Interculturalità
The UNIVERS@LL group is committed to planning events, activities, and resources that foster dialogue and constructive relationships between different cultures.
While it is true that astronomy is a universal practice that unites peoples and cultures from all over the world, it is equally true that, particularly in recent centuries, the development of astronomy as a professional discipline and its international community has traced colonialist and imperialist practices, with significant impact on communities marginalized by these same practices.
The cross-cultural debate on astronomy cannot be separated from a decolonial approach focused on social justice.
Activities in this area include the following.
Collaboration with the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy
In 2020, INAF signed a letter of intent with the Cultural Islamic Center of Italy (CICI) that provides a series of actions to be carried out for the Italian Islamic community (6 million people at least) that reports to the Grand Mosque of Rome. The collaboration was established in 2017 with the specific intent of opening a dialogue and giving scientific support to the observation of Hilal, that is, the first crescent moon to decree the beginning of the month of Ramadan.
As part of this collaboration, the course “Fundamentals of Astronomy and Astrophysics from an Intercultural Perspective” was conducted at the Grand Mosque in Rome in 2022.
As a result of this experience and continued collaboration with INAF, the Islamic community afferent to the CICI has expressed a request for courses of this type and others more specific to moon observation. As of 2023, the project also sees the collaboration of the Unione Astrofili Italiani (UAI) supporting lunar observations in different regions of Italy.
PLAY DECIDE: argue and debate about the great astronomical observatories
This is a discussion activity designed for secondary schools, but also suitable for adult audiences. It is based on the PlayDecide format, a card game to facilitate group discussions in a respectful and evidence-based manner.
It aims to raise awareness of the social issues affecting astronomy in the era of Big Science, stimulating debate and analysis of existing contradictions from an interdisciplinary perspective, placing scientific reflections alongside those related to civic education and the practice of scientific citizenship. Inspired by the tentative practices of dialogue and sharing put in place in Australia and South Africa for the SKA project, but also by the enormous criticalities highlighted by the protests around the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Maunakea, the project called for an investigation of the impact on the territories of large infrastructures in Italy and around the world.
The skies of the world with shadow theater
The project consists of developing workshop and storytelling activities with the “shadow theater” technique to tell celestial myths from different cultures (Western culture, China and Africa) used in different contexts.