What is a hybrid forum?

Hybrid forums are spaces for public dialogue among people with different interests, backgrounds, and positions.

During a hybrid forum, people from a local community have the possibility to exchange their perspectives, experiences, and knowledge with each other. Participants to the panel will first meet together and discuss; They can ask questions, listen to each other’s ideas and see a topic from different and perhaps new angles. The different points of view and what has been conversed will be made available to a broader audience later on, when the panel opens the public dialogue where anybody can come. This means that a hybrid forum can be enriching for the participants to the panel and also for those who can learn from, and participate to,  the discussion from various viewpoints. This may be particularly important for policymakers and researchers, but also lay people to gain multiple insights into a topic important for the local community.

The hybrid forums in the Food2Gather project aimed at better understand and deepen the topic of food, migration and public spaces. You can read more about the hybrid forums in the different countries below.

Country overview

Would you like to learn more about hybrid forums?

You can read more about the other experiences of food-related hybrid forums you can check out the website of the Strenght2Foodproject.

Check out these publications:

• Amilien, V., Tocco, B., Strandbakken, P., 2019. At the heart of controversies: Hybrid forums as an experimental multi-actor tool to enhance sustainable practices in localized agro-food systems. British Food Journal.
• Callon, M., Lascoumes, P., Barthe, Y., 2009. Acting in an uncertain world: An essay on technical democracy. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England.