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Professor of Literacies in Education, University of Sheffield

Kate is the Principle Investigator of the AHRC/ESRC Connected Communities funded consortium ‘Imagine’ Project. The project is called, ‘The social, historical, cultural and democratic context of civic engagement: imagining different communities and making them happen.’ The shorter title of the project is ‘Imagine’. This is a Connected Communities Programme investment of £2.2M (funded by ESRC). Grant number ES/K002686/1.

The ‘Imagine’ programme is a five-year project running from 2013 to 2017 which brings together a range of different research projects working together across universities and communities. The universities involved include Kate Pahl at Sheffield (lead), Angie Hart at Brighton, Sarah Banks at Durham and Paul Ward at Huddersfield, with further involvement from the universities of Edinburgh, Kent, Birkbeck, Stirling, Westminster, Warwick, and partners from the University of Crete, University of Osnabruck, Germany, Dalhousie University, Canada and Malardalen University, Sweden. International partners include Etienne Wenger and Bev Traynor, Susan Hyatt, Indiana University, Harvinder Bedi, Development Support team, Pune, India, Eric Lassiter, Marshall University USA and Lynda Cheshire, University of Queensland, Australia.

Kate is leading the consortium, but also directs the Sheffield part of the project, which is on the ‘Cultural context of civic engagement’. With partners across the region, including The Hepworth Wakefield, Museums Sheffield, and the Site Gallery together with community partners in Rotherham including Rotherham Youth Service and local artists, poets and writers, this part of the project will explore how revisiting the past shapes imagining the future, with a focus on Park Hill flats, histories of the steel industry and textile industry in Rotherham, literary and aesthetic explorations for better imagined futures and work with young people to develop new ways of creating hopeful visions.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Literacies in Education, University of Sheffield