Performing memory & memorialising conflict at a distance: innovative approaches to understanding the views of displaced people & receiving communities

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The project explores our understanding of global conflict as it relates to the European refugee crisis, which has been framed simultaneously as a humanitarian emergency and a security threat. We are examining how this understanding is constructed through media representations, official and popular discourses, and institutional and citizen-led initiatives. In doing so, we wish to explore how people understand both population movement and the role of local, national and European institutions in relation to conflict. We are exploring how this understanding in turn shapes institutional and popular responses in receiving countries, ranging from hostility, such as the framing of refugees by politicians, as 'economic migrants' who are abusing the asylum system; to solidarity, as in grassroots citizen initiatives, using social media to host refuges and send donations to Calais. We are also interested in examining how experiences and perceptions of conflict are remembered and memorialised by displaced people and the role this can play in peace-building and conflict resolution. We are focusing on the UK and Italy as two countries that have experienced mistrust towards European institutions (intertwined with debates around migration in relation to conflict), connected to disaffection with mainstream politics, but where, despite this, there are simultaneously numerous local citizens' initiatives in solidarity with refugees, often organized through social media.Our project will explore this situation through an interdisciplinary approach in which we apply arts methodologies to social issues. This includes mapping official and media discourses used to construct the refugee crisis in the UK and Italy; mapping citizen initiatives both in solidarity with refugees and those which express hostility towards them; conducting interviews in collaboration with organisations supporting migrants asylum seekers in the UK and Italy; a study of social media responses to the refugee crisis, and a survey of attitudes to the refugee crisis and the role of political institutions. We will also carry out 'critical memory work' workshops for people who have fled conflict. Critical memory work is a method which uses performance and other creative approaches for people to reflect on their experiences and to explore how conflict is remembered and memorialised.The material gathered from this research will be disseminated to several audiences. We develop publications for academic audiences (a book and several journal articles) and will present our work at conferences. We will also create a report summarising findings for organisations and policymakers. Working with Implicated Theatre (a theatre company with experience in community theatre and participatory arts), we will develop an ethnodrama script. Ethnodrama is a method for incorporating social sciences research findings (quotes, survey data, ethnographic fieldnotes) etc. into a theatrical script and/or performance. The script will be shared with community organisations. The report and ethnodrama script will be translated into Italian to share the results of our research to Italian audiences. At the end of the project, we will hold a public event at Nottingham Contemporary in which we share research findings, and hold a public reading of the ethnodrama script. A smaller-scale parallel event will be held in Italy at an alternative theatre, working in collaboration with Cantieri Meticci, a theatre company with experience working with asylum seekers. The material will also be used to develop an online archive which will be hosted by the University of East London as part of their Social Sciences Living Refugee Archive.