Democracy in Action is an EU RIA Horizon Europe-funded project (2025-2028) that studies arts and culture-based grassroots organizations in physical spaces and their social media and metaverse dimensions, to understand their critical potential in fostering democracy. Coordinated by a team at Leiden led by Sara Brandellero and Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, Democracy in Action identifies solutions for increasing meaningful political expression and participation in four key areas of grassroots social transformation of untapped potential: 1) nightivism (urban nighttime cultural life for political engagement); 2) women’s rights mobilization; 3) racial and ethnic civic participation through cultural expression; 4) youth activism and civic education. The project’s research strategy aligns with the EU’s enshrined principle of subsidiarity, to deliver new insights on how bottom-up arts and culture can channel inclusive political expression and advance societal well-being at a time when democracy faces unprecedented challenges. Pilots cover all EU regions, together with cases in the Americas, Africa, Middle East and Asia, in democratic and non-democratic contexts. It considers online and offline realities as inextricably intertwined with smartphones forever within reach. Our comparative, transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approach is founded on creative, participatory methodologies. Collaboration with community centres, theatres, exhibition halls, among other spaces, brings tested creative tools to mobilize people into civic participation and mitigate polarization. Working with digital designers and developers, #DemocracyinAction tests the unknown potential of virtual immersive spaces, including novel trends of virtual nightclubs, to deliver cutting-edge policy recommendations for a democratic and safe use and design of social media and metaverse environments. These tools and recommendations will offer forward-looking pathways to scale up grassroots' potential and enhance positive political participation at local, national and EU levels.

Democracy in Action proposes in-depth intra and extra-European research looking at cultural advocacy in grassroots organizations. The UN recognizes the crucial role played by grassroots organizations for societal well-being, with explicit reference to their contribution towards meeting the 2030 SDG plan (UN 2016). Yet, there is so far no in-depth, large-scale study of the value of grassroots arts and culture for democracy, and #DemocracyinAction proposes to fill the gap with a focus on four areas of untapped potential: 1) nightivism (urban nighttime cultural life for political engagement); 2) women’s rights mobilization; 3) civic participation by racial and ethnic minorities through cultural expression; 4) youth political expression and civic education. With preliminary research pointing to their role and potential for strengthening democracy more broadly, we focus on the effects of these areas of transformation on local civic participation, democratic political expression, and participation, community well-being and social cohesion. In so doing, this project answers the following overarching questions: How do physical, virtual and immersive cultural spaces linked to grassroots nighttime activism, women’s rights, race and ethnic diversity and youth mediate current polarized political life and galvanize bottom-up agency for democratic values? How can the EU harness grassroots arts and cultural agency for inclusive, democratic political participation?

The project carries out research and knowledge exchange in 15 EU and non-EU countries, across four pilots that test the value of grassroots cultural agency for political democratic expression in democratic and non-democratic contexts and urban, semi-urban and rural areas. By grassroots cultural organizations, the project understands spaces that combine art and creative practices, with usually diverse programming and inclusive participation agendas. Usually independently financed, run on low budgets and often volunteer-based, they tend to be flexible spaces focused on diversity in terms of programming, inclusivity and civic engagement.

Grassroots Culture in Innovative, ‘Post-digital’ Focus

Attention to physical infrastructures is important because studies have demonstrated that their existence is essential for diverse groups to meet and for networks that ‘support sustained participation’ (Brodie et al. 2011). That said, our project recognizes that people navigate between online and offline simultaneously, their smartphones forever within reach. That is why, across all pilots, we focus on digital environments as well as physical infrastructures. Our innovative ‘post-digital’ approach recognizes that we live in an age in which digital spaces are profoundly hybridized with the analogue (Berry 2015).

The project investigates a paradigmatic range of locally embedded, grassroot cultural organizations: cultural centres, public and semi-public commercial entertainment initiatives, in fixed and pop-up, online and metaverse venues (e.g., theatres, nightclubs (including immersive dance clubs), exhibition centres, cultural community centres, squares and streets, public transport, skateboard parks, online radio, Instagram accounts).

The Leiden University team coordinating the project is composed of Sara Brandellero, Kamilla Krakowska Rodrigues, Prof. Sybille Lammes, post-doctoral researcher Sini Hassinen, Project Manager Elka Smith and Student Assistant Wessel Kornegoor.

For more information, please visit the project website: https://www.democracyinaction.eu/

Kind regards,

The Democracy in Action Team

• democracy
• metaverse
• nightivism
• people, migration and mobility
• policy
• race and ethnicity
• women's rights
• youth

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