PROMP.pt
Participatory Media Research on Experiences of Migration to and From Portugal

Period
March 1, 2014 to February 28, 2019
Duration
60 months
Abstract

This project aims at developing a participatory research (PR) among Portuguese emigrants to France, USA and Brazil in a comparative work connected with our ongoing collaborative research with immigrants in Portugal. The idea is to build upon our already exceptional experience of collaboration with migrants in order to consolidate and further explore the theoretical and methodological challenges raised by PR. For that, we will focus our attention in three main thematic axes: gender, religion and identities to be equated with the question of public narratives promoted by the very methodological features of the project in four cities (Coimbra, Newark, Paris, São Paulo).


The project’s design takes Portugal as the platform for the development of case studies to be undertaken by me and PhD students with interdisciplinary background. One of the criteria for the selection of the studies takes into account the most relevant migration movements to and from contemporary Portugal. The second concerns crucial social topics of the contemporary world and more specifically in the European continent, related to daily life social experiences of confrontation/dialogue between hosts and aliens. We depart from a fundamental problem related to a structural dissociation between normative/official discourses about e/immigration and the concrete lived experiences of migrants. That is why the use of new communication tools, like the internet and hypermedia, suit the theoretical concerns of the research.


The project reflects my experience as a PI/research leader with the ambition to further develop collaborative BR among migrants with the support of new communication technologies. Also, it will enable the expansion of an international research network bridging the Portuguese diaspora and migrant communities in Portugal. The purpose of producing rigorous knowledge about the concrete personal experiences of migrants will create the opportunity of including them in our scientific outputs and endeavors in the form of a virtual multimodal archive or museum, and an E-Learning course for researchers, community leaders, policy-makers in migration issues. In parallel, I wish to create an international PhD Program co-coordinated with the universities already in partnership with my work at CES (Paris, USP, Brown). Fieldwork, training and scientific networking will be interconnected for the progress of the three axes at intra and internet levels with possible further developments worldwide.

Researchers
Elsa Lechner (coord)
Keywords
emigration, immigration, Portugal, biographies, participatory/collaborative research, audiovisual/hypermedia
Funding Entity
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology