Common Room Collaborations

This collaborative research project engages community members and practitioners in considering how local communities have mobilised collaboratively in order to counter national patterns of polarisation and to what extent these collaborative structures can inform our understanding of networks functioning at different scalar levels from local to national. The polarisation of interest is the “us and them” discourses that are seen in populist rhetoric. The case study is the Cardiff More in Common Partnership. This study will engage participants through participative focus groups from 6 hyper local communities in developing a toolkit for community interventions that can support civil society to prevent polarisation and to counter divisive events when they arise. Participants will receive training to co-deliver the knowledge exchange events, which will be rolled out through the Welsh network of Community Cohesion teams and the UK wide More in Common networks linked to the charity, Jo Cox Foundation.