ESRC Seminar Series - Briefing Paper 5 - Swansea University

• Amplify migrant voices and perspectives and to reach and engage a diversity of
audiences;
• Facilitate workshops, events and mentoring activities and then to transfer skills, into
the NGO sector; and
• Research migration and produce media in the service of social justice
A critical point for FOMACS is the politics of story telling - the politics of the voice in terms
of migrant experiences. As Áine highlighted “…everybody has voices, everybody has
agencies, however, the problem is not just about giving voice it is about having those voices
heard meaningfully.” Áine identified the politics of listening as a major factor in the
intersection between story and strategy, particularly in relation to the impact of social media
campaigns and their ability to effect change. Drawing on Romand Coles’ work on the power
of listening, Áine left us with the following quote:
“A big part of the problem too, is likely to be that most of us do not listen to one
another well if and when we listen at all. We have not only marginalized the arts of
voice, we have, relatedly, and perhaps even more so, marginalized the arts of
listening. Certainly the democratic arts of voice and listening are deeply related, but
all too often we interpret and seek to nurture democracy through a lens that greatly
accents the former and adds the latter almost as an afterthought. The alternative
idea here is that if democratic voices are weak in a community, it is probably
significantly because efforts to develop political voice have not dwelled in nor
sufficiently passed through the arts of listening” (Coles, 2004, p.687)
The presentation was concluded with the showing of a variety of examples of FOMACS
work, each of which represented very different types of story telling. These included a
documentary film, an excerpt from a feature length film, a three minute animation and a
digital story.
‘Stories that matter: refugee women and the representation of political claims’ -
Dr Leah Bassel, City University
Dr Leah Bassel’s presentation explored the ways in which migrant voices are, or are not,
taken up in broader social and political narrative and how this particularly impacts upon the
voices of migrant women and their ability to be heard.
Leah firstly outlined the theoretical elements of her argument, drawn from democratic
theory and the approach known as intersectionality. She then discussed practice on the
ground in terms of the existing power relations and limits to articulating an alternative
perspective, and how these become visible at the intersection between asylum and
integration and immigration. Situating this in the broader social context of a “gendered
politics of integration, the gendered politics of the way people make the transition from
outsider to citizen”, Leah postulated that some women’s voices may be subject to
misinterpretation and instrumetalisation whilst others may be denied or silenced. Leah
related this to current debates around multiculturalism articulated through the veil, the
burka, or full face covering, and issues around female genital mutilation and forced marriage,
in this context she argued, the politics of integration can increasingly be viewed as a
gendered politics of the body. However for Leah the issue is less about the politics of
multiculturalism and more about the voice, agency and possibilities of participation for the
women who are at the centre of these debates but who are also situated at the interception
of multiple social justice agendas.
Leah argued that “…it is not enough for the women who are seen to be at the centre of
these debates to just be able to participate within them…meaningful participation …has to
mean something more. It has to mean being able also to challenge the terms of the debate
itself, to challenge the way that democratic context is even constructed.” Furthermore, Leah
perceives the exclusion of voices that do not conform to the victim versus agent narrative
as a democratic failure, a failure of politics. She concluded her presentation with an appeal