In addition to the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences (TRAWOS Institute, headed by Prof. Dr. Raj Kollmorgen), the Georg August University of Göttingen headed by Prof. Dr. Claudia Neu, lead partner) and the Thünen Institute for Regional Development Bollewick (headed by Andreas Willisch) are involved in the project.
Civic engagement in Germany takes countless forms and occurs in different constellations. The range of committed actors and their activities is almost inexhaustible and the spectrum of their forms of practice is constantly expanding. Numerous studies have shown that civic engagement and the self-organization of services of general interest, especially in rural, peripheral villages and communities, are vital for the local quality of life and play a key role in overcoming the challenges of social change. The various forms of social change - meaning both ongoing (demographic, economic and cultural) developments as well as structural upheavals (late effects of the unification process, coal phase-out) - have demonstrable long-term effects on life in rural areas and change both the needs and the forms and objectives of engagement in rural areas. On the one hand, these lasting changes require adaptations and ingenuity on the part of those involved themselves; on the other hand, they also suggest an update of the state's perspective on engagement and its funding requirements. In particular, phenomena such as ageing, people moving away or the decline of local infrastructures, be it the frequency of local public transport or the closure of the last pub in the village, are visibly affecting community life in rural communities. At the same time, innovative ideas and forms of action are emerging that sustainably improve life in the countryside and address and mobilize both young and old. Where committed people are gained in one place, they are lost in another. The forms of engagement are changing, as are the interests and goals of those involved. The developments of recent decades have inevitably led to a lack of clarity in the definition of engagement and volunteering and require an empirically based update of concepts and research approaches.
In a comparative perspective, voluntary engagement is examined in nine rural communities in East and West Germany with regard to its manifestations, actors and contextual conditions over time.
The use of the citizen science method "land inventory" in combination with the parallel community studies is intended to generate an in-depth picture of current rural engagement and its typical (change) constellations.
In local engagement workshops, opportunities and challenges for civil society activities will be discussed with citizens in a participatory manner and political recommendations for action to support and promote rural engagement will be developed.
The main objective of the collaborative project is to capture regionally differentiated volunteering constellations with their local forms, actors and activities as well as specific challenges and dynamics of change in rural areas in depth and to explain their particularities.
In order to expand the general level of knowledge with regard to the distribution, conditions, forms and content as well as the effects and needs of volunteering and civic engagement in different rural areas, citizens are personally involved in the research process in local village workshops as experts in their own living environment and the knowledge gained in this way flows directly into the study.
The findings from the village workshops will then be compared with those from the case studies conducted and used in the next step to work with local citizens in the form of engagement workshops on tailor-made solution strategies and possible support services for (potential) volunteers.
By using participatory and ethnographic-explorative survey methods, such as the citizen science tool Landinventur (https://landinventur.de), the project contributes to the further development of relevant research methods and engagement concepts.
Finally, the collected findings are to be developed into recommendations for action for the future promotion and strengthening of civic engagement in rural areas and contribute to the political constitution of equal living conditions.
The research project is multi-methodological, participatory and comparative. The focus is on three work modules:
The use of the citizen science tool "Landinventur", in combination with the parallel community studies, provides a detailed picture of the current state of rural engagement and its typical (changing) constellations. With the help of a digital questionnaire on the four topics of "living", "harvesting", "economic activity" and "engagement", local citizens carry out an inventory of their village and collectively ascertain the current situation while also identifying specific local needs and problems. In this way, for example, independent local commitment can be made visible and multipliers and experts can be recruited as co-researchers in the selected communities.
The case studies aim to better understand the functions, forms and actors as well as the interplay and role of civic engagement. To this end, ethnographically oriented case studies are designed and carried out in order to collect the different forms and types of engagement in addition to the land inventory and to reconstruct the interdependencies between the different actors within the present constellation.
In local engagement workshops, opportunities and challenges for civil society activities are discussed with citizens in a participatory manner and political recommendations for action to support and promote rural engagement are developed.
