Webconference

Swetha Dhananka Rao

Swetha Dhananka Rao is a professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Western Switzerland, School of Social Work, Fribourg, Switzerland. Her research interests and teaching articulate around community approaches, arts-based social work, ecological and international social work, space shaping social relations, urbanisation processes – particularly with regard to its social and ecological effects, various institutional responses and political claim-making. Swetha Dhananka Rao participated to the project launched by the Swiss Federal Commission for Migration called ‘New us’. The national programme called for participatory projects that question the ‘us and them’ binary and present alternative models for strengthening cultural participation, social cohesion and a polyphonic ‘us’ in Switzerland. Swetha Dhananka Rao’s project contribution critically appraises a citizen-art project that met the funding criteria of ‘New us’. This scientific approach of developmental evaluation serves as a compass for the development and steering of open-ended participatory processes. The combined reflection on the artistic and scientific evaluation process engages social work research in the facilitation of cultural participation.