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About ReDigIm

ReDigIm is a research and knowledge exchange project investigating meanings and practices of redistribution in the context of digitalization.

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Project overview

Across Europe, citizens are increasingly using digital tools such as websites, apps, payment technologies and social media to engage in practices of giving, sharing and donating.

These new forms of prosocial contribution point to novel modes of citizen participation, solidarity and care for others, but they are also disruptive of established state-mandated forms of social provisioning, raising questions about the future of taxation systems in European welfare states.

ReDigIm examines citizens’ engagement with digital opportunities for prosocial contribution. We investigate the collective, common-sense understandings of redistribution that inform and give meaning to these practices, which we describe as redistributive imaginaries.

By analysing five national contexts representing different welfare state models and philanthropic traditions – UK, Switzerland, Finland, Spain and Montenegro – the project will consider the implications of emergent redistributive practices and imaginaries for the future of prosocial contribution in Europe.

Research approach

Located in cultural sociology, media and cultural studies, and social and cultural anthropology, the research team has formulated a qualitative, mixed-methods research approach comprised of four work packages:

  • A discourse analysis of news media and policy texts will identify the values attributed to the digital in public debate about prosocial contribution.
  • An affordance analysis will establish the features, functions and interactive possibilities of digital platforms designed or used for prosocial contribution.
  • Interviews and participant observation with civil society groups will explore how citizens engage with and make sense of digitally-mediated forms of prosocial contribution.
  • Scenario development workshops with stakeholders will develop evidence-based scenarios for the future of prosocial contribution.

This innovative approach will deliver novel insights that will advance the study of redistributive imaginaries and will be of value to a range of stakeholder audiences.