The Made in Migration Collective: a collaborative archaeology of contemporary forced displacement in Europe - an online lecture

The Made in Migration Collective is a fluid group of displaced and non-displaced individuals originally from eight different countries. We use established archaeological and cultural heritage methods to co-document personal belongings and places significant to lived experiences of contemporary forced displacement in Europe. Applying non-hierarchical practices drawn from the anarchist notion of ‘prefiguration’ (whereby people organise socially according to how they would like the world to be), we use film, photography, ethnographic interviews, drawing, and creative writing, to record and reflect upon material and visual culture; as a diverse Collective, we co-curated a digital heritage exhibition called ‘Made in Migration’ and we are in the process of co-producing a live exhibition called ‘Made in Migration, In Real Life (IRL)’ which will open at the British Academy Summer Showcase in June 2022.

The digital and live exhibitions are contextualised within Europe’s colonial legacies and British immigration law as ongoing colonialism. Through enacting anti-racist principles, The Made in Migration Collective actively exposes neoliberal and nationalist ideologies which continue to racialise and immobilise people according to colonial categories. In this co-presented talk, several members of the Collective explain how we did the work together and share some of our favourite artefacts, to offer a clear example of the important role that cultural heritage can play in disrupting powerful racist narratives, to provide joyful possibilities for the future.

The Made in Migration Collective is a fluid group of displaced and non-displaced individuals of mixed-age, gender, social, educational, and ethnic backgrounds, originally from eight different countries. The Collective developed from Rachael Kiddey’s British Academy funded project, ‘Migrant Materialities: the material culture of forced migration in Europe’ (2018-2022), which is held at the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, U.K.

Rachael undertook her PhD at the Department of Archaeology, University of York, where she pioneered collaborative methodologies for working archaeologically with homeless people in Bristol and York. Her book, ‘Homeless Heritage: collaborative social archaeology as therapeutic practice’ was published by Oxford University Press in 2017 and it won the Society of Historical Archaeology’s James Deetz Book Award in 2019. She is currently completing her second book, ‘People Need Things’, which is based on fieldwork with the Made in Migration Collective and will be published later this year.

This lecture forms part of the CBA's This is Archaeology series with speakers from across archaeology and heritage. The lectures will be exploring a wide range of themes and ideas around the question, what is archaeology?