Swenja Zaremba, born in Braunschweig in 1980, coordinates the German network of the Anna Lindh Foundation as a research associate and head of the team "Interculturality and Globalization" at the Center for Applied Cultural Studies and Studium Generale (ZAK) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
She studied Literature, Journalism and Communication Science in Karlsruhe and Nancy. In addition to coordinating public science projects at ZAK, other positions took her to the headquarters of the Goethe-Institut as a trainee and to the University of Damascus for a teaching assignment. She publishes on topics in the field of international cultural relations, civil society and participation, interculturality and internationalization.
She was a member of the working group "Civil Society in Foreign Cultural and Educational Policy" and is a member of the working group "Middle East/North Africa" of the German Foreign Office.  

Publications (Selection)

2021 | How to Avoid Preaching Exclusively to the Choir: Extending the Scope of Civil Society Involvement in Cultural Relations. In: Robertson-von Trotha, Caroline Y. (Ed.): Realities, Challenges, Visions? Towards a New Foreign Cultural and Educational Policy, WIKA-Report, Volume 4. Karlsruhe: KIT Scientific Publishing, forthcoming.

2020 | University meets Civil Society – Transfer of Community and Academic Knowledge (with Stefanos Vallianatos, ALF Greece). Service-learning In Higher Education (SLIHE) Conference 2020 “What Does it Mean to Be(come) an Engaged University”, 13.-16. July 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNIemA6d_EI.

2020 | Lessons Learned – Zur Zusammenarbeit mit zivilgesellschaftlichen Netzwerken. In: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa) (Ed.): Weltweit 2019 (pp. 72–74). Stuttgart. https://www.ifa.de/fileadmin/Content/docs/organisation/ifa_jahrbuch_2019.pdf#page=38.

2016 | Zaremba, Swenja/Hecht, Janina: Reisen und Kulturbegegnung in der Literatur der Gegenwart. Ein Beitrag zur Praxis des Interkulturellen Kompetenzerwerbs. In: Berendt, Brigitte/Fleischmann, Andreas/Schaper, Niclas/Szczyrba, Birgit/Wiemer, Matthias/Wildt, Johannes (Eds.): Neues Handbuch Hochschullehre E 3.13 (pp. 123–148). Berlin: DUZ Verlags- und Medienhaus. https://www.zak.kit.edu/downloads/NHHL_E_3.13_Zaremba_Hecht.pdf.

2014 | Thum, Bernd/Zaremba, Swenja (Eds.): EuroMed – MemoriaCarte. Erinnerungsorte für die Gegenwart – eine Landkarte kultureller Manifestationen im euro-mediterranen Raum. Online Ressource. Stuttgart.

2009 | Ahlan wa Sahlan! Kooperative deutsche Hochschulgründungen in der Arabischen Welt. In: Maaß, Kurt-Jürgen/Thum, Bernd (Eds.): Deutsche Hochschulen im Dialog mit der Arabischen Welt (pp. 49–61). Karlsruhe: Universitätsverlag Karlsruhe.

Prizes / Awards (Selection)

2009 | Heinrich Hertz Society Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement
2007-2009 | Study Scholarship of the Begabtenförderungswerk of the Heinrich Böll Foundation
2002/03 | Study scholarship of the city of Nancy, France, twin city of Karlsruhe

Project description

The joint project of Swenja Zaremba and Rubina Zern-Breuer is dedicated to the interactions between state, administration and civil society. The aim is to investigate how trust between them can be strengthened again and how a new "Contrat Social" can be established between these spheres.

Participatory approaches that bring civil society back into positive contact with administration and politics are promising for this. For this purpose, the method of community organizing will be examined in a case study in Los Angeles County to see what transformative potential for the German public administration as well as for civil society networks this approach holds and what possible contribution it can make to local democracy.

The goal is to develop an application-oriented guideline for administrations, networks and their actors and to apply it to urban communities in Germany. Ideally, a local "Contrat Social" between city government and citizens should be established.