Transformation through Participatory Cinema: Working Creatively with Indigenous Youth through the Migrant Museum (Mumi) in Chiapas

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper reflects on research processes that combine creative activism, social science methodologies and visual anthropology as part of the GlobalGRACE Project’s (globalgrace.net) research conducted in the Highlands of Chiapas, south eastern Mexico. This research has been conducted with indigenous young people working with the NGO Voces Mesoamericanas and through the Museo Migrante (MuMi). MuMi is a space that draws on stories and artistic practices to strengthen and articulate initiatives and knowledges of indigenous communities who live in contexts of disappearance, detention and human rights violations. Through participatory research we explore indigenous migratory experiences that are intersected by gender, ethnicity, class and age. Participatory art and video are used to create a historical memory made by and about indigenous migrants to reflect on historically rooted exploitation, socio-cultural, political, economic and gender-based marginalisation, the worsening migration phenomenon in the region in recent years, and to discuss better possibilities for the future.