Abstract:
Visual methods have significantly expanded the scope of migration research, offering more than tools for recording or communicating realities. They open pathways for experimenting with participatory, performative, and engaged approaches that challenge traditional hierarchies of representation. In this presentation, Keina Espiñeira reflects on the potential of visual methodologies through two empirical case studies: a participatory project developed with migrants in the Spanish-North African border city of Ceuta, and another involving transnational families in Spain, focusing on the experiences of women of Ecuadorian, Moroccan, and Cape Verdean origin and descent.
Both projects explore themes such as immobility, embodied experiences, and self-representation, while also interrogating how co-creative processes reshape fieldwork relationships and knowledge production. Through these cases, she opens a critical dialogue on how such practices are conducted –methodologically, ethically, and politically– while pointing toward future research scenarios that prioritize collaborative authorship, affective engagement, and a rethinking of the researcher's role.
Bio
Keina Espiñeira is a migration researcher whose work examines the intersection of art and politics to explore the impact of mobility governance. Grounded in postcolonial approaches, her research focuses on the transformation of borders, particularly in the Western Mediterranean, as mechanisms of socio-spatial ordering that shape representations of territory and identity. Her research-creation projects have been showcased at international museums and festivals, including MoMA New York, Toronto, Rotterdam, Rome, and Buenos Aires. Her short film Tout le monde aime le bord de la mer was nominated for Best European Short Film by the European Film Academy in 2016. Most recently, she coordinated Care in the Diaspora: A Photographic Autoethnography of Cape Verdean Women in Spain, funded by the Women’s Institute of Spain’s Ministry of Equality in 2024.
