The relation between state, nation and membership is historically embedded and shaped by law and the imagination. These relations are also (re)produced in everyday practices and representations that treat certain kinds of people as belonging to certain places, from nation to neighbourhood. The ‘representation, belonging, futures’ research challenge analyses the embedded assumptions in depictions of mobility and membership and the ideas and futures generated by the perspectives of people on the move.
We examine how representation in press, culture and academic projects contributes to making figures such as ‘the migrant’, ‘the refugee’ and ‘the citizen’. We explore mobile populations in different historical periods and geographical spaces, focusing on changing ideas of belonging and the social and cultural notions of home, exile, identity and community formation. We aim to explore the politics and aesthetics of belonging by employing radical, participatory and self-representational methodologies alongside a critical engagement with filmic, literary and figurative strategies.
We are interested in questions like:
- How is the ‘migrant’ represented in the media and in different cultural forms?
- How do dominant representations and spatial imaginaries become established, and how can they be, or how are they being, unsettled?
- How does academic research contribute to this settling and unsettling?
- What possibilities lie in the individual, collective and utopian imaginaries of mobile groups and what insights might they offer into new or alternative ways of living and working together?
- What implications might aesthetic, narrative and representational strategies have in policy making?
- In what ways can the study of the mobile imagination help us rethink or problematise established categorisations of migrant, refugee and citizen?
Linked Research Projects:
- PEATSENSE: Diverse Knowledges & Sensing Practices in Peatlands for Inclusive Climate Futures
- ‘It’s not just opening the doors’: Challenges and possibilities for refugees’ access to higher education
- Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections
- Migrating Rocks: Intercultural Research and Exchange around the Use and Repatriation of Rock Samples
- Staging Migrant Voices: Cabaret and Transnational Networks in 20th-Century Britain
- Memory work and Migration: Exploring the body as a living archive of intergenerational memories
- The Politics of Representation: Representation of marriage migrants by different institutions in South Korea
- Youth Futures 2019 – Animating the Future: Exploring the Life-Trajectories of Indigenous Youth in Amazonia through Ethnographic Animation
- Hamlet and the Red Dragon
- The Medieval March of Wales, c. 1282-1550: Mapping Literary Geography in a British Border Region
- Migrant Makonde Community in Kenya
Previous
- Everyday Integration
- Reimagining the Pacific: Images of the Ocean in Chile and Peru, c.1960 to the Present
- Peace Festival: Creative Methodologies for Unearthing Hidden War Stories
- Truth on the Margins: Bringing memories to support transnational justice in Colombia
- Memorials to people who have died and to those missing during migration
- Reimagining Refugee Rights: Addressing Asylum Harms in Britain, Denmark and Sweden
- Musical Journeys: Performing Migration in Twentieth-Century Music
- Scrutinising the Immigration System Through Collaborative Filmmaking with Refugees and Asylum Seekers
- Affective and Immaterial Labour in Latin(x) American Culture
- Drones in the Forest: Exploring the political ecologies of emerging environmental monitoring technologies in conflicted conservation areas (Colombia and Guatemala)
- Diachronic Dor: Understanding the Ancient City for the Modern Day
Research Challenge Co-ordinator:
Dr Nariman Massoumi, Lecturer in Film and Television
Latest blogs related to ‘Representation, belonging, futures’:
- ‘Find your village’: activating migrant heritage community assetsBy Tom Allport. Migration to an urban environment in the Global North is often very challenging for families, especially those coming from a culture where it is recognised that ‘it… Read more: ‘Find your village’: activating migrant heritage community assets
- Curating Waymarkers – an exhibition visualising mobility, connection and friendshipBy Liz Hingley. ‘A person in any country begins their relationship, adventures and acquires an identity, whether temporary or long, when they put the SIM card of that country in… Read more: Curating Waymarkers – an exhibition visualising mobility, connection and friendship
- When theory meets praxis: co-producing with experts by experienceBy Ryan Lutz. Praxis for Migrants and Refugees has been advocating for migrant rights in the UK since 1983. It collaborates with numerous researchers and charities to promote more humane… Read more: When theory meets praxis: co-producing with experts by experience