Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RecBord (Recording the Borders: Sounding Displacement and Integration in Europe)
Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2021-08-31
Working at the intersections of music and forced migration studies, RecBord examined soundscapes of displacement. It asked how sound mediates relations between refugee and host communities: How do experiences of forced migration manifest in sound? How do these sounds both enable and constrain processes of integration? What does citizenship sound like?
Research and training took place in two European cities: in Oslo, a target destination in many migration journeys into Europe; and in Athens, an arrival city in many of these same journeys. Arrivals and destinations, displacements and integrations – all have a soundtrack. RecBord gave focus to sound cultures in movement and circulation, pushing forward research in the developing field of music and migration studies.
The project had five specific objectives, aiming to balance research with advocacy and activism:
1. To enrich conversations about integration by contributing grounded perspectives on protracted displacement
2. To generate and disseminate new knowledge about current experiences of migration, and how music and sound are used to make claims on belonging
3. To development methods of sensory engagement within ethnographic research
4. To identify ways to support existing uses of infrastructures among refugee communities
5. To foster opportunities for meaningful action in advocacy and policy development, through collaborations with organisations within the solidarity movement in Athens and Oslo.
These objectives combined into an argument that questions of integration and inclusion must be studied from the bottom up. Through training in academic expertise, human rights advocacy, and media outreach, RecBord aimed to reach a diversity of listening publics: voicing new perspectives on migration, and disrupting dominant narratives of displacement.
Research was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, and the project was wrapped up earlier than planned. But RecBord is due to generate several research outputs to meet these aims.
Research and training took place in two European cities: in Oslo, a target destination in many migration journeys into Europe; and in Athens, an arrival city in many of these same journeys. Arrivals and destinations, displacements and integrations – all have a soundtrack. RecBord gave focus to sound cultures in movement and circulation, pushing forward research in the developing field of music and migration studies.
The project had five specific objectives, aiming to balance research with advocacy and activism:
1. To enrich conversations about integration by contributing grounded perspectives on protracted displacement
2. To generate and disseminate new knowledge about current experiences of migration, and how music and sound are used to make claims on belonging
3. To development methods of sensory engagement within ethnographic research
4. To identify ways to support existing uses of infrastructures among refugee communities
5. To foster opportunities for meaningful action in advocacy and policy development, through collaborations with organisations within the solidarity movement in Athens and Oslo.
These objectives combined into an argument that questions of integration and inclusion must be studied from the bottom up. Through training in academic expertise, human rights advocacy, and media outreach, RecBord aimed to reach a diversity of listening publics: voicing new perspectives on migration, and disrupting dominant narratives of displacement.
Research was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, and the project was wrapped up earlier than planned. But RecBord is due to generate several research outputs to meet these aims.
Research for RecBord was hit by the coronavirus pandemic after six months of the project, and the project finished shortly thereafter as the researcher obtained a permanent academic post. During those first months, however, the research centred on building connections across academic, activist, advocacy, and media worlds on both Oslo and Athens. This involved a period of advocacy training at a grassroots NGO in Athens, and completing a program of workshops in sound recording to foster collaborative methods with research participants.
An early result of this was a one-hour radio programme, co-produced with collaborators in Athens, broadcast as part of Movement Festival in February 2020. The project also generated a series of talks and presentations at events in Oslo, London, Paris, Cork, and Athens. And this research is built into a set of publications that are currently near completion, including two articles and a book project (Movements! Migratory Activisms and Creative Citizenships in Athens).
An early result of this was a one-hour radio programme, co-produced with collaborators in Athens, broadcast as part of Movement Festival in February 2020. The project also generated a series of talks and presentations at events in Oslo, London, Paris, Cork, and Athens. And this research is built into a set of publications that are currently near completion, including two articles and a book project (Movements! Migratory Activisms and Creative Citizenships in Athens).
RecBord sought to respond to big societal challenges. Migration is one of the most pressing issues of the current political moment, yet the situation has changed since 2015: from the flashpoints of tragedy and headlines of ‘crisis’ in the seascapes of the Mediterranean. Attention should accordingly shift to the lives of those in protracted displacement, and how the violent border logics of ‘Fortress Europe’ play out in urban spaces. In other words, questions of integration and inclusion need to be examined from the bottom up – as lived experience rather than policy or politicking. This means paying attention to the sensory realities of everyday life, which requires bridging and expanding disciplines.
RecBord argued that sound is essential to understanding borders and displacements, but these connections have scarcely been explored in scholarship. Forced migration studies is yet to listen to music and sound cultures; displacement remains at the peripheries of music and sound studies. The research built on three recent conceptual interventions: first, that borders do not just exist at the perimeter of a territory, but are produced within and through culture; second, that migration is a sonic act as much as a spatial one; third, that citizenship and integration are constant processes, produced through the senses and their perceived naturalisation. It sought to push research on music and migration forward to meet the challenges of the current moment.
The main result of the project was the development of collaborative sensory methods. Particularly during research in Athens, the project developed through a series of activist lessons – things learnt from colleagues of refugee background who took the lead in recording what is happening in Athens: both to try and fix damaging narratives about refugees; and to spread word of the situation from within.
RecBord sought to to convert these activist lessons into activist methods – informed by ideas and practices of collaborative ethnography. This meant commoning the ethnographic process: learning from others as equal subjects, putting tools of ethnography in their hands, as well as control of the research process; using research to support and extend the activisms of those we work with; and co-producing outputs that subordinate academic goals to projects of social justice and transformation. This ethos guided the production of a radio programme produced as part of the project, and it feeds into ongoing publication plans. Listening, in all cases, became a method and a political act.
RecBord argued that sound is essential to understanding borders and displacements, but these connections have scarcely been explored in scholarship. Forced migration studies is yet to listen to music and sound cultures; displacement remains at the peripheries of music and sound studies. The research built on three recent conceptual interventions: first, that borders do not just exist at the perimeter of a territory, but are produced within and through culture; second, that migration is a sonic act as much as a spatial one; third, that citizenship and integration are constant processes, produced through the senses and their perceived naturalisation. It sought to push research on music and migration forward to meet the challenges of the current moment.
The main result of the project was the development of collaborative sensory methods. Particularly during research in Athens, the project developed through a series of activist lessons – things learnt from colleagues of refugee background who took the lead in recording what is happening in Athens: both to try and fix damaging narratives about refugees; and to spread word of the situation from within.
RecBord sought to to convert these activist lessons into activist methods – informed by ideas and practices of collaborative ethnography. This meant commoning the ethnographic process: learning from others as equal subjects, putting tools of ethnography in their hands, as well as control of the research process; using research to support and extend the activisms of those we work with; and co-producing outputs that subordinate academic goals to projects of social justice and transformation. This ethos guided the production of a radio programme produced as part of the project, and it feeds into ongoing publication plans. Listening, in all cases, became a method and a political act.