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Erel, Umut
(2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39900-8_10
Abstract
This chapter reflects on collaborations between academics, artists and activists in order to explore the complexity of issues of migration and to engage with diverse audiences. It positions these collaborations within an ethical framework drawing on participatory action research values. While in recent years, migration has been a constant topic of public debate, the terms of this debate often ignore the voices and viewpoints of the migrants themselves. One way to honour migrants’ self-representations in public debates is collaboration with artists and activists, which can help to side-step dominant discourses that draw strict boundaries between “society” and “migrants” and, instead, enable dialogic exchanges. This chapter, therefore, draws on public engagement work to make suggestions and recommendations for migration researchers collaborating with artists and activists. Drawing on my work in the UK, I think it is important to provide the context in which this public engagement took place, although I hope that this will be useful for researchers in other national contexts, as well. The ethos and values of participatory action research approaches can be useful for migration researchers seeking to problematise public understandings of migration. Arts-based methods, in particular, offer the possibility to constitute a transformative sphere for understanding issues around migration outside of established polarised discourses. Drawing on a public engagement project, the chapter presents the ways in which concrete examples and reflections on how alternative spaces and formats can allow for transformative ways of intervening in public understandings of migration that challenge racialised and exclusionary practices of research, representation and knowing.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
