Imagining Futures by Unforgetting Histories: Participatory Filmmaking with Refugee Youth

• In Event: Arts based educational research and imagining future(s)

Abstract

Refugee youth face distinct integration challenges, including mastering a new language, catching up on academic content missed during displacement, and gaining a sense of belonging in their new communities. Arts-based participatory methods have been found to support culturally sustaining language and multiliteracies development, critical consciousness and self-expression, and highlight marginalized community members’ funds of knowledge. This paper results from a semester-long participatory filmmaking project in the Midwestern U.S. designed to foster refugee youth’s identity development, sense of belonging, and self-advocacy. We describe the process and outcomes to illuminate ethical and practical challenges as well as affordances of the approach – including fostering conceptual and technical skills, confidence, and self-expression – and screen one of the resulting short films.

Authors

• Melissa Hauber-Özer, University of Missouri

• Kelly Leavitt, University of Missouri

• Viviana Goelkel, University of Missouri