Work Package 2: DECONSTRUCTION OF MIGRATION DISCOURSE (MONTHS 16 - 26)

Led by: Federica Mazzara and Roza Tsagarousianou with the help of MV, ITASTRA and COSPE

In WP2, all partners will deconstruct the institutional hegemonic discourse on asylum-seeking through participatory action research workshops (PAR). PAR has been used in social research to engage and empower, participants for promoting social change, as it enables them to become active in changing their circumstances (Carlson et al, 2006; Strack et al, 2004; Pereira et al. 2016; Duvall & Jordan, 2001; Lenette, 2019; Cabañes, 2018). Considering the vulnerability of our interlocutors, the project will expand on existing PAR studies by developing a model of co-creation of knowledge with illegalised migrants that facilitates processes of ‘hearing’ (as discussed above).

Work Package 2 will consist of three phases:

Phase 1:

WP2 Phase 1: will source the participants with the help of our associated partners.

The selected participants will be over the age of 18 and across gender lines. We are not intending to carry out workshops with illegalised migrants who are in detention centres for ethical and logistical reasons. Instead, we will hold workshops in the vicinity of temporary accommodations where great numbers of illegalised migrants are moved to while their claims are processed.(Months 16-17).

Phase 2:

WP2 Phase 2: will consist of organising and running 3 PAR workshops in five countries. The planned workshops will span a duration of five days each.

In each workshop, 6 participants (3x6x5=90) will be trained with:

• the use of smartphones for videography
software for podcasts and writing techniques for civic journalism
• word games(connotations, alternative understandings, alternative definitions)

The selected participants will be invited to respond to the institutional and public narratives on deservingness, based on their experiences and on the findings of WP1. Languages used may vary, depending on the level of competence of our interlocutors. Interpreters will be involved whenever necessary (cost in the budgets).

• Each workshop will result in one collaborative creative project (15 projects in total - 3 in each country).
Participants will be encouraged to work collaboratively during the workshops, to produce more detailed narratives of displacement and perceptions of rights as they reflect on their own life histories.
• The collaborative projects will be part of the data analysed in phase 3 of WP2.
• The workshops will be filmed, and ethically cleared data will be used in the production of a documentary (see impact strategy) (Months 18-20).

Training participants in videography, podcasting, Lexicon analysis and journalism writing, constitutes an important element in our research design as both a means to ensure that our participants are not exploited for their commitment to the project, and a means to re-centre research around their priorities, understandings and collective experiences. The focus on migrant narratives emerging during the WP2 workshops is crucial, for developing empathetic shared understandings that challenge the current Lexicon of Migration and its associated policies. The collaborative creative projects (the result of the workshops) and the documentary (co-created by our participants and Migrant Voice) will a) offer opportunities to our participants to develop their skills and b) they will allow the problematisation of the Lexicon of crisis and deservingness as a response to solving the perceived migration ‘crisis’ (established by the analysis in WP1). Participants will be issued with a training certificate. Each participant will receive a voucher as compensation for their time.

Phase 3:

Deliverables - WP2, Phase 3: Based on the data collected in WPs 1 and 2, the researchers will design:

A Glossary of terms on migration - co-created with workshop participants that will reflect the migrant experiences and challenge processes of illegalisation embedded in hegemonic understanding and definitions. The glossary will be produced in the language of the country promoting it and will include words in the languages used by the participants; a translation will be provided. (Months, 21-26)

A Toolkit for Action: The glossary together with a selection of 3 anonymised collaborative creative projects (videography, podcasts, word games) will constitute the basis for the Reconstruction stage of the research (see WP3)(Months, 21-26).

Two co-authored academic articles - one methodological and the other on the findings of WP2 will be submitted in refereed journals (such as Mobilities, Media, Culture and Society, International Migration Review).

All non academic output will be disseminated via the dedicated project webpage