Glasgow Centre for International Development

South-South migration has the potential to reduce inequalities and contribute to development. This potential has yet to be fully realised.

MIDEQ works with a global network of partners in twelve countries in the Global South, organised into six migration ‘corridors’, to transform understanding of the relationships between migration, development and inequality. We work to shift the production of knowledge about migration and its consequences towards the countries where most migration takes place – engaging with contested concepts and definitions, decolonising research processes and generating new evidence and ideas. Our ultimate aim is to translate knowledge and ideas into policies and practices which work to improve the lives of migrants, their families and the communities in which they live. Our mission is to ensure that South-South migration reduces inequalities and contributes to development.

The University of Glasgow team is working on cross-cutting work package Arts, creative resistance and well-being:

Where development work engages the arts and culture, it typically does so to communicate findings, educate or mediatise. Work in this theme takes a practice-led approach to understanding the relationships between migration and inequality in the context of the Global South. It engages with, but also challenges, the Global North’s measurement-heavy and largely economistic perceptions of these relationships.

As our work proceeds, this theme will consider, critically analyse and intervene artistically and through multilingual approaches to translate what resonates aesthetically. It will create migratory aesthetics, demonstrating how the arts and humanities can expand social-scientific and scientific frames of reference for research into migration and inequality, creating environments where human well-being is valued and flourishes.

First published: 12 May 2021