Women’s relationships with and experiences in diaspora are remarkedly varied and complex (Spivak, 1996). To fully understand their diverse experiences, it is necessary to consider the interaction of gender, class, race, and ethnicity alongside nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism (Banerji et al., 2010). Around the world, migrant women are often siphoned into gendered and racialized jobs, contributing to the increasing feminization of migration (Castles & Miller, 2009). The phenomenon of increasing female migrants for employment is accompanied by the contentious deskilling process of immigrant women in traditional education models, leading to questions about power, education, and the economy (Gunduz et al., 2013; Mojab, 2000).

The resourcefulness and agency of diasporic women in foreign contexts is often overlooked, and research on migrant workers can perpetuate victimhood narratives and discourses of victimization from diasporic experiences (Maitra, 2015; Mansuri & Tittensor, 2017). In order to support migrants in lifelong learning and decolonize transnational migration contexts, a shift towards strengths-based holistic pedagogies is required (Maitra & Guo, 2019).

The focus of this paper is to examine how embodied learning pedagogies can assist women in diaspora in establishing social relationships and community connections to navigate and overcome the stress, uncertainties and isolation of migration experiences. This will be accomplished through the use of findings from a community-engaged educational research project that brought together diasporic women to connect in peer-learning and knowledge co-creation activities designed to build situated solidarities and strengthen their social connections and relationships through an embodied whole-person learning curriculum. The research objective of this project was to develop and evaluate a model for newcomer education that took a strengths-based curriculum approach and shifted away from colonial deficit logics. This paper will answer the following research questions:  1) What opportunities does employing embodied learning and education methods that consider the whole person in learning create to assist diasporic women in addressing their current and future needs and challenges? 2) How might this learning support and foster more positive migration journeys and outcomes?

The research project utilized theories of embodied learning, situated solidarities, and transnational feminisms. Embodied learning is a learning concept that affords multiple ways of knowing and being in the world by connecting the mind, body, emotions, and spirit in learning. This concept and approach to learning emphasizes and explores the body’s involvement and significance in generating knowledge (Stoltz, 2015; Wong & Batacharya, 2018). Situated solidarities promote the co-creation of knowledge across borders and “multiple divides… without reinscribing the interests of the privileged” (Nagar, 2014, p. 82). In theory, this includes distributing power, questioning knowledge hierarchies, and examining the politics of place (Routledge & Derrickson, 2015)

Social networks are “central to the process of migration and the formation of transnational identities and communities” (Monkman, 1999, p. 348) and impact nonformal and informal learning which is exceedingly valuable to navigating migration trajectories. Educators can gain a deeper understanding of transnational learning and living by studying social network relations which can result in improved learning opportunities for migrants. The use of embodied learning and practices to support migration journeys and experiences (Biglin, 2020). This paper contributes to advancing this area of research by sharing novel approaches for education and community building with diasporic women which is needed given the rising levels of transnational migration. The research has important implications for educationalists and education researchers and offers hope for re-imagining educational objectives and curricula through a social justice lens.

The qualitative research project discussed in this paper employed a feminist decolonial research methodology (Mohanty, 2003; Tuhiwai Smith, 2021). A curriculum of twelve workshop sessions was created and workshops were facilitated by the project’s principal investigator. Participants attended two sessions per week for six weeks. Each session involved an embodied movement practice followed by group discussion, self-reflection, and time for participant journaling. Data collection followed a multi-modal strategy which included verbal data, via one-on-one individual semi-structured interviews and non-verbal data from embodied ethnographic methods (Pink, 2015). The first source of data comes from the individual in-depth semi-structured participant interviews. To gain insight into participant’s learning experiences, two interviews were conducted. The first interview took place before the workshops began. The second interview took place within one month of the final workshop. The second source of data comes from the embodied ethnographic field notes and the researcher’s reflective practice on the experience of facilitating the workshops and being part of the sessions (Pink, 2015; Spencer, 2011). The third source of data comes from the participant journals. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2021) was the method used to analyze this data.

Empirical evidence from the data gathered through this research project indicates that including embodied learning improves individual learning, strengthens community support, and enhances resilience to the inevitable challenges encountered as part of migration. The educational approach delivered through the workshops proved to be effective at supporting diasporic women in navigating the loneliness and uncertainty of their migration trajectories. Significant enhancements in bodily confidence and self-acceptance were reported by participants during post-project interviews, positively impacting their ability to navigate life in Canada and fostering improved relationships and their sense of belonging. This demonstrates how a whole person strengths-based learning approach can produce positive transformations in how learners think and feel about themselves. The educational project led to a greater appreciation for different cultures and increased respect between individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds. This shows the potential of embodied learning to enhance intercultural communication and learning. This finding was attributed to the impacts and effectiveness of situated-solidarity building. The significance of embodied learning research for educationalists lies in its potential to disrupt colonial systems and challenge dominant discourses, fostering greater equity and diversity in learning. The implementation of this approach can support migrant learning, foster community development, and cultivate stronger relationships between students and instructors, all of which are crucial for driving societal change for supporting more positive migration experiences.

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