Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 M, Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Paper Session
Contribution
My a/r/tographic inquiry explored how Greek migrant youths aged 18–24 years living in
Melbourne, Australia, used new media to communicate their identities. The methodology
combined participatory narrative inquiry with arts-based research approaches. Bakhtinian
concept heteroglossia are considered as an element of identity construction in the digital space. As the a/r/tographer (artist/researcher/teacher) leading this inquiry, I shared Greek culture, language, and migrant status with the participants.
Discussions about social media use explored how identities are performed and shaped by
users’ online communities. Artefacts created using new media captured our individual and
shared digital journeys. The inquiry was undertaken during the COVID-19 lockdown in
Melbourne in April–May 2020. Mediating the use of new media for ‘survival’ in a new
homeland, and the value of digital diasporas to enable communities of belonging, were
significant outcomes of this research.
The paper I propose will discuss this a/r/tographic inquiry undertaken during my doctoral research which was guided by the following co-designed research question developed in a participatory process in consultation with my participants: In what ways does new media usage shape the identities of Greek migrant youths, and help them find a sense of belonging?
My research makes a unique methodological contribution to creative methods using new media in the digital space, namely via its use of videoconferencing and its blending of
a/r/tography with participatory narrative inquiry. It has also been a documentation of life and research carried out in the specific context of COVID-19, as lived out by the young migrants and me.
My inquiry explored the boundaries of a/r/tographic possibilities and how identity has shifted in the context of a global pandemic. The design of my a/r/tographic inquiry allowed for an authentic exploration of the impact of new media on identity work for Greek migrant youths. Videoconferencing as a site for exploration of the self through others afforded new possibilities and meaningful ways to conduct arts-based participatory research in which life stories and artmaking happened simultaneously, albeit from different physical locations. It was here in the digital space that discussion and artmaking unfolded new openings into a rhizomatic digital world that the study participants and I created together. Creating the conditions needed for safety, care and collaboration was of paramount importance. For a/r/tographers, this relationality means an ongoing quest for understanding of all that sits in and around the research site/cite/sight (Coleman, 2019) that is timely, emergent, generative, and responsive for those involved (Nixon, 2017). For me as a/r/tographer, the research also presented an opportunity to reimagine my identity and belonging as artist, researcher, and teacher in new ways. My identities as artist, researcher, and teacher were continuously in a state of flux – of being reborn in what Deleuze describes as a state of becoming (Deleuze, 1992). My line of inquiry sought to identify where the major ‘a-ha’ moments or epiphanies about identity and belonging through new media were, and how I could show these in visual and written form.
Method
The research design combined participatory narrative inquiry, with a/r/tography, and Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia. 1. Participatory Narrative Inquiry Researchers collect stories using PNI (Kurtz, 2014) in order to gain a deeper understanding of a given situation or to create an environment for telling previously unshared stories. There are three essential phases: collection, sensemaking and return. PNI was particularly helpful in this study as a way to collect narratives in visual, verbal, and written formats. New media, specifically social media accounts, provided some of the comments and photographs to aid in the collection of narratives. 2. A/r/tography As the a/r/tographer, documenting my personal migratory history and sharing examples of negotiating my identities, I was able to establish a space for gathering, sharing, and friendship (Mallos, 2021). The participants and I navigated our identities through artmaking within a digital space together. Rosunee (2012) asserted that arts-based practice can be used to understand and conceptualise the self and the other – essentially stating that the images used in narrative inquiry are a superior way of gaining an understanding of the self and other – using an a/r/trophic approach. 3. Heteroglossia In keeping with an a/r/tographical approach, Bakhtin (1986) saw life as part of a process of experiencing the world with others. His concept of heteroglossia was particularly useful to the current study in helping me explore the meanings in the storyboards rendered through a/r/tography, in the sense that new media has allowed for new artefacts that combine words and visual metaphors shared by the participants to generate new knowledge and new ways of seeing similar themes in the data. Bakhtin’s (1984) conceptual idea of heteroglossia, however, could also be understood in terms of how interactions through new media impact expression, perception, identities, and communication. Visual representations and narratives merged in understanding, mediating, and recognising messages, meanings, and significances through them. Several data collection methods were used in a collaborative dialogic manner, including: • transcripts of all the workshops • transcripts of peer interviews • photographs from participants' mobile phones and social media screenshots • Instagram portraits created by the participants and researcher using Instastory mode • written reflections from the participants pertaining to photographs from their social media, and the making of the Instagram portraits and • digital narratives (an arts-based response digitally created by researcher and participants to communicate their identities).
Expected Outcomes
I identified five key areas of knowledge relating to the focus of research question about the ways in which new media shapes the identities of Greek migrant youths in the digital space. These areas are: 1) emotional toil and nostalgia; 2) the value of digital diasporas; 3) how using new media shapes identities; 4) developing a sense of belonging through new media; and 5) the researcher as a/r/tographer. This study makes a strong methodological contribution through its combination of PNI, a/r/tography and Bakhtinian concepts of identity. This study is also the first of its kind to explore the role new media plays in the identity formation and sense of belonging of Greek migrant youths who have migrated to Melbourne since 2010, thereby adding to existing literature about Greek migrant youth involved in participatory arts-based research to explore identity work, and narrowing the scope to which transnational migrants use new media to connect and construct their personal identities (Kim, 2018). The participatory arts-based and narrative design helped to highlight the different identities that Greek migrant youths inhabit through the affordances of new media and would be useful when working with other migrant youths from other cultural backgrounds and countries. The study explores how Greek migrant youth in Melbourne use new media to create, communicate, and navigate their identities. The research findings enable the use of visual art education to support teachers in engaging their students in exploring their identities and senses of belonging through creative processes. From a visual arts education standpoint, the findings also contribute to the field because a/r/tography is considered as a practice that is not limited to physical locations and indeed can be applied much more broadly to the digital space.
References
Diminescu, D. (2008). The connected migrant: An epistemological manifesto. Social Science Information, 47(4), 565-579. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018408096447 Georgalou, M. (2019). Place identity construction in Greek neomigrants’ social media discourse. Internet Pragmatics, 2(1), 136-161. Georgalou, M. (2021). Emotions and migration in social media discourse: A new Greek migrant case study. Emotion, Space and Society, 38, 100745. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100745 Georgiou, M. (2010). Identity, space and the media: thinking through diaspora. Revue Europeenne des Migrations Internationales, 26 (1). 17-36. Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B., Horst, H. A., Lange, P. G., Mahendran, D., Martinez, K. Z., Pascoe, J. C., Robinson, L., Sims, C., & Tripp, L. (2009). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. MIT Press. Kim, S. (2018). Migrant youth identity work in transnational new mediascape. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 28(2), 281-302. https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00013.kim Kurtz, C. (2014). Working with stories in your community or organization: Participatory narrative inquiry. Kurtz-Fernhout Publishing. Mavroudi, E., & Holt, L. (2021). Learning to be (multi)national: Greek diasporic childhood re-memories of nationalism and nation-building in Australia. Children's Geographies, 19(5), 552-566. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.1965090 Theodoropoulou, I. (2021). Nostalgic diaspora or diasporic nostalgia? Discursive and identity constructions of Greeks in Qatar. Lingua, 263, 102697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.05.007
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