Journal Of Refugee Studies : Storytelling in Research with Refugees
30.09.21- Researchers' methodological decisions have an impact on who gets to hear a refugees' story, the meaning a story conveys, and, consequently, the implications a story might have for forced migrants. What researchers, or aid workers, do with the stories gathered from forced migrants can contribute to their social and political invisibility, or their scholarship can be a tool to amplify refugee voices as forms of knowledge that are valid not only as testimony but as expertise to design research, programmes and policies.
In this paper co-authored by Samuel Hall co-founder Nassim Majidi and Adam Saltsman from the Department of Urban Studies, Worcester State University explore the potential of such methods have in disrupting existing regimes of what is audible, visible, or legible in society.
The authors rely on two case studies to provide insights into and learn from critical narratives from the displaced themselves: 1) at the Thai-Burmese border, 2) with Somali refugee returnees in Kismayo. The two case studies reveal different ways of working with stories and strategies that can help address the inaudibility of refugee stories.