MIDEQ: Migration for Development and Equality
(UKRI GCRF South-South Migration, Inequality and Development Hub)
South-South migration has the potential to reduce inequalities and contribute to development. This potential has yet to be fully realised.
MIDEQ works with a global network of partners in twelve countries in the Global South, organised into six migration ‘corridors’, to transform understanding of the relationships between migration, development and inequality.
We work to shift the production of knowledge about migration and its consequences towards the countries where most migration takes place – engaging with contested concepts and definitions, decolonising research processes and generating new evidence and ideas.
Our ultimate aim is to translate knowledge and ideas into policies and practices which work to improve the lives of migrants, their families and the communities in which they live.
Our mission is to ensure that South-South migration reduces inequalities and contributes to development.
The University of Glasgow team is working on cross-cutting work package Arts, creative resistance and well-being:
Where development work engages the arts and culture, it typically does so to communicate findings, educate or mediatise. Work in this theme takes a practice-led approach to understanding the relationships between migration and inequality in the context of the Global South. It engages with, but also challenges, the Global North’s measurement-heavy and largely economistic perceptions of these relationships.
As our work proceeds, this theme will consider, critically analyse and intervene artistically and through multilingual approaches to translate what resonates aesthetically. It will create migratory aesthetics, demonstrating how the arts and humanities can expand social-scientific and scientific frames of reference for research into migration and inequality, creating environments where human well-being is valued and flourishes.
PI and Co-Is
Co-I and Co-Director: Prof Alison Phipps, School of Education, University of Glasgow
Research Associates: Dr Gameli Tordzro, Tawona Sitholé
Research Assistant: Naa Densua Tordzro
Full list of international collaborative partners can be found on MIDEQ website: https://www.mideq.org/en/
Start and End Date
13 February 2019 - February 2024
Funder and Funding Amount
MIDEQ is funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).
MIDEQ receives additional funding from Irish Aid
Total funding £18,759,063
Grant reference ES/S007415/1
Related Publications
Please see publications on project website:https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/
- Film of the launch event in Ghana 2019 “Lungulugu, Kpordomi” by Dr Gameli Tordzro: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/lungulugu-kpordomi/
- Ethiopia brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/ethiopia-brief/
- Egypt brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/egypt/
- Jordan brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/jordan-brief/
- Malaysia brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/malaysia-brief/
- Nepal brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/nepal-brief/
- South Africa brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/south-africa-brief/
- Côte d’Ivoire brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/c%C3%B4te-divoire-brief/
- Ghana brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/mideq-ghana-brief/
- China brief: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/mideq-china-brief/
- Mediated migration: A literature review of migration intermediaries: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/mediated-migration-literature-review-migration-intermediaries/
- Understanding migrant decision-making: implications for policy: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/understanding-migrant-decision-making-implications-policy/
- The creation of consent (video): https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/creation-consent/
- UKRI South-South Migration, Inequality and Development Hub (introductory video) https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/ukri-south-south-migration-inequality-and-development-hub/
Project News
Please see updates on project website:
The MIDEQ Blog launched earlier in 2020 with a series of articles by the UofG MIDEQ team:
- 31 August 2020: Researching multilingually: meeting, greeting, eating
Prof Alison Phipps reflects on greeting colleagues in mother languages, a tiny effort at equity and courtesy, and the importance of placing oneself in the position of linguistic vulnerability.
- 19 August 2020: Se anomaa entua obua da: 'The bird that does not fly does not eat'
Does your culture have textiles that tell migration stories? Naa Densua Tordzro introduces the concept of 'Se anomaa entua obua da' or 'The bird that does not fly does not eat' by highlighting its use in Ghanaian wax print designs.
- 19 August 2020: Two part series on Hamadzi, Memory as Silence
By Dr Gameli Tordzro
Memory in Sound, Silence and the Compassion of Music
Do you have memories that have migrated with you from one place to another? From one language to another? Are there any memories you know you keep because they have never found expression in another language?
Memory, Language Learning and Remembering a Forgotten Language
Have you ever discovered that words in your mother tongue occur in new languages you have learnt? Have you had memories you thought were no more existing awaked by a new sight and sound? Dr Gameli Tordzro writes how as he migrated the languages he used migrated into the silent spaces in his memory.
- 19 August 2020: three-part series on 'expressions of travel'
sezvazviri (literal); midziyo (items/objects); and zvirevo (proverbial)
By Tawona Sitholé
(1) Mazwi e Nzendo: Sezvazviri (literal)
In this offering Tawona Sitholé turns, and returns, to his mother tongue (Shona) to explore expressions to do with the movement of people. These mazwi e nzendo (expressions to do with travel) are from his own memory and also from several long, long-distance calls with his youngest ancestor – his elderly mother.
(2) Mazwi e Nzendo: Midziyo (items/objects)
What are your own language resources? What item/objects describe or influence your own sense of journey?
(3) Mazwi e Nzendo: Zvirevo (proverbial)
Known sayings (idioms) offer something more intangible to our reflections on migration. What idioms describe or influence your own sense of journey?
- 19 June: Ŋutefe Ʋɔdriba (Memory Dragon)
Researcher-artists begin introducing some concepts from traditions outwith those which are more normally associated with the discourse of migration studies or intercultural communication in the academic literature. In this post Dr Gameli Tordzro introduces his concept of the ‘Memory Dragon'
- 8 June 2020: hekani pa ruwaré
Tawona Sitholé introduces the concept of the ruwaré. In Shona it is a rockface, and any traveller who finds themselves here, not least one who is also migrating, finds no tracks or visible path to follow.
- 8 June 2020: Objects series: Burkina Faso
A conversation between Bonayi Hubert Dabiré and Alison Phipps, we hear Dabiré describe the objects he has chosen first of all in his mother language - ‘sa langue maternelle’ - Bambara, then describes these in French, his working language.
- 4 June 2020: Vessels, Thread and Cloth
In a series of reflections and writings the researchers in work package 11 (WP11) offer a gallery of objects which act as levelers for human beings in their needs for food, water, and clothing.