Unity and Strength: Banner Making as a Tool to Enhance Belonging and Community Cohesion

How can creativity strengthen belonging, connection and cultural participation in devolution? 

Join Community Innovation Practitioner Ruth Flanagan from the University of Manchester in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. She looks at how heritage craft and making together can help people connect with their communities, their history and the place they call home. 

Rochdale is a diverse borough shaped by industry, migration and generations of social change. Working with local partners, Ruth brings together women from across the borough to co-create a new community banner inspired by Rochdale’s co-operative and textile heritage. 

Hear how embroidery, personal symbols and storytelling helps women share their different identities and experiences, build friendships and find common ground. Through the research, their voices and ideas also become part of wider conversations about Rochdale’s cultural future. 

Ruth shares what the research has revealed about creativity, belonging and shared ownership, and how creative approaches can give people new ways to have a voice in the decisions that affect them. As more powers and funding are devolved locally, could research like this help communities play a bigger role in shaping cultural priorities, policy and investment?

Chapters 

[00:00] – Welcome to Creative Communities 
[02:13] – Banner making, belonging and community in Rochdale 
[04:36] – Rochdale’s radical history of co-operation 
[08:26] – Culture, investment and who gets to participate 
[13:00] – The history and power of banners 
[18:00] – Making together: stitching, learning and connection 
[23:00] – Designing a banner that represents Rochdale today 
[27:00] – Taking community voices into policy conversations 
[30:41] – What heritage craft can teach us about cultural devolution 

Useful links & further reading 

About Ruth Flanagan’s Creative Communities research, including case study and policy paper – here

Explore the AHRC Creative Communities Programme – here

Special thanks & credits 

Special thanks to the women who co-created the Rochdale banner, and to the creative practitioners, community organisations and partners who contributed to the research and this episode. 

Thanks to AHRC, Creative Manchester, Cartwheel Arts and everyone featured in the podcast! 

About the series 

The Creative Communities Podcast shares stories from across the UK exploring how devolution, culture and creativity can unlock inclusive innovation and place-based growth. 

Across Series 2, you’ll hear how communities, researchers and cross-sector partners are working together to co-create culture and innovation across the UK’s devolved nations and regions. 

Credits 

Creative Communities is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK (Grant Agreement No AH/X001555/1 and hosted by Northumbria University. 

With podcast production and training from MIC media.