Results and recommendations from the nationwide pilot project of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the Deutscher Landkreistag (DLT).
What characterizes civic engagement in rural areas today? Who is involved? In what forms and constellations? Are there regional differences? Where does the shoe pinch? And where should the engagement journey go? The ENKOR team - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, the TRAWOS Institute at Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and the Thünen Institute for Regional Development - celebrated the conclusion of the three-year project together with all participants on April 18, 2024. Results from the field research were presented, reflected upon and discussed in the light of literature, art and cinema.
As one of 15 projects funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture's (BMEL) Rural Development and Regional Value Creation program (BULEplus) to research rural engagement, the ENKOR research network was represented at the 4th networking meeting "Volunteering in rural areas" in Hofgeismar, Hesse. Dr. Anna Eckert (Thünen Institute for Regional Development) presented selected results from the community studies. The focus of the presentation was the participatory format of the volunteering workshops, which aimed to provide feedback to the research participants and jointly develop recommendations and strategies for action.
Village workshops were held in the three districts of Saxony's third study municipality on March 23 and 24, 2023. In collaboration with the municipal administration, the ENKOR team invited citizens to take part in a "land inventory". A total of 39 interested people took part in the "remeasurement" of their village and helped to record social places and committed actors.
Acceptance of the proposal "Rural Engagement in times of structural changes: actors, forms and constellations" for session at the 3rd European Rural Geographies Conference in Groningen (NL) 2023
Abstract:
Civic Engagement appears to be one of the key dimensions with regard to the ability of rural communities to respond to the challenges of large-scale socio-structural changes. Recent studies (Freiwilligensurvey 2019) show that Civic Engagement in general is changing - some forms of engagement struggle to find new members, while other forms apparently attract many young people. Our three-year research project (ENKOR) aims to identify, categorize and analyse novel and established forms of civic engagement in rural areas and their individual capability to cope with common rural phenomena like overaging, shrinkage, de-industrialization and migration. The projects objective is to understand and uncover the given interdependencies and entanglements in between rural development in general and civic engagement in rural areas in particular. We want to present and discuss several forms of engagement that we found through our empirical research and introduce a preliminary typology that depicts the main characteristics of these forms against the backdrop of the ongoing structural changes/transformation in/of rural areas. Furthermore, we want to evaluate the impact of the term "constellation", understood as an interdependent figuration, for the empirical research of rural civic engagement. The following questions will be discussed: Which forms of civic engagement emerge in rural areas in the context of social-structural changes? Which ones of them appear to be "novel" (such as refugee initiatives or solidarity-based housing projects and farms) forms of engagement and how do "established" (such as clubs, volunteer fire departments or local politics) forms react to socio-structural changes? Do novel and established forms of social engagement coexist independently/parallelly or do they have a strong influence on each other?
Acceptance of the panel "Civic engagement and socio-structural changes in rural areas. Current developments" at the 3rd Rural Geographies Conference in Groningen (NL) 2023
Abstract:
Rurality is anything but a clear and consistent concept. It appears to be quite the opposite: a vast and colorful continuum of differently structured social spaces with specific characteristics and histories. Rural areas themselves have always been very heterogeneous and embedded in social, cultural, economic and regional contexts. These contexts create and form regional constellations, which are in turn differently capable to react to socio-structural changes. Until recently, the capacity of rural areas for dealing with these changes had rather negative connotations in Germany. This perspective is changing though. Especially the constitution of civic engagement as one of the most important elements within these constellations seems to be a central aspect of their resilience or vulnerability towards these processes. Engagement significantly influences the competence of rural areas to react to these changes. But how do certain rural areas encounter processes of transformation such as shrinkage, overaging and de-industrialization and what role do civic engagement and social innovation play in this context?
