Digital City of Refuge forms part of a wider research project led by LSE in creative partnership with Counterpoints Arts and Proboscis.

***

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS & POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSE)

Prof Myria Georgiou, Principal Investigator
Myria Georgiou is Professor of Media and Communications in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Her research focuses on media and the city; urban technologies and politics of connection; and the ways in which migration and diaspora are politically, culturally and morally constituted in the context of digital mediation and transnational communication. These research interests generated the initial idea behind the Digital city of refuge project.

Dr Suzanne Hall, Co-Investigator
Suzanne Hall is Associate Professor of Sociology at the LSE where she co-directs the Cities Programme with David Madden. She is an interdisciplinary urban scholar and has practised as an architect in South Africa. Her research and teaching interests connect the asymmetries of global migration with the ongoing ferocities of urban marginalisation. From the grounded perspective of street economies formed in the peripheries of post-industrial UK cities, she explores the intersections of racialised frameworks of citizenship and economic inequality and their everyday consultations.

Dr Deena Dajani, Research Officer
Deena Dajani was born and raised in Amman, Jordan and has been living in the UK since 2003. Her research interests include how particular political dynamics (like austerity) converge with the experiences of migrants and those who support them, and how ethnographic and participatory research with migrants can contribute to thinking about shared space in more inclusive ways.

Kristina Kolbe, Research Assistant
Kristina Kolbe studied at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and King's College London before completing her PhD in Sociology at the LSE. Central to her work are the critical study of discourses around migration, citizenship and belonging in Europe, as well as the ways in which resistance can be mobilised through cultural and media production, particularly in urban spaces.

Afroditi Koulaxi, Research Assistant
Afroditi-Maria Koulaxi is an ESRC PhD Researcher in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Supervised by Prof Myria Georgiou, her doctoral thesis explores the role of mediation in intercultural encounters for the construction of Greek identity in the context of crisis. She joined ‘Digital Cities of Refuge’ to support ethnographic work in Athens.

***

COUNTERPOINTS ARTS

Counterpoints Arts works in the intersection of art, migration and cultural change. Counterpoints Arts navigates cross-sector partnerships, supporting artists and communities who have first-hand experience of displacement or are committed to exploring migration as a defining narrative, shaping contemporary culture and society. We work across all art forms; and everything we do is delivered in collaboration with partners from the field of arts and culture, advocacy, policy, human rights and racial justice, community-based work, activism and education. The Counterpoints Arts’ Learning Lab programme makes research an accessible activity and is designed to mobilise horizontal, democratic spaces for peer-to-peer learning and the creation of new knowledge. Counterpoints Arts is based in Hoxton, London, working nationally and internationally. For the
counterpointsarts.org.uk

Áine O'Brien

Marcia Chandra
Marcia is a documentary photographer and visual ethnographer, and Creative Producer at Counterpoints Arts. She has collaborated with academic, NGO and cultural organisations on participatory and creative research using storytelling, photography and film, focused on themes of migration, urban environments and social change.
marciachandra.com

***

PROBOSCIS
Proboscis is an independent artist-led creative studio directed by Giles Lane and Alice Angus with expertise in social engagement, creative research, innovation and problem-solving. Collaboration and co-discovery for uncommon insight are at the heart of Proboscis’s creative practice.
proboscis.org.uk

Giles Lane