{"id":13144,"date":"2026-06-05T10:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/?post_type=articles&p=13144"},"modified":"2026-06-05T10:17:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:17:45","slug":"phacs-building-an-ecosystem-of-participation","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/articles\/phacs-building-an-ecosystem-of-participation\/","title":{"rendered":"PHACS: Building an Ecosystem of Participation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\nA look back at the PHACS research project<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

PHACS<\/a> (Public History as the New Citizen Science of the Past)<\/em> is ending as a project. Its team organised an event – PHACS: Building an Ecosystem of Participation<\/em> – on 23 April 2026 at the University of Luxembourg, to reflect on six years of collaborative public history research. Held at the Black Box on the Belval Campus, the event brought together researchers, artists, cultural practitioners, students, and community-engaged initiatives to explore what participation in public history can – and should – look like today, and how PHACS has sought to contribute to it over the years. If you are interested in exploring the projects and contributors in more detail, consult the full programme and speaker biographies on the event webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the years, PHACS has also begun expanding several of its methodological reflections through a series of international pilot collaborations developed with practitioners, partner initiatives, and institutions working beyond Luxembourg. Rather than reproducing PHACS methodologies directly, these collaborations seek to adapt, challenge, and further develop participatory public history practices in new contexts, while fostering long-term dialogue between academic research and public-facing initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n \n\"PHACS

\n Thomas Cauvin <\/p>\n <\/figure>\n\n\n

One example discussed during the event was the future Pub Museum pilot<\/a>, developed in collaboration with practitioners and community heritage initiatives in the United Kingdom, specifically with Charo Havermans. Emerging from ongoing reflections on participation, accessibility, and community belonging, the project explores how collaborative museum practices can engage with the social and historical significance of pubs as shared public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions of collaboration and shared authority also shaped the roundtable Bringing Theatre and Historical Research Together: Reflections on a Participatory Research-Creation Project (Les sens de la porte)<\/em>, featuring members of La Morsure<\/a> alongside historians and theatre practitioners<\/a>. Focusing on the history of the former Jacques-Cartier prison in Rennes, the discussion explored how historical research and creative processes intersect within participatory research-creation projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across presentations and discussions, participation emerged not as a stable or universal methodology, but as an ongoing process of negotiation: between institutions and communities, academic and experiential knowledge, care and visibility, interpretation and authority. Bringing together projects developed within, alongside, or in dialogue with PHACS, the event highlighted how participatory public history continues to evolve across a wide range of contexts and practices. From migration storytelling and prison memory to community-owned pubs and collaborative artistic research, the initiatives presented throughout the day demonstrated both the possibilities and the tensions involved in building more inclusive and participatory historical practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event also offered a moment to reflect on the broader trajectory of PHACS, an FNR ATTRACT project developed between 2020 and 2026 under the direction of Prof Dr Thomas Cauvin<\/a> at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C\u00b2DH). Throughout the programme, speakers revisited many of the questions that have shaped the project over the past six years:<\/p>\n\n\n\n