In June 2023, the 11th International Digital Storytelling Conference (DST 2023) was held in the Baltimore/Washington DC region. DST 2023: Radical Listening: Story Work for a Just Future explored how story work can help strengthen our communities and build understanding across divides. The conference was organized by Loughborough University (UK), Montgomery College (US), Patient Voices (UK), the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology (US), StoryCenter (US), and the University of Maryland Baltimore County—UMBC (US).
This special issue of Social Sciences Journal features selected papers from DST 2023 and is available here.
Conference papers and presentations focused on context, content, purpose, and practice through a variety of lenses. The papers presented in this Special Issue represent the diverse, interdisciplinary range of interests of the DS community, including the exploration of DS as a research methodology; the ethics of participatory research; radical listening for amplifying voices; equity and access; and building and cultivating communities. They are a small sample of the works presented during the conference, chosen for their relevance to the social sciences.