This workshop introduces participants to the digital storytelling methodology developed through the Humanizing Deportation and Humanizing Asylum project. Participants will learn how digital storytelling can serve as a collaborative and community-centered practice that enables migrants and asylum seekers to narrate their experiences from their own perspectives, in their own words, and through their own visual and creative choices.
The session will explore the process used to support storytellers in creating short testimonial audiovisual narratives that combine personal reflection with photographs, video, music, artwork, and other visual materials. Designed to be accessible to individuals with little or no formal training in multimedia production. An approach that allows communities to speak for themselves rather than be represented by others.
Participants will discuss how these projects differ from documentary filmmaking, ethnography, or investigative journalism by prioritizing the voice, agency, and authorship of the storyteller over technical polish. The workshop will also examine the DIY/bricolage aesthetic of the projects, the importance of internet-based accessibility through short-form narratives, and the ethical framework of community archiving in which storytellers remain the authors, directors, and intellectual property rights holders of their digital stories. Through examples, discussion, and hands-on reflection, attendees will gain insight into how digital storytelling can be used as a tool for public scholarship, community memory, migrant justice, and self-representation.