools for advocacy and mobilization.
Specifically, it seeks to: (i) co-create knowledge with communities actively mobilizing on the ground, using creative methods, in this case, animated videos; (ii) foster skill-building and reciprocal learning, enabling community groups to learn with and from each other, artists, and academic collaborators; and (iii) produce creative, accessible tools that community organizations can use to promote their work, share their stories, and advocate with policymakers and other public stakeholders.
Animated videos are particularly suited to these goals, due to their accessibility, versatility, and engaging nature, part of a larger feminist methodological toolkit that emphasizes collaborative knowledge production, participatory approaches, and creative research outputs, such as zines, podcasts, and animation (Sou and Hall, 2023; 2021; Harcourt et al, 2022; Goessling, 2024).