the HOMES project

 

 

   This cross-disciplinary project deals with representations of landscapes, spaces and places in literature and the arts in contexts of migrations. Its aim is to allow a better understanding of the social,economic and political changes of host regions affected by the settlement and integration of migrants.

​

While considering practices of hospitality in various contexts and the representations of migrating populations, this projects aims to address ethical issues and inquire into the concept of empathy through story exchanges. The project is split into two modes of research :

​

1-

A cross-breeding of methodologies from various disciplines (social sciences, literature, visual arts.

psychology) : practices and representations of home-making and belonging in contexts of migrations.

​

2-

Narrative4 workshops of story exchanges (https://narrative4.com/) with story-telling as a potential

tool to improve empathy skills and promote individual and social empowerment.

 

The innovative added value of this project is due to its cross-disciplinary nature, at the crossroads of the humanities and social sciences, combined with the practice of story exchanges. In terms of methodology, the two sides of the project will lead to an international symposium in 2020.

 

‘Hospitalities, Hostilities: Narratives and Representations’. The project will span over a year, from October 2019 to September 2020 with a series of pluri-disciplinary seminar sessions, concluding with the international symposium in November 2020.

​

What are the main topics? 

​

- To host vs to be hosted

- Empathy and neurosciences

- Mapmaking and nomadic lanscapes

- Migrations and climate change

- explorers’ journeys and tales

- embodied places

- making home

- bodies in private and public spheres

 

This project will study the practical implications and limitations of the perfect homonymy and the semantic reciprocity of the words ‘host’ as guest and ‘host’ as offering hospitality. The aim is to assess the places where both hosts meet and how generosity and hostility sometimes coexist, in order to imagine new forms of hospitality. We will also critically assess the work done over the months of the HOMES program to turn empathy into action.

 

We plan :

​

* To edit a peer-reviewed journal to publish the results of the seminars

* To publish a book following the 2020 ‘Hospitalities, hostilities: narratives and

representations’ international symposium

*  To develop Narrative4 story exchange workshops in Grenoble and in France

 

​