Banking on democratic television: co-producing culture to promote public praxis

This ISRF grant will kickstart an ambitious four-year project that will culminate in the production of a television drama series and complementary website. The series will be based on the trading floor of an investment bank and will be produced through a process of participatory ethnography and collaboration between bank staff, scholars, and script-writers. A 'Sociological Imagination' website, co-produced by philosophers and social scientists, will accompany the series (cf. Mills 1959). It will provide viewers with the analytical tools needed to critically interpret and respond to the drama and, by extension, their own lives. This will be stimulated and facilitated by the creation of online fora and by encouraging viewers to set up book club-style local discussion groups.