Luc De Droogh

Storytelling in Urban Spaces: Exploring Storytelling as a Social Work Intervention in Processes of Urbanisation

This contribution will report on the student project ‘Storytelling in urban spaces’ from University college Ghent. Combining theories of cultural studies and public pedagogy the project explored the semiotic framework ‘readers and writers of the city’. In the optional course ‘creative welfare work’, third year students from the professional bachelor of social work applied this semiotic framework by reading and interrupting urban areas in the center of Ghent. Applying the art of storytelling in processes of urbanization, students scrutinized a more cultural approach to social work that envisions civic learning as a process of wayfinding in society. To explore the values of this cultural approach, this contribution will focus on the link between the general semiotic framework and three student projects. In the concluding remarks, the issues of learning, the city and culture will be discussed to the background of this semiotic framework.