Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ITHACA (Interconnecting Histories and Archives for Migrant Agency: Entangled Narratives Across Europe and the Mediterranean Region)
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-09-30
The ITHACA project addresses one of the main challenges of contemporary societies: migration. The mass movements of migrants and refugees dominate the political debate and agenda at a global level. Socially, they have redefined entire societies, opening up fractures and opportunities, and putting to test national codes of belonging. Migrant and refugee voices and narratives have often been undervalued by governments and international and local institutions, even by humanitarian agencies. Collecting, preserving, and giving value to migrant and refugee stories – as individuals, families, and communities – is the very first step to promote politics of relief, empowerment, inclusion and participation. In this effort, past and present meet and confront themselves in order to create effective and durable migration flows management, as well as welcoming and integration policies.
Moving away from an emergency response model, the EU-funded ITHACA project focuses on migration narratives by creating a novel digital archive (the ITHACA platform). This new database intends to feature past and present migration narratives as well as media tools and applications for researchers, policymakers, practitioners and migrants.
Doing so, ITHACA aims at having a significant impact on European and non-European societies. Bringing together partners from Europe, Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East, the project intends to raise awareness, inform the public debate, and disseminate recommendations to improve policies, empowerment, inclusion and participation.
This societal purpose is part of the main project goals. Based on a consortium involving 11 partners from origin, transit and host migration countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Eurasia, the ITHACA project focuses on past and present migration narratives, analysing them in a rigorous historical framework, whilst adopting an interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational approach. The project main objectives are: 1) to provide a long-term multi-layered historical appraisal (global, oral, digital, gender, socio-economic, and religious), with an archival focus on the collection and preservation of endangered migrant records; 2) to develop the analysis of the multiple and contrasting forms taken by narratives on migrations; 3) to promote attentive listening and interpretation of expectations and experiences of migrants themselves. Through archival surveys, research-action, and participatory, artistic and training activities, the ITHACA project deepens the various forms of narratives on and by migrants, considering them as agents of social change, retracing causes, transformations, and effects of migration narratives, and highlighting silenced voices. Finally, ITHACA stakeholder engagement activities interconnect scholars, archivists, museum curators, practitioners, NGOs, returnees and potential migrants. These actions intend to raise awareness, inform the public debate, and disseminate thoughtful recommendations for present and future policies of relief, empowerment, inclusion and participation.
Moving away from an emergency response model, the EU-funded ITHACA project focuses on migration narratives by creating a novel digital archive (the ITHACA platform). This new database intends to feature past and present migration narratives as well as media tools and applications for researchers, policymakers, practitioners and migrants.
Doing so, ITHACA aims at having a significant impact on European and non-European societies. Bringing together partners from Europe, Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East, the project intends to raise awareness, inform the public debate, and disseminate recommendations to improve policies, empowerment, inclusion and participation.
This societal purpose is part of the main project goals. Based on a consortium involving 11 partners from origin, transit and host migration countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Eurasia, the ITHACA project focuses on past and present migration narratives, analysing them in a rigorous historical framework, whilst adopting an interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational approach. The project main objectives are: 1) to provide a long-term multi-layered historical appraisal (global, oral, digital, gender, socio-economic, and religious), with an archival focus on the collection and preservation of endangered migrant records; 2) to develop the analysis of the multiple and contrasting forms taken by narratives on migrations; 3) to promote attentive listening and interpretation of expectations and experiences of migrants themselves. Through archival surveys, research-action, and participatory, artistic and training activities, the ITHACA project deepens the various forms of narratives on and by migrants, considering them as agents of social change, retracing causes, transformations, and effects of migration narratives, and highlighting silenced voices. Finally, ITHACA stakeholder engagement activities interconnect scholars, archivists, museum curators, practitioners, NGOs, returnees and potential migrants. These actions intend to raise awareness, inform the public debate, and disseminate thoughtful recommendations for present and future policies of relief, empowerment, inclusion and participation.
In the first 33 months, the research on migration was carried out within two work packages, one working on sources related to the past and one on sources related to the present, leading to 15 publications. Two input masks (i.e. metadatation models) were developed by the research teams, and the architecture of the ITHACA Superarchive was validated by a Scientific advisory board meeting held in May 2022. Research and data collection activities began in the first year of the project, and in spring 2023 the collected data were ready to be normalised and homogenised for their future implementation in the Superarchive. Besides research, the activities within the framework of the ITHACA project included 2 yearly rounds of Policy Council Events carried out in 7 countries on the topics of representation of migrants in Covid-19 times and on how research can improve migration policies (2 Policy Briefs and 4 Policy Papers were produced from the conclusions reached during these events), as well as 3 Training Sessions focusing on the collection and preservation of migrant narratives. In order to ensure an adequate awareness on the ethical issues connected to the project according to the planned ethics guidelines, one Ethic mentor was appointed and Ethic questionnaires, 1 workshop, specific ethical requirements and Ethical Guidelines were issued. The ITHACA website and social media profiles were implemented during the whole 33 months. Furthermore, the ITHACA Diary Contest was launched, while an ITHACA Podcast will be released in September 2024. ITHACA activities were managed by a series of consortium meetings as well as numerous bilateral meetings devoted to specific issues. Furthermore, selected members of the Consortium teamed up in various groups dedicated to the management of the whole project or sections of it. These groups are the Steering Committee, the Communication, Dissemination and Impact Working Group, and the Project Management Board. The collection of data both from the past and from the present, along with the results of events that have gathered hundreds of stakeholders, enable an analysis of the general and potential long-term societal impact as well as the ethical implications of narratives on policy making.
ITHACA goes beyond the state of the art and has scientific and social impacts in four main ways:
(1) it fully addresses for the first time the networks of Mediterranean mobilities in a long-term perspective;
(2) as a consequence, ITHACA contributes to filling another scientific gap, that is, the study of the narratives on and of migration in a transnational and interconnected perspective;
(3) ITHACA adds an innovative archival and digital contribution, creating a superarchive of audio and video recordings;
(4) crucially, the project is timely for its wider societal implications of the project: through a wide range of dissemination and communication activities and a local, national and international system of rounds of consultation with its stakeholders, ITHACA provides informed recommendations to policymakers for inclusive and fair policies.
(1) it fully addresses for the first time the networks of Mediterranean mobilities in a long-term perspective;
(2) as a consequence, ITHACA contributes to filling another scientific gap, that is, the study of the narratives on and of migration in a transnational and interconnected perspective;
(3) ITHACA adds an innovative archival and digital contribution, creating a superarchive of audio and video recordings;
(4) crucially, the project is timely for its wider societal implications of the project: through a wide range of dissemination and communication activities and a local, national and international system of rounds of consultation with its stakeholders, ITHACA provides informed recommendations to policymakers for inclusive and fair policies.