Toolkit for working with migrant participants in co-produced research projects in ways that encourage their creative writing and enhance their role in shaping knowledge

Lungu, Dana ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2288-3911, Bentivenga, Francesco, Matos, Carlota, Wallis, Holly and Elhindi, Hiba 2024. Toolkit for working with migrant participants in co-produced research projects in ways that encourage their creative writing and enhance their role in shaping knowledge. [Project Report]. Brigstow Institute, University of Bristol. Available at: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/brigstow/research/projec...

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Abstract

In the wake of what political and public discourses call a ‘migrant crisis’ there has been a turn towards participatory arts-based methods as tools to co-produce knowledge to address and represent the diverse challenges and the human experience of migration in the 21st century. These methods improve access to marginalised /underrepresented groups and enable researchers to generate different kinds of data and information. This shift has transformed research about this phenomenon and the experience of migration as migrants have more of an agentive role in shaping the research project and its outcomes. Some of these projects manage to support migrants to make the transition from participant to collaborator and co-producer by using poetry or visual arts. However, in the case of the majority, the voice of the western academic narrates the knowledge and experiences stemming from this collaborative research work. Although the reasons for these are manifold (some potentially related to the ability and willingness of participants to engage in more laborious ways, or funding limitation), there is scope to support migrant participants in becoming narrators of their story and make their experience know to the culture of their arrival. In fact, this type of support will directly contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this experience whilst simultaneously enabling these marginalised voices to occupy space in the public discourse around this phenomenon, to become producers of knowledge and authors of work alongside the researchers managing such projects, and potentially develop into independent voices contributing to the body of knowledge and work on the topic.

Item Type:	Report (Project Report)
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Global Humanities
Publisher:	Brigstow Institute, University of Bristol
Last Modified:	17 Aug 2026 09:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/189007

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