Culture trAnSforming communiTies and economies (CAST)
The transnational project “Culture trAnSforming communiTies and economies” (CAST) aims to use the rich cultural heritage of the Danube Region to enhance social inclusion and drive economic growth as part of the green transition.
Project partners from eleven countries in the Danube region will develop a model to support local communities in offering inclusive cultural activities and sustainable tourism products. Through pilot actions, the model will be tested and validated in diverse settings, ensuring its applicability and effectiveness across various cultural landscapes.
Pilot actions
- Iskriva, Slovenia: industrial (steel) heritage in the Koroška region
- Nice and homely, Slovenia: relevance of bees and beekeepers for culture and biodiversity
- Koprivnica Križevci County, Croatia: naïve art gallery road and Albergo Diffuso (“dispersed hotel”)
- Tourism Organization of Vojvodina, Serbia: accessible cultural and natural heritage in Novi Sad and Zone 021
- Urban Cult, Montenegro: accessible events
- Savaria Museum, Hungary: accessible museum district and jobs for vulnerable groups
- The Collective, Bulgaria: rebuilding identity in peripheral urban residential areas (Lyulin, Sofia)
- Transylvania Trust Foundation, Romania: heritage training programme and business opportunities in the Cluj-Napoca area
- Kolárovo, Slovakia: multicultural tourism
- National Inbound and Domestic Tourism Association of Moldova: community-based cultural festival
- Development Agency Zepce, Bosnia and Herzegovina: multiculturalism and natural resources for green business and tourism
What makes CAST original is its emphasis on the process of training and capacity building as integral to the model itself, ensuring that communities not only adopt the framework but are equipped to implement it effectively.
By mainstreaming the model at various policy levels and identifying funding channels for EU and private investment, the project will ensure a broader uptake, putting the vision of a socially just and green transition into practice.
Project objectives
Objective 1: Increase capacities and empower local communities.
By organising workshops, training sessions, and study visits specifically targeted at culture and tourism professionals – identified as crucial stakeholders – we will increase existing knowledge on culture-based social inclusion in local communities, stimulating and guiding a meaningful dialogue within communities. Practitioners from 14 Danube regions will be empowered to change the co-development and implementation of local cultural activities.
Objective 2: Create inclusive and accessible services and products in lighthouse communities (pilot actions).
We will test how new cultural understanding transforms community dynamics and stimulates economic growth at 11 pilot locations in 10 countries. Pilot activities will include cultural interventions via participatory design, improving physical access for vulnerable groups, and producing videos for better informational access. Rather than inventing new processes, we will reconfigure existing community relationships and cultural views. The results will form the basis of the CAST Model (SO3), a process-based model on materialising culture as a key transformative element for resilient communities, in line with EU Green Deal objectives.
Objective 3: Capitalise, mainstream and transfer the CAST Model across the Danube region.
Based on the results from the pilot actions, we will develop the CAST Model into a tool that can be used across the Danube Region. Through collaborative promotion and policy integration, we will mainstream the model to ensure region-wide policy uptake as well as transferring it to other regions. By promoting the model at existing and tailored events, including the unique Danube Caravan Festival, we will reach a wide audience and ensure maximum impact.
Budget: €2,761,660
Funding: Interreg Danube Region Programme (80%). The DRP is co-funded by the European Union.
Duration: April 2025 – March 2028
Project manager: Urška Dolinar, Iskriva, Institute for Development of Local Potentials, Slovenia
IDM project team:
Communications manager: Rebecca Thorne (r.thorne@idm.at)
Project assistant: Merve Duman (m.duman@idm.at) and Elena Marko (e.marko@idm.at)
More information can be found on the project website.
Publications:
Multidimensional Cultural Accessibility Assessment Framework
Events:
Auf trockenen Halbinseln – die interessantesten Grenzräume Mitteleuropas
Die Grenzen in Mitteleuropa entstanden häufig als Produkt von Konflikten oder willkürlichen Entscheidungen und wurden meistens über den Köpfen der Menschen hinweg gezogen. Schon ein flüchtiger Blick auf die Landkarte zeigt, dass es nicht wenige Stellen gibt, an denen die Grenzführung aus verschiedenen Gründen einen besonderen Charakter hat: Das Gebiet eines Landes ist dort nämlich von mehreren Seiten vom fremden Staatsgebiet umgeben. Das Leben in solchen „trockenen Halbinseln“ war schon immer anders, meistens schwieriger, aber auch spannender als im Landesinneren. Vor allem in der Zeit des kalten Krieges und der kommunistischen Diktaturen konnte man die Grenze um sich herum nicht übersehen und gar nicht ignorieren – dies galt auch für die Grenzgebiete „sozialistischer Bruderstaaten“. Heute spürt und sieht man in den Landzungen, die innerhalb des Schengener Raumes liegen, wohl am deutlichsten, dass der Traum von einem Europa ohne trennende Grenzen vor unseren Augen in Erfüllung gegangen ist.
Das Projekt wird in verschiedener Form Erfahrungen von Menschen schildern, die in von fremdem Staatsgebiet umgebenen mitteleuropäischen Landzungen leb(t)en. Ziel des Projekts ist es, die Prägung der Orte durch den jeweiligen Grenzverlauf zu recherchieren und über einen Alltag zu erzählen, in dem Grenzen Schicksale beeinflussten und auch heute noch steuern. Erst wenn man Berichte von Menschen gehört hat, die mit ihren Nachbarn, die in Sichtweite lebten, nicht sprechen und sich nicht ohne Weiteres besuchen konnten, wird man sich völlig bewusst, welches Geschenk wir mit den durchlässigen EU-Binnengrenzen bekommen haben.
