Seminar WiSe 2024/25
Saba Barani, Dr. Juliana Canedo

Playful Inclusion: From the Shelter to the City
Co-learning through games

How can we develop inclusive approaches to generate socio-spatial knowledge for building more inclusive cities?
In our co-learning research group “Playful Inclusion: From the Shelter to the City” we want to adopt a critical feminist perspective to intervene in the ongoing discourse of researching the socio-spatial dynamics of refugee camps and how these dynamics contribute to enhance or diminish the inclusion of newcomers in the city.

In this project we will adopt the innovative approach of conducting research on social and spatial dynamics using participatively designed games. Through games we will discuss and collect the experiences and needs of children in a refugee camp and its neighborhood in Berlin-Marzahn.

Photo © Dr. Juliana Canedo

Our co-learning research has a collaborative methodology that attempts to move away from traditional top-down and bottom-up frameworks through a horizontal process of knowledge exchange between academic research, relevant literatures, collectives, activists, and space users.
Students, as co-researchers, will engage in literature reviews and critical discussions within the group, as well as with activists and collectives, to co-create the theoretical framework of the research. In addition, students will design and perform socio-spatial games in collaboration with children and camp workers, write field notes, conduct interviews, and finally analyze their findings in the group to collaboratively and playfully produce knowledge and include unheard voices in the discourse of building inclusive environments.
The project is interdisciplinary and open to motivated undergraduate and graduate students with a background or interest in architecture, urban planning, social sciences, and students from related fields who are interested in engaging in such a co-learning socio-spatial research project through games. We strongly encourage students from diverse backgrounds, languages, and ethnicities to participate in this course.

This is an X-Student research group funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the State of Berlin as part of the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments by the Berlin University Alliance.

Download poster here.