Information Inequalities and Cultural Life: University of Manchester Policy Week Nov 2014

This piece of writing came about through being asked by Dr Drew Whitworth to present at University of Manchester Policy Week on Information Inequalities.   The Ragged University started as a project to foster existing communities and improve people’s lives by bringing people together around knowledge building. It occurred that there was a need to be met beyond the formal spaces, not as an alternative, but as a complement to them which belonged and was shaped by the community which participated in the knowledge sharing.
Rather than taking an organisational route which involved administrating interpersonal interactions, and forms of bureaucracy which had a formalising influence on the social activities, the Ragged project aimed to authentically reflect the needs of the community without the creation of an administrative superstructure. Read more…

Disappearing Social Spaces and The Third Place

Before the core settings of an informal public life can be restored to the urban landscape and re-established in daily life, it will be necessary to articulate their nature and benefit. The core settings of the informal public life must be analyzed and discussed in terms comprehensible to these rational and individualistic outlooks dominant in thought. We must dissect, talk in terms of specific payoffs, and reduce special experience to common labels. We must urgently begin to defend these Great Good Places – as Professor Ray Oldenburg calls them – against the unbelieving and the antagonistic, and do so in terms which are clear to all.
Oldenburg introduced the term “the third place” to describe articulately “the core settings of informal public life”. The third place is a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work. Read more…

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Ragged University Website Development Workshop Pilot by Mike Harkness

This is an account of the pilot of the website development workshop brought together to promote digital literacies and help realise people’s ambitions through sharing in a community setting.  More workshops will be coming, and this would not be possible without the generosity, support and contributions of Graeme Sturrock (owner of Edinburgh Computer Repairs), and Derek Howden (owner of Great Website Hosting)… Read more…

How To Do Ragged University Events by Carrie Newman

Previously Ragged University events were run in Glasgow by a team of dedicated people. The primary coordinator was Carrie Newman who was introduced to the project by business partner and friend David Hughes. They, along with David Newman and Heather Sinclair took to the idea like ducks to water using their knowledge of theatre and cultural events to produce several seasons of talks (approximately seventy five events) which gripped the local imaginations. Read more…

The Rough Etiquette of Ragged University

Ragged University is an open community of individuals who are interested in sharing and learning. The events are put on by coordinators who are there to facilitate.  Coordinators are not gatekeepers or overseers of ‘quality control, they are not authorities in the public spaces which the Ragged University events occur.  They are there to enable those who want to share their knowledge and passion and to work to try and make sure that everyone in the room, space or event is comfortable and happy. Read more…

The Differences Arise In Group Psychology

The behaviour of the group is enigmatic and group psychology has long been studied to understand certain behaviours. A group acts in our minds as a corporate person in as much as we imagine what the norm is and normalize behaviour to what this imagined person embodies. This gives rise to worrying outcomes in many situations. Throughout history, the madness of crowds has been known to overtake the individual responsibility of thinking and acting according to personal responsibility.
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