How can we use creative methodologies in our research, analysis, and dissemination to contest the inhumanity of every day border practices and rehumanise discourse around asylum seekers in the UK? In this presentation, researcher Dr Charlotte Sanders and PhD candidate Sudip Sen present two examples of how they have used storytelling as a creative method towards this end.
Sudip presents one example from his mixed-media anti-racist creative practice to communicate the ways in which racism is reproduced in the media, in this case critiquing the terms of the Rwanda policy debate on phone-in radio. Sudip draws from the Russian formalist concept of ‘ostranenie’ (defamiliarizing the familiar, making strange) using naïve narrators, juxtaposition and misnaming/not naming to affectively engage audiences differently on questions of justice for refugees and racism. He emphasises the media as a commodity and that creative methods are not merely a means to communicate pre-existing research, but form a part of the analysis itself.
Charlotte presents her short animation which uses voice actors to share asylum-seekers’ experiences of food provisioning in UK asylum ‘contingency’ hotels, where the inadequacy of food is causing chronic and acute declines in health. Sanders explores how audio-visual forms like this disrupt the role of researcher as ‘expert’ and the mediator of their interlocutors’ voices and perspectives. As such, creative methods can facilitate the direct and unfiltered communication of those in struggle against border power, and support a decolonial commitment to non-extractive research.
The increasing deportation of Brazilian migrants in recent years reflects the tightening of U.S. immigration policies since the Trump administration, reinforcing both physical and internal mechanisms of migration control. U.S. immigration law defines strict entry and residency conditions, with deportation serving as a key enforcement tool. Many Brazilians attempt to cross the Mexican border under dangerous conditions, while others overstay visas, becoming irregular migrants. Intensified enforcement has led to a surge in deportations, reinforcing the perception of migrants as subjects of border control even beyond territorial limits.
Deportation extends beyond physical removal; it acts as a mechanism of bordering that shapes migrant identities and experiences. The concept of the bordered migrant illustrates how borders are no longer confined to geographical boundaries but are embedded in individuals whose mobility and legal status remain under constant scrutiny. Brazilian migrants, even in urban centres far from territorial borders, face restrictive policies, surveillance, and legal uncertainty. These invisible borders dictate their access to services, employment, and protections, reinforcing systemic exclusion.
Diplomatic agreements between Brazil and the United States attempt to balance sovereignty with human rights. However, mass deportations and expedited removals raise concerns over due process violations and non-compliance with international protection standards. Deportation flights carrying Brazilian nationals highlight the limitations of these agreements, demonstrating how migrants remain at the centre of border enforcement even upon return.
This study examines the political and legal dimensions of Brazilian deportations, focusing on new forms of borders and the bordered migrant, and offering insights into more equitable migration policies.
Colonisation imposed external systems that shaped institutions and knowledge, reinforcing exclusion and suppressing alternatives. European imperialists weaponised migration through genocide, enslavement, and war, constructing racial hierarchies to secure power and wealth (Bashi, 2023; Marx, 1997). Today, border regimes and technologies sustain these colonial functions by controlling racialised mobility through exclusionary policies(Vlase, 2024). Colonial power structures shape technology, significantly influencing migration. For instance, AI-driven systems disproportionately reject Global South applicants, perpetuating racial inequalities (Cruz, 2021).
This research presents three engaging decolonising methodologies to foster equity in migration studies. First, a Decolonial Research Lens requires researchers to unlearn dominant knowledge systems, centring non-Western and migrant perspectives, directly challenging Western academia’s authority (Vlase, 2024). Decolonising technology focuses on the top-down (intellectual liberation) model, which aims to decolonise the mindset of technology designers and seeks to decolonise the technology itself (Ansari, 2019; Hui, 2016).
Second, Decolonising Migration Theory critiques borders as Eurocentric, colonial constructs that control and racialise populations, reinforcing capitalist power. It highlights how colonialism-driven global inequalities shape migration through predictive analytics and algorithmic profiling (Bashi, 2023).
Third, an intersectional framework integrates multifaceted migrant characteristics, countering reductive narratives that isolate migration from broader socio-political contexts. This approach sheds light on the colonial legacies embedded within contemporary bordering practices, deepening our understanding of migrant experiences (Vlase, 2024). In contrast to traditional top-down strategies, bottom-up approaches are migrant-led, community-driven technological initiatives which decolonise technology organically (Cruz, 2021).
Integrating decolonial methodologies with innovative technological approaches, this research repositions migration as central to today’s interconnected world, directly confronting colonial infrastructures.
