Opening up questions on movement and justice
Conversations about migration are often inside the box: numbers, causes, effect on the economy, how to prevent it.
This podcast unboxes migration. It opens up questions on movement and justice and it disrupts conventional thinking to better understand how mobility, in all its forms, is a necessary part of all our lives.
Search for ‘Migration Unboxed’ wherever you get your podcasts – or click on the links below!
Latest episode:
Episode 1:
More episodes coming early 2025!
Our approach is creative, making connections between different types of movement, going beyond the human and across time. It is also critical, challenging assumptions and prioritising justice, as well as conceptual and research driven (we are academics after all!). We call this ‘The Bristol Approach’ to migration and mobilities.
Join Bridget Anderson, Director of Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB), to open the migration box with a diverse group of guests. In each 30-minute episode we invite two experts from different corners of the world to bring us their ideas on movement. Expect lively conversation – and perhaps some arguments too! – about all things migration and mobilities.
Produced by Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB)
Edited by Melissa FitzGerald @melissafitzg
Music by Ollie Shaw ollyshawmusic.com
LISTEN NOW ON:
Learn about the story behind the podcast – read an interview with host Professor Bridget Anderson here.
Episode 1 – What is ‘migration’ and why unbox it?
Host Bridget Anderson asks guests Nandita Sharma and Tim Cole what they think of when they hear the word ‘migration’. Humans have always moved so when and why does moving become described as ‘migrating’? What might we miss if we just accept the term ‘migration’ without questioning it? In this lively conversation, taking us across different histories, landscapes, species and state systems, Bridget, Nandita and Tim take on the challenge of unboxing migration and show why this matters for making a more just world.
Guests:
Nandita Sharma is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She is an activist scholar whose research is shaped by the social movements she is involved in. Nandita was a Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor with MMB in 2022. Tim Cole is Professor of Social History at the University of Bristol. His research ranges across social, landscape and environmental histories with a focus on the Holocaust.
Episode 2 – How does visuality help us understand movement?
Bridget invites guests Victoria Hattam and Nariman Massoumi to explore how visual representation relates to the politics of migration. They discuss photographs, film scenes and everyday sights that have opened up their thinking on movement. These take us away from the stereotypical pictures of migration provided in the media, which present a particular idea of migration. But what happens when the positive imagery of trade is put alongside negative portrayals of migrants? Broadening our approach to visual representation unsettles presumptions about who and what should and shouldn’t move.
Guests:
Victoria Hattam is Professor of Politics at the New School for Social Research, New York. She works at the intersection of visual and material culture, global political economy, and bordering. Victoria was MMB’s Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol in 2023-24. Nariman Massoumi is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Bristol. His research specialises in Iranian/diasporic documentary film practices and his latest film is ‘Pouring Water on Troubled Oil’ (2023).