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BRIDGES - Bridges to assess the production and impact of migration narratives

BRIDGES aims to understand the causes and consequences of migration narratives in a context of increasing politicization and polarisation. By focusing on six current/former EU countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom), it has a three-fold objective.

First, at the academic level, it aims to understand the processes of narrative production and impact and their mutual interaction. This entails analysing: a) why some narratives have become dominant over others in public and political debates from a historical perspective; b) how narratives shape individual attitudes in Europe and potential migrants’ decisions in countries of origin and transit; c) how narratives impact policy decisions and outputs both at the national and EU levels; and d) how individuals and policymakers become in turn narrative producers (‘shaped shapers’) and influence each other.

Second, at the policy level, it aims to foster evidence-based policies. By developing a typology of government strategies for responding to populist narratives, we will provide policymakers with recommendations on how to redress a tendency towards increasingly symbolic policies in the field of migration and integration.

Third, at the societal level, our objective is to create spaces for dialogue between actors involved in narrative production as well as to exchange innovative good practices among artistic communities, civil society organisations and migrant communities focused on how to build more inclusive accounts.

The project objectives can only be achieved if we bridge – hence the name BRIDGES – several critical gaps between disciplines and between research and practice. A key added value of the project is its interdisciplinarity and co-production approaches, including three interactive workshops with policy, media and civil society actors, an itinerant photojournalism exhibition and two hip hop contests to reflect on the challenges of multicultural and increasingly diverse societies.

 

At a Glance

German Project Coordinator
Prof. Dr. Bastian Vollmer, Catholic University of Applied Sciences Mainz
Project Partners
  • Centre d’Informació i Documentació Internacionals a Barcelona, Spain (Coordinator)
  • Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazion, Italy
  • University of Edinburgh, UK
  • Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
  • Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy
  • Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
  • Fundación PorCausa, Spain
  • Sciences Po Center for European and Comparative Studies, France
  • Institute for Sociology, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary
  • Institutt For Samfunnsforskning, Norway
  • Cultural Association Zona, Italy
FundingEuropean Commission
Project Term2021 - 2023
Website

https://www.bridges-migration.eu/