On 27th November, a Training Workshop on «Methodology for Research on Media, Migration and Intercultural Dialogue» took place at CIDOB. It was mainly targeted towards PhD students but open to every person interested in the topic. The workshop was a one-day event organised in collaboration with the Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility of the United Nations University Barcelona (UNU-GCM), in the framework of a conference held during the previous two days (25th and 26th November).
On 27th November, a Training Workshop on «Methodology for Research on Media, Migration and Intercultural Dialogue» took place at CIDOB. It was mainly targeted towards PhD students but open to every person interested in the topic. The workshop was a one-day event organised in collaboration with the Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility of the United Nations University Barcelona (UNU-GCM), in the framework of a conference held during the previous two days (25th and 26th November).
In the morning, there were two masterclasses by professors Iain Chambers (Università degli Studi di Napoli «L'Orientale») and Kevin Robins (independent researcher who previously worked at City University and Goldsmiths College, in London). Both talks encouraged to reflect on concepts and paradigms that were traditionally unquestionable in the field of research on intercultural dynamics. Professor Chambers, on one hand, invited the audience to look at the Mediterranean as a «fluid archive», in which one should not take identities or fixed positions as starting points. According to him, music, for instance, is part of that fluid archive and, despite it is left aside in traditional research, it may provide some information. Furthermore, Chambers rejected the idea of a single modernity, and instead he suggested thinking about different manifestations or modes of modernity that take place in different places at the same time.
Professor Robins, on the other hand, through a research of Turkish and Kurdish migrants in London, proposed to leave aside traditional concepts such as identity or diaspora, and focus on dialogue and on approaching migrants’ individual experiences, their cultural «repertoire», rather than on their «identity» as a previously fixed element. Yolanda Onghena, coordinator of CIDOB’s Intercultural Dynamics Programme, moderated the question and answers sessions with the speakers.
The masterclasses were followed in the afternoon by two open discussions, aimed to give voice to the audience so that they could share their experiences and concerns about research on Media, Migration and Intercultural Dialogue. These sessions –chaired by Dr. Parvati Nair, Dr. Valeria Bello and Dr. Tendayi Bloom, from UNU-GCM– highlighted some challenges faced by researchers nowadays, such as: how to deal with the bias that the representation of migrants by the media entails; the role of media and migrations in the context of globalisation; and the impact of technology on social, cultural and political representation; among others.See the information published in the website of UNU-GCM: http://gcm.unu.edu/index.php/news/207-examining-the-relationship-between-research-and-practice
