MEinART bridges creativity and multilingualism by focusing on the conventionalization of gender. The research team of the Laboratory for the Study, Teaching and Dissemination of Greek Language and Multilingualism, consisting of members who work in different parts of Europe as a result of the brain drain phenomenon, in collaboration with experts from the UK in the field of multilingualism and arts-based methodologies, will shed light on under-researched and underestimated aspects of women’s multilingual identities. By adopting participatory arts and technology-based methodologies, MEinART aims to offer alternative educational spaces of empowerment where women from refugee backgrounds working alongside women from the majority population will tell their stories, challenge dominant discourses and representations imposed on them, ultimately rediscovering themselves, re-imagining their lives through artistic and creative artworks, as well as individual or group performances. The project offers alternative ways of thinking and implementing research especially when working with target groups that have been silenced and undervalued. In this context, arts-based research and educational practice and the perspective of digital spaces that challenge conventional notions of time and place and give primacy to creative thought processes can be counter-pressures towards a change in social justice for all participants in this project, and especially towards valuing women’s multilingual and multicultural identities, ultimately shaping a “reverse discourse” that will ensure “self-care” for every woman.
Funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation.
Academic Coordinator: George Androulakis, Professor, Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly
Participant from SECEd: Maria Papadopoulou