The panel will focus on the role of civic engagement in rural areas that are facing large-scale socio-structural shifts and will try to discuss the following questions: Which elements influence the capability of rural areas to react towards socio-structural changes and how is this connected with civic-engagement? Why does "shrinkage" in some areas appears to be a healthy and innovative process, while in others it means loss and decline? Are rural areas more or less creative in dealing with the effects of socio-structural changes than urban regions? Which forms of civic engagement emerge in rural areas in this context? Which ones of them appear to be "novel" (such as refugee initiatives or solidarity-based housing projects and farms) forms of engagement and how do "established" (such as clubs, volunteer fire departments or local politics) forms react to social change? Do novel and established forms of social engagement coexist independently of or do they influence each other?
We are specifically looking for contributions that distinguish different kinds of civic engagement in rural areas and their interplay with socio-structural conditions and changes.
To submit an abstract, we ask for a brief description of the theme and content you would like to present on (max 250 words). The abstract should also include a (working) title, up to 5 keywords, your name and your co-authors if applicable. The deadline is 31 January 2023. We appreciate a maximum of two abstract submissions per person.
Project presentation and discussion on the role of engagement in rural areas and in connection with professional social work with students on the "Social Work" course at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, Görlitz campus.
Colloquium with students of the degree program Management of Social Change: Field access and research question(s), at the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz, Campus Görlitz.
The digital stakeholder meeting organized by the TRAWOS Institute enabled the numerous volunteers from the 9 municipalities in the study to come together digitally and exchange information on engagement-specific topics, issues and concrete challenges across locations. The topics of refugee aid, current developments in the area of volunteering and the need for support and promotion of civic engagement were discussed in groups. Afterwards, there was the opportunity to discuss and record the most important findings in the form of a report.
A research project with 3 collaborative partners in 3 federal states brings with it specific challenges. For this reason, another joint meeting of all ENKOR partner institutes took place in Berlin in October 2022. Following the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, the in-person meeting provided an opportunity for an intensive exchange and the chance to discuss progress to date, results and the future course of action.
In October 2023, village workshops were held in all 4 districts of the study municipality 2 in Saxony.
Interested parties from all four villages were invited to talk to each other and report on their districts. With the help of the citizen science tool "Landinventur" (www.landinventur.de), life in the individual districts was to be recorded and mapped together with the citizens. In other words, the citizens themselves collected the data that provides the public and politicians with an accurate picture of how people live, live and work in the countryside in the 21st century. The image of dying and isolated villages was to be deliberately broken up and reassembled.
The ENKOR team took part in the municipal council meeting in study municipality 3 and presented itself and the ENKOR project to the interested audience. The project was welcomed by all those present and future cooperation with the local council and mayor was agreed.
The ENKOR project presented itself at the Überland Festival in Görlitz on 03.09.2022 with a discussion offering under the motto "Who gets involved with whom and how?" .
The ENKOR team took part in the municipal council meeting in study municipality 2 and presented itself and the ENKOR project to the interested audience. The project was welcomed by all those present and future cooperation with the local council and mayor was agreed.
The ENKOR project was presented and explained to an interested audience as part of the Long Night of Science on the campus of Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. The event offered the opportunity to discuss the background, objectives and approach of the project with representatives of various disciplines, in particular practitioners, in order to use their questions and suggestions in the research process.
Annual conference of the Rural Areas Working Group of the German Geographical Society "Rural areas and societies in transition" in Bautzen
At the annual conference of the working group on May 5, 2022, ENKOR presented its work on the topic of engagement constellations in rural areas: An East-West comparison.
Participation in the 15th Future Forum for Rural Development - Expert Forum 2 - Innovative Engagement: Forms, Benefits, Problems on 21.01.2022, digital.
The theoretical and conceptual framing of the project will be discussed, including the concept of engagement and the resulting implications for the visibility, legitimacy and support of engagement, a typology of the rural and the selection/operationalization of context variables.
On 11.09.2021 Workshop "Engagement of the rural? Research, challenges, ideas", at the Überland-Festival in Görlitz.
The joint project, which will run from 2021-2024, is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) with a total of almost 1 million euros.
Dr. Thomas Prennig
Sarah Lampe - Scientific Assistant
Philipp Bruckmann - Scientific Assistant
