Mapping for change

In 2004 Joke Hermes was appointed professor (lector in Dutch) at hogeschool Inholland (University of Applied Sciences). Since then she has researched media, culture and citizenship, currently with a focus on inclusion and the creative industries. She specialises in participative forms of audience research. She sees working as a media and cultural studies scholar in higher education as a commitment to developing innovative and self-aware forms of research for pofessional practitioners who, in all likelihood, will work in the creative industries, the social domain and in policy-oriented jobs. The key concept in her work is ‘cultural citizenship’, the ways in which we all connect to ‘unknown others’ beyond our family and friends. Citizenship involves the rights and obligations that come with belonging to the collectivities of the nation-state. Cultural citizenship denotes how we imagine these in the light of what we feel is wrong with the world and what is right with it, as well as where we should be headed. Popular-culture storytelling is an important platform on which to do so.