Making Migration Methodologies Series: Drawing the City: Social Cartographies of Lives on the Move
The Centre for Refugee Studies at York University and the Oxford Department for International Development have partnered to present a unique hybrid workshop series for the Trinity term: Making Migration Methodologies - A Hands-On Exploration of Mobility through Creative Tools.
Migration is about more than movement—it’s about memory, loss, resilience, and belonging. This workshop series equips researchers, students, and advocates with creative, participatory tools to study and represent migration in more ethical and transformative ways. Across six sessions, participants will learn hands-on methods including photovoice, participatory video, body mapping, poetry, music, digital ethnography, and social cartography. Each workshop combines practical tutorials with critical discussion on how these methods can challenge dominant narratives, surface hidden geographies, and amplify migrant voices. Led by an international lineup of leading scholars, artists, and practitioners, the series explores real-world case studies—from bodymapping fisherfolk displaced by seawalls in the Philippines to Kurdish women documenting musical traditions in Germany. Whether you are a migration scholar, an artist, an activist, or a student, this series will give you new tools to make your research more visual, collaborative, and impactful.
Organizers: The workshop series was organized by Dr. Yvonne Su, Abril Ríos-Rivera, Carolina Rota and Tegan Hadisi.
Dates: Every Tuesday May 6th to June 17th (with the exception of June 3rd)
Time: 3:30pm BST / 10:30am EST
Location: ODID Seminar Room 1, 3 Mansfield Road, University of Oxford
Hybrid: Hosted by the Centre for Refugee Studies, please register: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/dsT5Yr64QuSSM-4hMbOaVA
Registration: Registration is required for online participation and preferred for in-person.

May 6th, 2025 - Introduction to Arts-based Methods and Photovoice Tutorial
Speakers: Dr. Yvonne Su, Abril Ríos-Rivera, and Tyler Valiquette
Moderator: Tegan Hadisi
May 13th, 2025 - Filmmaking, Participatory Video and Videovoice
Speakers: Dr. Amanda Alencar, Dr. Zhixi Zhuang and Dr. Yvonne Su
Moderator: Tyler Valiquette
May 20th, 2025 - Music and Poetry as Arts-Based Methods for Migration Research
Speakers: Dr. Helidah Ogude-Chambert, Dr. Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey, Rose Campion
Moderator: Abril Ríos-Rivera and Dr. Yvonne Su
May 27th, 2025 - Embodying Migration: How to do Body Mapping
Speakers: Dr. Maaret Jokela-Pansini and Dr. Yvonne Su
Moderator: Tegan Hadisi
June 10th, 2025 - Migrant Lives Online: Practicing Digital Research Methods
Speakers: TBD
Moderator: TBD
June 17th, 2025 - Drawing the City: Social Cartographies of Lives on the Move
Speakers: Dr. Valentina Montoya Robledo, Dr. Melissa Moralli, Carolina Rota
Moderator: Vasiliki Poula
Drawing the City: Social Cartographies of Lives on the Move
Date: Tuesday, June 17th, 2025
Time: 3:30pm BST / 10:30am EST
Location: ODID Seminar Room 1, 3 Mansfield Road, University of Oxford
Hybrid: Zoom link hosted by the Centre for Refugee Studies: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/dsT5Yr64QuSSM-4hMbOaVA
Registration: Registration is required for online participation and preferred for in-person.
This seminar explores participatory and emotional mapping, and social cartography as creative methods in migration research. These approaches help visualize how people understand, navigate, and relate to space—documenting not only routes and geographies, but also places and meanings often left out of expert maps. Drawing on work with migrant communities in India, Colombia, and Italy, the speakers will reflect on using mapping to surface lived experiences of mobility and migration. The session includes a hands-on exercise to demonstrate how these tools can be used in practice.

Valentina Montoya Robledo, Senior researcher in Gender and Mobility at the Department of Geography, University of Oxford
Dr. Valentina Montoya Robledo is a Senior researcher on Gender and Mobility at the Transport Studies Unit at the University of Oxford. She is the director of the transmedia project Invisible Commutes on domestic workers’ Right to the City in Latin America and of the documentary Invisible. She holds a S.J.D. and LL.M. from Harvard Law School. M.A., LL.B., B.A. at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá). She is the recipient of the 2024 John Fell Fund grant to conduct research on women cross-border commuters in low- and middle-income countries. She is also the former professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes and consultant of the Transport Gender Lab at the Interamerican Development Bank.

Melissa Moralli, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Business Law, University of Bologna
Dr. Melissa Moralli is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Business Law, where she teaches Creative Methods and Social Innovation. She holds a Phd in Sociology and Social Research on social innovations and cultural processes. She was visiting scholar at CRISES (Centre de Recherche sur les Innovations Sociales, Montréal), IPK (Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University), CRISES Redifined (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), MESOPOLHIS (Aix-Marseille University, Sciences Po Aix, CNRS), MUCEM (Museum of the Mediterranean, Marseille). She is PI of the international project “Collaborative imaginaries on territories in change across Europe”. She was senior researcher in the project "Welcoming Spaces. Revitalising Shrinking Areas by Hosting Non-Eu Migrants” (H2020) and “Atlas of Transitions. New Geographies for a Cross-Cultural Europe” (CreativeEU). She is the author of many books and articles on migration, artistic production, social innovation, and creative methods. She co-founded the research collective "Reimagining Mobilities" on critical approaches to different mobility regimes through creative practices.

Carolina Rota, DPhil in International Development, University of Oxford
Carolina Rota is a DPhil candidate in International Development at the University of Oxford (St Catherine’s College), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentship. Her research explores the social geographies of work of migrant women domestic workers in Delhi, utilizing ethnographic participatory, and visual methods to examine their lived experiences, mobility, and interactions with urban spaces.
Before the DPhil, Carolina completed the MPhil in Development Studies at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, earning the Papiya Ghosh Prize for best thesis for her qualitative work on part-time women domestic workers in Mumbai, conducted with the support of Youth and Unity for Voluntary Action. Since moving to Delhi in 2022, Carolina has worked with SEWA Bharat and IPE Global on Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) and research assignments. Her professional experience also includes research assistant roles at Sciences Po, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Pratham Education Foundation, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Mexico. Carolina holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, International and Economic Studies from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Moderator: Vasiliki Poula, DPhil in International Development, University of Oxford
