TEHA events

21-24 September 2026, Tallinn University

Please register by 14 September HERE.

Digital Storytelling has emerged globally as a powerful participatory and action research method that enables individuals and communities to share experiences, surface local knowledge, and contribute actively to processes of inquiry and change. Grounded in lived experience, place, and culture, digital storytelling combines narrative, images, sound, and reflection to create meaningful stories that can inform research, education, policy, and practice.

Stories make information more understandable, memorable, and persuasive. They help unlock grassroots knowledge, reveal hidden perspectives, and use the power of emotions to deepen understanding and shape decision-making. As a creative and participatory tool, digital storytelling can challenge hierarchies of expertise, amplify voices that are often unheard, and create new opportunities for dialogue, empathy, and collective learning.

In an increasingly complex and data-rich world, researchers are being called upon not only to generate knowledge, but also to engage meaningfully with the communities and individuals whose experiences inform that knowledge. Digital storytelling offers a powerful response to this challenge by moving participants from being passive recipients of information to active curators and co-creators of knowledge.

This four-day Masterclass led by Professor Antonia Liguori introduces participants to the theoretical foundations, practical applications, and ethical considerations of digital storytelling as a research method. Through a combination of discussion, experiential activities, case studies, story development exercises, and project design workshop, participants will explore how digital storytelling can support participatory research, knowledge co-production, public engagement, impact generation, teaching, and community-led change.
 

To make the most of the masterclass, the participants are expected to spend a little time preparing beforehand. Please see further information and preparation notes HERE.

Programme

21 September, 10:00-15:00 (lunch 12:00-13:00)

Understanding Digital Storytelling as a Research Method

From Voice to Knowledge

• Introduction to digital storytelling: history, principles, and practice
• Storytelling, participation, and knowledge co-production
• Digital storytelling in research, education, and community engagement
• Exploring case studies from different disciplinary contexts
• Ethics, representation, ownership, and consent

22 September, 10:00-15:00 (lunch 12:00-13:00)

Experiencing the Process (4 hours)

Stories, Meaning and Lived Experience

• Story circles and collective reflection
• Narrative structure and story development
• Developing story ideas and scripts
• Peer feedback and collaborative learning
• Storyboarding and visual thinking

23 September, 10:00-15:00 (lunch 12:00-13:00)

Designing Digital Storytelling Projects

From Stories to Research Design

• Planning and facilitating storytelling projects
• Recruitment, participation, and inclusion
• Data generation, analysis, and interpretation
• Digital storytelling and research impact
• Developing a digital storytelling project linked to participants' own research interests

24 September, 10:00-12:00

Sharing, Reflection and Future Practice

Storytelling as Story-listening: From Personal to Collective

• Story sharing and collective reflection
• Presenting project ideas and receiving feedback
• Building storytelling into future research, teaching, and engagement activities
• Closing discussion and next steps

7-8 October, LaSpa

The Center of Excellence in Life Course, Wellbeing, and Open Society Studies (TEHA) invites you to participate in a two-day research seminar, where top-level research and development work conducted in TEHA's scientific areas will be presented. The aim is to discover new interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities and foster personal connections among SOGOLAS researchers. The seminar seeks to create conditions for generating ideas for strong joint projects and for preparing proposals in the future.

The seminar will take place at LaSpa in Laulasmaa on 7 to 8 October.

Detailed programme here.

To participate, please register via this form by 17 September at the latest!
The number of accommodation spots is limited.

1.12.2026 at 10:00-16:00

3.12.2026 at 10:00-16:00

room: TBA

The purpose of this course is to help you “unlearn” some of the default lessons about the conduct of social-scientific inquiry that you have likely soaked up by virtue of your socialization in a field dominated by substantialism as a default ontological stance. Starting our inquiries with “things” that have “attributes,” instead of starting with ongoing dynamic processes that we conceptualize through models, shapes the kinds of questions we can ask and the kinds of answers that we can achieve. We will begin by mapping the varieties of relational thinking that have been cropping up across the social sciences in recent decades, and then discuss the possibilities of a social science that takes relational thinking seriously before exploring modes of causal and interpretive explanation that make space for relational commitments. Each of the four course sessions will feature readings to be completed in advance, a lecture placing those readings in context, and discussion of the readings and their implications.

Please register by 15 November here

Priority will be given to researchers from SOGOLAS, while remaining places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Programme

1 December 2026: Theory and Methodology

10:00–12:30 Session 1: Relational Theories

12:30–13:30 Lunch break

13:30–16:00 Session 2: Ideal-Typification as Social-Scientific Relationalism

3 December 2026: Explanatory Strategies

10:00–12:30 Session 3: Configurational Causality

12:30–13:30 Lunch break

13:30- 16:00 Session 4: Interpretation and “Going On”

Participants are expected to complete assigned readings before each session and actively engage in discussions.

Between the two workshop days, participants will be invited to reflect on a research topic of their own interest in light of the theoretical and methodological perspectives introduced on the first day. They should come prepared to share their reflections, insights, and questions during the second day's discussions.

Doctoral students can receive a certificate worth 1 ECTS credit upon successful completion of the masterclass requirements, including completing the assigned readings and actively participating in all sessions.

Professor Patrick Thaddeus Jackson is Professor of International Studies at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. His research focuses on international relations theory, the philosophy of social science, and the methodological foundations of social-scientific inquiry. He is the author of several influential publications, including The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics. His work emphasizes methodological pluralism and explores how different ontological and epistemological commitments shape research questions, explanatory strategies, and the production of knowledge in the social sciences.

Professor Patrick Thaddeus Jackson will also deliver a public lecture titled Balance in the Force: Star Wars as a Cultural Critique of U.S. Manifest Destiny on 2 December 2026. For more information about the lecture, please see here.
 

11-12.06 - Explaining the Social World: Approaches in the Social Sciences

13-14.07 - Reflexive Thematic Analysis: from coding to interpretative depth

21-24.09 - From Information Receivers to Curators of Knowledge: Exploring Digital Storytelling as a Tool for Co-Creation in Research, Education and Public Engagement

• 12.03 - SOGOLAS TEHA Research Seminar: The Changing Face of Ageing 

• 12-13.05 Crack the code: Horizon Europe proposal writing for academics

  • 12.05 Crack the Code I: Horizon Europe Proposal Writing for Academics

  • 13.05 Crack the Code II: Horizon Europe Proposal Writing for Academics

• 15-16.05 - TEHA & RASI Masterclass: Methodological Foundations and Application of Factorial Survey Experiments (FSE)
• 01.10-02.10 - TEHA interdisciplinary research cooperation seminar

• 1.07.2024 - ÜTI TEHA seminar: Euroopa Horisont - taotlusvoorud ja kogemuste vahetamine

• 12.09.2024 - ÜTI TEHA seminar: ülikoolisisese koostöö võimestamise projektid

• 30 - 31.10 -TEHA interdisciplinary research cooperation seminar

Seminari ettekanded / Seminar presentations

• Demokraatlike poliitika- ja valitsemisstrateegiate uurimissuund
• Rahvastiku-uuringud
• Heaolu-uuringud
• Eluteed institutsionaalses raamistikus 
• Inimõiguste ja julgeoleku uuringud