The onset of neoliberal policies in late twentieth-century India led to a steep rise in urban migration. Small-scale farmers were displaced by large-scale commercial farming, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) struggled to compete with big corporate companies. The sudden and intense automation-driven sectors rendered millions jobless and prompted large sections of rural and semi-urban populations to migrate to metropolitan cities in search of daily wage work.
This paper draws on two novels—The Many Lives of Syeda X by Neha Dixit and Homebound by Puja Changoiwala—both of which offer insights into the lives of migrant urban wage workers. Both authors, who are journalists, have worked closely with the populations they depict. In Dixit’s text, Syeda’s family of traditional handloom weavers lose their livelihood to power looms and migrate to New Delhi. In Changoiwala’s novel, Meher’s family is forced to relocate to the financial capital of Mumbai after their crop yields failed to meet the market overtaken by commercial farming, .
This paper analyses these narratives to explore the human suffering associated with migration. I raise the following questions: How do these characters perceive themselves after losing their traditional skills to the forces of intense technology-driven big capital? How is the migrant’s struggle for livelihood portrayed in the texts? How does social location—specifically, Meher’s identity as a Dalit and Syeda’s as a Muslim—impact their experience of loss of livelihood and migration?
This study investigates how Tamil director Mari Selvaraj’s films adapt cultural memory to contest and reconfigure borders of space, caste, and identity in Tamil Nadu, positioning cinematic adaptation as a decolonial praxis. Analyzing Pariyerum Perumal (2018) and Karnan (2021), the research argues that Selvaraj’s work transcends textual fidelity, employing collaborative storytelling, sensory aesthetics, and non-linear temporality to reclaim Dalit histories suppressed by Brahminical and state narratives. Through a framework synthesizing cultural memory theory, postcolonial phenomenology, and critical caste studies, the paper examines three adaptive strategies: (1) spatial remapping, where villages and campuses are reimagined as sites of Dalit counter-memory; (2) collaborative co-creation with marginalized communities, subverting extractive representation; and (3) affective temporality, using ritual drumming, ancestral echoes, and tactile imagery (soil, laboring bodies) to materialize memory as cyclical and embodied. Close analysis reveals how Selvaraj’s cinema dismantles physical borders (segregated spaces), social hierarchies (caste/gender norms), and psychological confines (internalized trauma), transforming adaptation into a tool of resistance. Methodologically, the study challenges Eurocentric adaptation studies’ privileging of literary sources by centering oral histories and participatory practices. It further bridges Tamil Nadu’s regional specificity with global debates on decolonial media, demonstrating how marginalized communities weaponize cultural memory to redraw belonging. By foregrounding collaboration, sensory form, and nonlinear time, Selvaraj’s work offers a blueprint for reimagining identity in contexts of systemic oppression, asserting cinema’s capacity to forge counter-cartographies of resistance. The research contributes a framework to analyze how adaptation, as process rather than product, enables subaltern agency in contested landscapes, urging scholars to expand methodologies beyond textual analysis to include embodied, collective, and insurgent memory practices.
The article looks at the intricate system of power that includes inter alia, physical, internal, and digital borders, which shape the mobility and access to rights of Afghan refugees and migrants in Iran. We find not only new but also innovative technologies which Afghan migrants and brightness makers are engaged in. Topics we will discuss include the contribution of social media networks, encrypted messaging apps, and online advocacy networks as the safe haven for the organization. These channels were found to help the audience in defending their rights, collecting evidence, and overcoming the tight policy environment. For example, the study investigates the channel of migrants using digital infrastructural technology to bolster transnational solidarity even in the face of greater national and technological barriers.
Keywords: Afghan migrants, Iran, digital borders, migration technology, surveillance, resistance.
Iran’s Afghan migration has been the center of discussions concerning racialized surveillance and migration governance and thereby it brings the issue of ethnic and money mowing out through the medium of digital manners. To this end, the article accentuates the significance of chuckling’s network during the times of surveillance and just governance. The usage of the new technology in controlling the movement of caseless migrants is shown to have both an oppressive and liberating effect on them and thus points to the fact that the technology should be a central concern for the empowerment of marginalized migrants.
