Megan Anne Carney

We aim to co-create engaged research on participatory methodologies and permutations of archival activism with migrant youth in Sicily, the first point of entry for many people seeking asylum in Europe. Our engaged research activities will take place across three borderlands contexts: Palermo, a city that has garnered global renown for being a city of welcome; Tucson, the birthplace of the Sanctuary Movement and a present-day site of fervent border activism; and Sheffield, the first City of Sanctuary in the United Kingdom. In partnership with the Palermo-based nonprofit Zabbara and their participatory film lab FunKino: Cinema for Inclusion, our research team will examine: 1) migrant youth engagement in storytelling and the production of counter-narratives; 2) how participatory storytelling projects connect to an anthropology of liberation, to a decolonial politics of knowledge production, and to contemporary conceptualizations of archival activism; and 3) how the methodology developed by Zabbara may be translatable and hold transformative potential across different migratory and borderlands contexts. Using a collaborative research approach to facilitate the mutual co-production of knowledge throughout all phases of the research design and to generate policy-relevant research, we will disseminate results in academic and practitioner settings, as well as with broader publics.