MISCOE PhD School Developing a sensory methodology in migration studies
Date: 25.08.2025 - 29.08.2025
Workshop / training
Format: onsite
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Event Fee: Free
Organizer(s):
IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network)
For the 2025 edition of the IMISCOE PhD school, we aim at training PhD candidates and early career researchers affiliated at institutions around the world to develop visual and sensory methodologies in migration research. We use the term “methodology” as we believe that visual and sensory projects ought to be embedded in a broader research project. Concretely, that means that participants will be encouraged to critically assess the theoretical, empirical, and ethical implications of their methodological choices. In the training programme, we will focus on the use of four visual media to research the multisensory experiences of migration scholars and of the ones who have experienced migration, but also migration processes and policies. Those media are photography, film, cartography, and collaborative methods. In that sense, we propose establishing conceptual links between the intellectual and the sensorial, by designing research methodologies that do not omit the data coming from the multisensory experiences of doing visual research. The training also provides hands-on activities and good practices helping to rethink our research questions; get acquainted with the literature; combine visual methodologies with other modes of data collection - qualitative interviews, discussion groups, walk-alongs, observations, etc; expand our analytical toolbox; and potentially create visual and sensory outputs for dissemination. Inter- and transdisciplinary in its focus, this IMISCOE PhD school channels the methodological knowledge developed within disciplines such as geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, and gender, sexuality and women’s studies into a practical methodological approach, with a wide range of useful research tools adapted to the analysis of migration experiences, processes and policies. The aim is to provide a full package of knowledge on research planning using visual and sensory methods, including a critical analysis of the epistemological foundations of research methodology, the ontological status of produced and existing images, ethical manifesto, techniques for disseminating research conclusions and generating impact, and the selection of appropriate tools for collecting data. Programme The program will be divided into three modules: 1) theoretical (methodology, epistemology, ontology of images, ethics); 2) a collective research project in Lisbon (creating a visual research project under the supervision of the trainers); 3) development of individual research projects of the participants (planning, ethics, research methods and techniques, dissemination of results, impact). These three modules that combine practical activities and plenary theoretical keynote lectures will be complemented by the training in four themed subgroups, each focusing on different media that can be employed in researching migration through visual and sensory tools. Meet your trainers Students will be divided into four working groups, each led by two trainers specialised in the method featured by the group: Photography Karolina Nikielska-Sekuła (Jagiellonian University) and Patricia Prieto-Blanco (Lancaster University) Film and visual storytelling Amandine Desille (IGOT at University of Lisbon) and Nagehan Uskan (Humboldt University of Berlin, Off University) Cartography and map-making Lucie Bacon (associated member at Migrinter, Poitiers) and Franz Buhr (IGOT at University of Lisbon) Reimagining Knowledge Production Through Collaborative and Multimodal Approaches Kitti Baracsi (AFSEE Fellow, London School of Economics III, Associated Researcher, CRIA) and Stefano Piemontese (Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham) On top of the training component, participants will benefit from a series of lectures, such as: - Epistemologies: a history of the visual, and other senses - Working “with” people? Perspectives from visual researchers - Ontological status of produced and existing images: from production to storytelling? - Dissemination strategies - Ethics in visual and sensory research - Funding visual and sensory projects, and the importance of “Social Impact”, perspectives from the European Commission Among those who have already confirmed their participation as guest lecturers are: Ilke Sanlier, Alice Salimbeni, and Magdalena Banaszkiewicz.
https://www.imiscoe.org/docman-docs/1548-flyer-2025-imiscoe-phd-school/file
Post created by: Lymor Wolf Goldstein