Thread by @heavencrawley

Never tried to live tweet from an online event but 4th UNESCO Chair currently being live-streamed contains powerful and moving material which speaks to me strongly in the context of #RefugeeWeek2020 and more generally and needs to be heard so I’m going to give it a try...

The words and experiences of refugees frame everything that’s being said but within that the gendering of refugee experiences, of human experiences of forced movement, relations between mothers and children

Integration is such a difficult concept, one of things that the team tries to do - and has done over previous lectures - is to introduce new ways of thinking about integration. The theme for this year’s lecture is ‘contemplative seeing’ as a way of reflecting on these processes

The team harnesses the arts as a way of enabling people to feel human again. The work of Hannah Rose Thomas centres and dignifies the experiences of those who are violated, allowing them to regain a self of self on their own terms...

Hannah’s own portraiture represents the dignity of the women she works with through the use of gold. She tells us how this work, exhibited alongside the women’s own portraits, touches the emotional core of people’s responses to conflict and violence #moreincommon

The flourishing - and often messy - spaces in which we work together to build relationships have been disrupted by #COVID19, replaced by online spaces that require order and turn taking. We all missing out on (and missing) what normally happens ‘in-between’...food, chat, travel

There are no short cuts to justice. Much of what we do is the equivalent of trying to pull up trees by their branches says @alison_phipps rather than getting into the roots of structural inequalities which hold the trees in place, keep them strong

A beautiful segway into work of the @MIDEQHub and the work of the team including @MusicABorders @NaadensuaT @Tawona_Sithole So lovely to hear reflections of our meeting last year in Nairobi, how the memory dragon remembers some people/experiences/smells/feelings and not others

Our experiences of people and places make us who we are...our migration stories are etched into us and carried by us through our memories, through our own memory dragons 🐉 says @MusicABorders

‘The bird that does not fly does not eat’ says @NaadensuaT. In her own research she draws on Ghanaian proverbs and beautiful fabrics to ask how this expression resonates with the experiences of those who move though different objects, textiles and languages

Next up a song to make our hearts sing! 🎶 🎶🎶 I love way in which each member of @UofGUnescoRILA @MIDEQHub team draws on different concepts to think about the nature of migration experiences. As @Tawona_Sithole says, we all need to do some humble ‘letting go’

Closing words from @alison_phipps on importance of fostership and fostering as a different way of thinking about integration and our relationship with others beyond (potential) narrowness of kinship. And a beautiful image of a Glaswegian mural of St Enoch and St Mungo

Wow. A tour de force from @alison_phipps and her wonderful @UofGUnescoRILA @MIDEQHub team Simultaneously inspiring and challenging, an hour of Zoom to make you think and cry and laugh and wonder at the complexity and beauty of what often just feels dry and difficult 👏🏻