This article examines the current politics around decolonialism, migration, and borders by exmaining the spatial patterns of Hasidic Jews, a group which practices a similar way of life across various countries. This group exhibits a form of diaspora urbanism in that members are constantly moving between parallel communities across the US, Asia, and Europe. In their radical eschewing of modern society and refusal to integrate into the countries around them, this group has previously been looked at within a decolonial lens as resisting the hegemony of western liberal values. But despite being tangibly impacted by the ability to migrate and often seeing themselves as immigrants, the group’s electoral patterns skew towards right-wing parties which promote illiberal anti-migration and anti-Arab policies. This gets at a contradiction whereby a group that benefits from liberalism’s religious and cultural tolerance — and the ability to move across borders — openly rebels against those particular values as part of an anti-establishment ethos. In this sense, a group which might be seen through a decolonial lens supports larger forces that make their way of life impossible. This paper examines the effectiveness of the decolonial lens towards understanding these contradictions not only for this group but also for the current politics of xenophobia, liberalism, and migration more broadly.
Technology is crucial in enabling diasporic communities to sustain cultural and religious identities beyond territorial boundaries. This study explores how Syriac Orthodox youth utilize social media and digital platforms to maintain their ethno-religious and ethno-cultural heritage, fostering a transnational sense of belonging in a world where digital tools transcend physical borders.
The Syriacs, the first community to collectively adopt Christianity, faced forced migration from their ancestral homeland, Midyat (southeastern Turkey), in the 1990s. This displacement reshaped their ties to their homeland and accelerated their diasporization. While technology is often seen as a force of cultural erosion, this research examines its role in intergenerational transmission. Through digital media analysis and ethnographic research, it investigates how online prayers, language courses, virtual religious gatherings, and diaspora-led forums reinforce Syriac identity. Even without physical return, young Syriacs utilize digital tools to stay connected to their roots, demonstrating that cultural continuity is no longer confined to geographic proximity. By eliminating spatial limitations, digital platforms create spaces where identity is redefined beyond physical constraints. This study employs semi-structured interviews with religious leaders in Midyat and systematic data analysis of digital platforms in North America, Australia, and Europe. It contributes to diasporization and return debates, illustrating how digital engagement reshapes cultural preservation. Highlighting the role of technology in diaspora, identity, and resilience, this research demonstrates how digital platforms empower marginalized communities to safeguard traditions, fostering a sense of belonging that extends beyond traditional spatial boundaries.
Technology is crucial in enabling diasporic communities to sustain cultural and religious identities beyond territorial boundaries. This study explores how Syriac Orthodox youth utilize social media and digital platforms to maintain their ethno-religious and ethno-cultural heritage, fostering a transnational sense of belonging in a world where digital tools transcend physical borders. The Syriacs, the first community to collectively adopt Christianity, faced forced migration from their ancestral homeland, Midyat (southeastern Turkey), in the 1990s. This displacement reshaped their ties to their homeland and accelerated their diasporization. While technology is often seen as a force of cultural erosion, this research examines its role in intergenerational transmission. Through digital media analysis and ethnographic research, it investigates how online prayers, language courses, virtual religious gatherings, and diaspora-led forums reinforce Syriac identity. Even without physical return, young Syriacs utilize digital tools to stay connected to their roots, demonstrating that cultural continuity is no longer confined to geographic proximity. By eliminating spatial limitations, digital platforms create spaces where identity is redefined beyond physical constraints. This study employs semi-structured interviews with religious leaders in Midyat and systematic data analysis of digital platforms in North America, Australia, and Europe. It contributes to diasporization and return debates, illustrating how digital engagement reshapes cultural preservation. Highlighting the role of technology in diaspora, identity, and resilience, this research demonstrates how digital platforms empower marginalized communities to safeguard traditions, fostering a sense of belonging that extends beyond traditional spatial boundaries.
The Greek-Turkish land border is an increasingly militarised topography, where Greek and
EU bodies authorise and promote the use of cutting edge technology to assist in the management and control of irregular border crossings. Yet, in this space, where loss of life occurs frequently, authorities fail to utilise the surveillance apparatus to account for the circumstances for these events.
Similarly, despite the establishment of border control mechanisms and infrastructure at sea, national and European border control agencies fail to prevent deaths, or even to document their operational procedures and efforts.
This presentation draws from recent fieldwork conducted in a forensic examiner’s office in the north of Greece, juxtaposing findings relevant to border crossers’ deaths, with the lack of information provided on the public domain about such events.
Furthermore, it questions how can such a well-established regime of visibility at land and at sea, go blind when humanitarian assistance is required, for the purposes -of among others- preventing death and injury.
Finally, through international case studies, where the installation of surveillance tools is deemed as beneficial to search and rescue, the research investigates these claims of benevolence, and seeks to problematise prevalent discourses on the matter.