Emplace – Community-Oriented Digital Storytelling

Our Mission

Emplace is a peer-reviewed platform to share the stories of joy and resilience that arise in and across communities. We welcome contributions from community members, local organizations, students, and faculty.

Community Storytelling for Spatial Justice

Emplace centers placemaking through storytelling as a creative practice. The term emplace evokes intentionality, care, and action in relation to the work of strengthening communities through sharing local stories. Emplace advocates for spatial justice, in which people have access to healthy living environments, equal access to resources and services, and the ability to contribute to the identity and future of their homes.

Community-Embedded Universities

Emplace is hosted at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and stems from the perspective that all universities have a commitment to partner with members of the communities where they reside and on which they depend. Emplace took root in the Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars Program. To learn more about CODES, visit our website.

Cross-Pollination

Emplace is a site for community building that keeps stories rooted deeply in place while also allowing for cross-pollination and connection. While our work begins in the Metro East region of St. Louis, we plan to expand to other Community/University partnerships and welcome contributions from other regions of the country.

Interactive Story Genres

Emplace supports its contributors with developmental editing and community-based review, creating a genre of public scholarship that values the works of diverse contributors. The interactive story genres on Emplace include data visualization, video production, podcasting, mapping, graphic networks, and scrollytelling.

Featured Collection

CODES 2022: Alton Digital Stories

Youth violence in Alton, Illinois, is shaped by a combination of historical, economic, and social factors that make the issue unique to the city. After exploring a number of factors driving youth violence, including economic downturn, spatial injustice that has isolated particular neighborhoods, and a lack of youth programs, we developed an after-school program that would respond to some of these challenges. Our goal was to give youth in Alton the opportunity and a safe place to voice any violence they may have experienced.