Promoting Intercultural Dialogue through Digital Storytelling
Home to Danish, German, and North Frisian minority communities, the Denmark-Germany border region is one of Europe’s most unique border regions. With a long history of shifting borders, and both conflict and coexistence, today this region is often cited as a model for peaceful minority integration.
Our former Intern Sophie Cooper (intern at the Research Cluster Culture & Diversity, supervised by Dr Kyriaki Topidi) from the University of St. Andrews explores the personal stories of local minority members in this region. Through in-depth interviews with members of these Danish, German and Frisian communities, she listened to lived experiences shaped by language, culture, and place. These conversations were then transformed into short digital stories: 2 to 5-minute videos that combine voice, images, and music to bring each narrative to life. Told in the first person, these stories reflect the everyday realities of being a minority in a border region: from the complexity of navigating a minority position, to creative expressions of identity.
Each of the digital stories below can be watched individually, but also as a collection that explores themes of identity, belonging and national communities. This project invites you to listen, watch, and reflect on the personal stories and lived experiences shared by members of minority communities in the German-Danish border region – stories that offer insight into what it means to live between cultures and across borders.
About Sophie Cooper:
Sophie Cooperis currently pursuing her undergraduate degree in International Relations and Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, where she is also a Laidlaw Leadership and Research Scholar.
Her research interests include the Cold War, nationalism, and displacement, with a particular passion for exploring the human experiences behind major geopolitical events. As a Laidlaw Scholar, she undertook an independent research project exploring the relationship between Germany and Russia and its connections to the Cold War. She also recently worked as a research intern on a project exploring child displacement during the Cold War.
UPDATE:
We are delighted to announce that the project “Promoting Intercultural Dialogue through Digital Storytelling” has been selected as a winner of the Student Minority Projects Challenge 2025, organized by the Academic Network for Minority Issues!
As part of the award, Sophie Cooper and Dr. Kyriaki Topidi have been invited to present their work at the UN Forum for Minority Issues in Geneva, taking place on 27–28 November 2025. The award ceremony will be held by UN Special Rapporteur Nicolas Levrat and Governor Arno Kompatscher of the Province of South Tyrol.
