The shift online in early 2022 was a constraint but also gave us an opportunity to broaden out. In February we welcomed Sari Pöyhönen from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland to our network, to lead a session on her research with forced migrants in Finland. In her session she noted how creative practice has found its way into research on language and migration. She focused on two fields of creative practice, collaborative photography and documentary theatre, and considered how creative practice allows communication across modes and enables topics – in this case belonging and non-belonging – that might otherwise stay hidden because of a lack of trust and a lack of opportunities for reciprocal relationships. Her first examples were from a photography project with unaccompanied minor asylum seekers, part of the project Jag bor i Oravais (I live in Oravais). The second were from a documentary theatre project with refugee artists and actors, Toinen Koti (Second Home), all of whom are trying to find their place in Finland. Sari’s work draws on linguistic ethnography and long-term partnerships, where personal stories become both public and political.

Sari unpacked the theoretical and methodological choices that she has had to make in her work, to describe the aims of collaboration, how relationships might be built, and how trust can be built and maintained. The subsequent discussion encompassed talk about ethically responsible practices and challenges in doing collaborative research with participants experiencing vulnerable life situations.

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Sari PÖYHÖNEN is Professor of Applied Linguistics and deputy head of department at the Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has researched and written widely about language, identity and belonging; minorities and language rights; migration, asylum and settlement; and adult migrant language education policies.

Event Handouts, Materials & Recommended Readings

 Belonging and non-belonging in migration settings (photo by: Tuomo Manninen)