Im Projekt wurde eine interaktive Karte entwickelt, die hier abrufbar ist: Grenzräume Mitteleuropas – Auf trockenen Halbinseln die interessantesten Grenzräume Mitteleuropas
Project together with the University for Continuing Education Krems – European Dis/Orders
“Climate crisis,” “migration crisis,” “populism,” “economic crisis” – in the news and public discourse, various crises that threaten our societal “order” are being discussed. The project “European Dis/Orders” (at the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe in cooperation with the University for Continuing Education Krems) has a dual purpose. First, it aims to explore the diverse usage of the concepts of “order” and “disorder” in public discourses and their conceptual understanding from a theoretical standpoint. Second, the project seeks to examine specific thematic and regional case studies through the lenses of “order” and “disorder.”
General Information
Objective
– Concepts of “order” and “disorder” (in politics, law, sociology, history, art)
– Analysis of concepts of “order” and manifestations of “disorder” in the East Central and Southeastern Europe
– Analysis of selected case studies from the region
– Ongoing monitoring of developments in the case studies
– Themes: “crisis of democracy” / “crisis in the democracy,” populism, ethnonationalism / multiculturalism, legal pluralism, religious pluralism, art and politics, sustainability etc.
– Annual conferences on specific topics (publication of the conference papers)
Team
– Dr. Dr. Péter Techet, PhD, MA, LL.M (IDM)
– Mag.a Rebecca Thorne MA (IDM)
– from the University for Continuing Education Krems: Mag.a Dr.a Christina Hainzl
Concept
“Order” / “Disorder”
“Order” is commonly perceived as a positive value, while “disorder” is often equated with a “crisis.” “Order” is also frequently linked with the notion of “normality,” justifying the existing status quo and labeling anything deviating as “abnormal.” However, the static concept of “order” contradicts the essence of a democratic and pluralistic society, which should continuously change and remain adaptable / resilient.
The project’s primary objective is to challenge this ideological distinction between “order” and “disorder.”
“Universalism” / “Particularism”
While modernity aspires to universality (statehood, “master narratives,” system theories, human rights, etc.), the postmodern era is characterized by the fragmentation of knowledge, multiple identities, divided sovereignties, and other elements reminiscent of early modern and premodern particularisms. The current “crises” can be seen as a transitional process between modern and postmodern ideals and realities or as a “crisis of universalism.”
The project’s goal is to explore the relationship between “order” and “disorder” within the context of “universalism” and “particularism.”
“Crisis in Democracy” / “Crisis of Democracy”
By understanding democracy as “rule for a limited time” (Oliver Lepsius), the so-called “crises” and “disorders” can be reinterpreted in a positive sense as essential dynamics within a pluralist society. Democracy inherently requires change, marked by the variability of majority and minority relations. As a result, it does not necessitate or presuppose a fixed “order” but rather a dynamic, ongoing process – in this sense, a “disorder.”
The project distinguishes between “crisis in democracy” and “crisis of democracy.” While the “crises” (as constant dynamics) are inherent to the nature of democracy, the “crisis of democracy” occurs when an “order” (in a populist, i.e., anti-pluralistic sense) is promised and enforced.
The project aims to investigate the various crisis phenomena in the democracies of East Central and Southeastern European countries to assess whether they reflect pluralistic dynamics (“crisis in democracy”) and, as a result, do not pose a threat to democracy, or whether they jeopardize this pluralistic dynamic (“crisis of democracy”).
Case Studies from East-Central and Southeastern Europe
The project aims to evaluate and analyze case studies on crisis (societal polarization, anti-elitist discourses, corruption, populism, “illiberal democracy,” ethnicization of politics, migration, sustainability, protests in art, etc.) with a strong focus on East-Central and Southeastern Europe, based on the conceptual differentiation between “crisis in democracy” and “crisis of democracy,” and “order” and “disorder”.
(Case studies to follow soon)
Mechanisms of Modernization and Nation State Institutionalization in Central and Eastern Europe, 19th-21st c.
The Project is dedicated to a comparative analysis, from historical and political sciences perspectives, of the matrixes of modernity countries selected from South-Eastern and Central Europe have incompletely followed from mid-XIXth century to nowadays. The targeted countries are Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Hungary. Local academic projects with similar scopes have been written in the past decades, and have grown into various theories of “applied”/”imported”/ “naturally grown” processes of modernization, but larger regional analysis has but barely touched upon the matter. The Project will involve large horizontal cooperation between clusters of academics and researchers from the above-mentioned countries, will sustain contacts and academic exchanges between scholars, public intellectuals, journalists, and policy-makers from the above-mentioned countries. The Project aims at publishing partial and definitive results of research, and may be relevant to the European present and future.
The Project is funded by IULIUS MALL CLUJ-NAPOCA S.R.L.
- Projektzeitraum: 2019-…
- Projektleitung: Mihai Razvan Ungureanu
- Projektmitarbeiterinnen: Carmen Bendovski
Where to find us
