Walking Together. Intercultural urban routes as a practice to educate for encounter and grow as a community

Abstract

Urban spaces characterized by immigration are frequently represented as places of violence and xenophobia, feeding a stereotypical narrative of the relationship with people with different backgrounds. Nevertheless, cities are places of daily life encounters that can deconstruct certain prejudices and fears about otherness. In the framework of the Educational Cities movement approach, this contribution argues how urban environment can become a place of widespread education capable of mapping social relations through different perspectives and overcoming the host-guest dichotomy, enriching the community with a variety of voices. Through an interdisciplinary reading of the Migrantour project, the article discusses the potential of tracing alternative itineraries for intercultural dialogue in the streets of our cities to re-write the history of those places with the others and to engage local stakeholders in a pedagogical and political project of mutual growth.