Abstract
This article introduces a special issue on arts-based engagement with migration, comprising articles, reflections, poems and images. The introductory article starts by exploring the ethical, political and empirical reasons for the increased use of arts-based methods in humanities and social sciences research in general, and in migration studies in particular. Next, it evaluates participatory methods, co-production and co-authorship as increasingly well-established practices across academia, the arts, activism and community work. It then considers how the outputs of such processes can be deployed to challenge dominant representations of migration and migrants. The authors reflect critically upon arts-based methodological practices and on the (limits to the) transformative potentials of using arts-based methods to engage creatively with migration. Sounding a cautionary note, they concede that even collaborative artistic expressions have limits in overcoming unequal power dynamics, conveying experiences of migration and effecting long-term change in a context in which discourse on migration is dominated by short-term political decision-making, and punitive policies force migrants into precarious forms of existence. While the prospect of influencing the political sphere might seem remote, they advocate for the role and power of the arts in instigating, shaping and leading change by inspiring people’s conscience and civic responsibility.
Highlights
Migration has multiple and shifting causes and consequences in places of origin and destination alike.1 It involves the movement of people in challenging political, social and economic circumstances
Authorities and agencies within and across borders at local, national, regional and international levels. It is a longstanding and global phenomenon, and yet politicians and policy-makers often continue to advocate for and implement isolationist and short-term approaches to migration
Ethical and representational, contemporary migration demands responses from governments, political organizations and advocacy groups, and from artists, writers and others concerned with the sociopolitical implications of representation
Summary
Migration has multiple and shifting causes and consequences in places of origin and destination alike. It involves the movement of people in challenging political, social and economic circumstances. Of the four co-editors of this special issue, two (Jeffery and Rotter) are social anthropologists trained in the social science tradition, and two (Palladino and Woolley) are humanities scholars of postcolonial and transnational literature The idea for this special issue emerged from our interlinked recent RCUK projects, which shared a commitment to exploring the potential of participatory arts-based methods for creative engagement with migration. Several of the contributions show that participatory arts-based methods can offer new ways of representing and addressing the diverse challenges of migration: its causes, such as persecution and global inequalities, and its consequences, such as individual and collective trauma; the practical and legal barriers to movement which create dangerous journeys and precarious forms of existence for migrants; the reception and settlement of migrants by host communities and states; and the often complicated relationships between migrants and their countries of origin and of residence. Arts-based projects can provide avenues for migrants to meet and/or develop deep bonds with others, make themselves ‘present’ in urban landscapes, and challenge the instrumental terms that categorize and manage asylum seekers as ‘humanitarian burdens’ or ‘needy victims’ who use up scarce ‘resources’ (McAllister 2011: 9, 12; see Timmermans 2011; Stewart 2011)
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