MIGRIMAGE: Images of Migration on the Southern Border Erasmus Project

Project Title

MIGRIMAGE: Images of Migration on the Southern Border

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Social dialogue; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The current situation of global emergency as a result of the health ad socioeconomical crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is making migrants and refugees live conditions even harder, not to speak about their future chances to fulfill their attempt to access the EU after the border lockdown and the hardening of migratory policies. Within this environment, MIGRIMAGE: Images of Migration on the Southern Border is based on the recommendations generated by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI General Policy Recommendation No. 15 on combating Hate Speech), where it is detected that the misconceptions and erroneous information that constitute the basis of the hate speech, and highlights the role of education in undermining these discourses, facilitating and exemplifying intercultural dialogue and combating misinformation, negative stereotypes and stigmatization. MIGRIMAGE proposes to develop a specific educational program for this purpose at the crossroads of Communication Studies in New Media (Digital Journalism included) and Communication for Social Transformation. It aims to strengthen the competence of educators to deliver them and at the same time support non- governmental organizations that work to combat hate speech. The project proposes the design, development, piloting and evaluation of an educational curriculum at the graduate level, around the Images of Migration in the Southern European Border, involving transversally the main disciplines within the network of applicant partners: the Universities of Granada (with headquarters in the cities of Granada, Ceuta and Melilla, Spain); University of Salento, based in Lecce (Italy), and the University of the Aegean Sea, based in Lesbos (Greece). The network gathers specialists in audiovisual communication; studies and new media, visual anthropology and human geography, political science and sociology, comparative literature and transmedial narratives, and migratory studies. The project links this training itinerary with the NGOs of the consortium, three organisations with a broad trajectory in the work with Young people, local or migrant, and with the use of communicative tools for social change. This curriculum will lay the foundations of a graduate, interuniversity and transnational study program intended to be referential in academic studies on frontier cultures and the use of communication, and in particular of new interactive digital media, for social transformation, through communicative tools used from an intercultural, open and integrating perspective.

The articulation of the educational program with the possibilities of the new means of communication will occur through the use of both technologies and innovative formats such as the MOOC and the WEBDOC (interactive documentary). These formats will foster and support collaborative learning and creation methodologies as well as the narration of new positive stories about migratory experiences, through transmedial designs (stories distributed coordinately in different platforms or media with strong audience participation). At the heart of the project´s objectives is a call for the attention of the citizenship of three bordering European countries in the Mediterranean, especially to its young population, on the need for knowledge and responsible use of the information circulating about migrations at this historical juncture of historical crisis for Europe on the issue of immigration.
The critical questioning of negative stereotypes and the stigmatization of migrants is also in the agenda of this project, which aims to offer a prototype training program for young people (Europeans and foreigners) to be the best interlocutors in the intercultural dialogue that Europe needs, making more and more expert use of communication tools with transforming potential. Europe must continue to be a guarantor of fundamental human rights and this project aims to contribute to overcoming the crisis that we have experienced in recent years.
The transfer of knowledge generated in the project by universities and in collaboration with social entities that fight against discrimination of migrant groups and racism, will occur through the creation of educational content and resources, the intellectual products of this project, integrated in a communicative platform and through innovative technological supports that are based on a broad experience in this scientific and educational field. Last, but not least, it is reasonable to believe that the immediate consequences of the global pandemic will make more relevant the compliance of MIGRIMAGE goals.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 289247 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE GRANADA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• ARCI LECCE SOCIETA’ COOPERATIVA SOCIALE
• Asociación Solidaria Andaluza de Desarrollo
• Lesvos Solidarity
• PANEPISTIMIO AIGAIOU
• UNIVERSITA DEL SALENTO