Just released by Smithsonian Press, this publication highlights the work of our international community of practice. It includes a chapter on our work at UMBC. It is available as a free download from the Smithsonian Scholarly Press.
Story Work for a Just Future: Exploring the Plurality of Knowledge and Method within the Digital Storytelling Community
Stories can generate empathy and trust among diverse communities and audiences and, at the same time, demonstrate their usefulness in giving meaning to human behaviors and emotions. Digital Storytelling burst upon the scene in the very late 20th century with the increasingly widespread ability of anyone with access to a computer and easy-to-use software to combine various media—video, photographs, animation, music, voice narration, text—to tell a story.
In a time when academia and cultural institutions are being challenged to encourage broader engagement with diverse knowledges, practices that support shared knowledge co-creation have become vitally important. Story Work for a Just Future reflects on how different storytelling approaches blur boundaries and expand learning opportunities between both formal and informal contexts, and it proposes mutual learning and co-creation of knowledge as a way forward to create a just future for all.
Publication Date: December 5, 2025