Storying community: Re-imagining regional identities through public cultural activity

This article is designed to stimulate discussion around a number of related topics. Sceptical that governments, regional or otherwise, are capable of producing regional identities in any other but rhetorical or formulaic terms, it is argued that, in the past decade or so, a number of potentially popular and democratizing tendencies have developed in the wake of new media technologies, but also in different forms of public, community-based cultural activity. Drawing upon models of such activity like the 1993 Chicago Culture in Action project and other examples of a new genre of public art in Manchester and London, together with television-based initiatives, it will be shown how active communities, however tentative and provisional, can be brought into being through interests held in common. On the other hand, new social media are explored for their potential for producing ‘network communities’ in online and offline modes. One prominent and widespread example is digital storytelling, which, at local, regional, national and international levels, has recognized the power of the complex and multiple narratives that shape people’s lives and has harnessed these in ways that bring together narrative, technology and community-building as part of a development strategy, particularly for those alienated or otherwise excluded from access to media. Linked to the focus on digital storytelling will be a brief consideration of citizen media sites and initiatives as a means of possibly helping to open up, legitimate and construct regional identity in a multilayered fashion.