Estrella Gualda - Böcker

In an era defined by social upheaval and rapid digital transformation, this Handbook offers a compelling exploration of how communities are reshaping the cultural, economic, and political fabric of contemporary life. It argues that today’s social and digital spaces have evolved into a new kind of public “agora”—not simply arenas for critique, but dynamic sites where citizens collectively reinvent the foundations of democratic life.At the heart of the Handbook is the concept of the “community of resistance”: groups of individuals who, facing crisis or unsettling change, come together to protect and reinforce their social bonds, identities, and institutions. Through these collective practices, they forge new forms of participatory citizenship and grassroots activism that challenge traditional power structures.Blending theory, case studies, and critical analysis, the Handbook reveals how these bottom‑up initiatives are increasingly shaping political agendas and seeking institutional recognition. It illuminates a vibrant field of democratic experimentation—one in which everyday people are turning resistance into policy, transforming activism into legitimacy, and reimagining what it means to participate in public life. It will appeal to students and scholars in the social sciences, particularly to those interested in community, the digital transformation of society, social movements, and political resistance.

Starting from the central importance of memory in contemporary societies, this book encourages a transdisciplinary reflection on how the “presentification of the past” is never a simple reenactment but corresponds to the interaction between memory and cultural sensitiveness, present beliefs and needs, expectations, and forecasts for the future. It studies cultural (re)construction through collective stories, including academic debates, media narratives, collective mobilizations, state narratives of history, architectural reconstructions, and artistic expressions. It looks at how technological innovations have profoundly changed the practices of conservation and dissemination of collective memory, with particular reference to cultural digitization. Finally, it shows that the relevance and selection of events, the organization of connections and cross-references between past, present, and future, as well as the importance of diversified collective imaginaries are the keys to narrative constructions of memory that prove to be sensitive and decisive for its continuity and its intergenerational transmission. This interdisciplinary collection is for students and scholars of the social sciences, cultural studies, and the humanities interested in memory studies.