Making Migration Methodologies Series: Embodying Migration: How to do Body Mapping
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
Embodying Migration: How to do Body Mapping
Date: Tuesday, May 27th, 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 hands-on workshop teaches how to use body mapping as a powerful, arts-based and participatory research method. Drawing on case studies of climate change adaptation in the Philippines and experiences with Long Covid, we demonstrate how body mapping reveals the often invisible emotional, physical, and social impacts of dislocation. In Leyte, fisherfolk mapped their experiences directly onto seawalls—structures meant to protect but that ultimately displaced them—revealing fractured relationships to land, sea, and livelihood. Similarly, body mapping with Long Covid patients allowed individuals to visualize their symptoms and create a supportive community. Participants will learn multiple body mapping techniques and explore how body mapping enables participants to reclaim narrative agency, connect personal and political histories, and challenge dominant crisis logics. We will also help participants navigate the ethical implications of using the body as an archive and the general pros and cons of this approach. Lastly, through a body mapping activity (for both in-person and online participants), we will show everyone how body mapping works and what it looks like.
Maaret Jokela-Pansini, Senior Scientist at the Department of Geography, University of Zurich
Dr. Maaret Jokela-Pansini is a Senior Scientist at the Department of Geography, University of Zurich, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. In her research, she works together with patients, practitioners, artists, policy-makers, and other stakeholders to co-produce knowledge on the ways that people experience illness, environmental pollution, and marginalisation, among others, and the everyday practices to respond to such challenges. Maaret has previously worked in non-governmental organisations and draws heavily on community-based approaches.
Yvonne Su, Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University
Dr. Yvonne Su is the Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University. Yvonne is an expert on participatory, arts-based and digital methods - ranging from photovoice, videovoice to bodymaping and participant-aided sociograms. Her research is on forced migration, climate change-induced displacement and queer migration. She has worked with vulnerable communities in Southeast Asia and Latin America, including refugees, indigenous peoples and LGBTQ+ communities. She has over 30 publications and an extensive portfolio of external research funding, including grants for co-creating photovoice, videovoice, and podcast projects in the Global South.
Moderator: Tegan Hadisi, MPhil candidate, Oxford Department of International Development
