Arts-Based Methods in Migration Research. A Methodological Analysis on Participatory Visual Methods and Their Transformative Potentials and Limits in Studying Human Mobility

Abstract

In the last decades, the growing use of participatory methodologies and creative methods in migration research has opened innovative ways to collect, analyze, and disseminate data. These approaches encourage experimental, interdisciplinary, and collaborative work through artistic methods to study human mobility and expand the community of inquiry and interpretation, often intervening in contexts of social injustice and exclusion. This article is intended as a reflection on the potentialities and limits of the use of arts-based methods in migration research. The contribution opens with a review of how participatory visual methods have been framed in the field of migration studies. The second part explores an example of a collaborative study that adopted photovoice and sensory mapping to reflect on the concept of “welcoming spaces”. Finally, it analyses arts-based methods as a potential space for social change, focusing on three main dimensions: collective learning, relational aesthetics, and knowledge co-construction.