Tag: mapping

Methods on the Move: experiencing and imagining borders, risk, and belonging

The subjective realities of migrants are at the centre of Maggie O’Neill’s approach which is articulated through the practice of walking. As part of her Leverhulme Research Fellowship with a specific focus on borders, risk and belonging, the project aims to explore migrants’ journeys, mapping out their pathways to becoming long-term residents of the area. In this project, walking is a platform for sensing the surrounding environment and being in touch with personal emotions and memories. The performative act of walking in space and time is relational and plays a role in the definition of belonging to a place, which is particularly important in the definition of migrants’ identities. Walking is a useful methodology when studying borders, risk, and belonging, as it can involve physically crossing borders, going into areas perceived as ‘risky,’ or, literally walking on a border. The project makes use of participatory action research (PAR) and arts practice (ethno-mimesis) when investigating the sense of belonging negotiated by migrants. Arts practice can include performance and public displays such as maps, whilst ethno-mimesis focuses on imitating the representations of the reality of migrants. The intention of the research is to produce a web resource including maps from the walks, images and sound files.

Researcher: Maggie O’Neill (University of York)

Migration Trail

Migration Trail is an audio-visual project that uses maps and data visualisation in order to retrace the journeys of people travelling from Turkey and North Africa to Europe in search for a better life.  The journeys can be followed in real time and include the fictional characters’ thoughts, which can be sent as messages (written by Elnathan John and Nadia Asfour) to one’s phone, viewed on the website, or listened to on the project’s podcast.  Migration Trail started in 2014 in reaction to little attention the issue of migration to Europe had been getting in the media.  The real-time story-telling project was officially launched in 2017 as a way to address and convey the urgency and immediacy that the issue demanded, but lacked.