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NERGIS CANEFE

Professor Nergis Canefe is a scholar and practicing visual artist who integrates arts-based methodologies into her academic research on forced migration, trauma, and historical injustice. Her work is characterized by a commitment to decolonial approaches, prioritizing “ethics of witnessing” to counter extractive knowledge production.

Arts-Based Research & Creative Practice

Canefe’s approach bridges the divide between artistic practices and academic inquiry, viewing artistic engagement as a deeply political process to communicate the experience of violence, loss, and trauma.

Visual Arts & Exhibitions: She is a mural painter and visual artist with numerous solo exhibitions. Her work frequently centers on themes of displacement, dangerous voyages, and the Mediterranean. Notable projects include:

• • Mourning and Loss in Mare Nostrum (2023): A solo exhibit exploring themes of memory and displacement.
  • The Road Less Travelled (2019): A solo exhibit in Toronto featuring cut-outs and designs themed around Mediterranean displacement [1.3.2].
  • Mare Nostrum (2016): A solo exhibit in Istanbul focusing on the Syrian exodus.
  • Fables and Truths (2016): A series of silk panel installations exhibited in Turkey.

Performing Arts: Formally trained in theatre arts, stage décor, and choral singing, she also participates in musical initiatives, such as the Songs of Peace at a Time of War concert with the Shevchenko Chorus and Orchestra (2022-2024).

Nergis Canefe’s publications involving arts-based methodologies often employ an “art/essay” format. This approach serves as a deliberate intervention, blending scholarly analysis with visual art with scholarly inquiry. Rather than treating art as merely illustrative, she argues that these creative interventions function as essential research tools for theorizing practice and engaging with the realities of displacement

Notable Publications Using Art/Essay Formats

• “Drowning by Numbers” (Displaced Voices: A Journal of Archives, Migration and Cultural Heritage, 2020): This work is a primary example of her art/essay approach. It features a curatorial essay accompanied by a series of her own paintings. The project serves as a testimony to the death and disappearance of displaced populations in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, using the artwork to theorize practice and reconsider the “normalized” invisibility of those on the move.
• “‘Do not go gentle into that good night’: the Anthropecene and the cyclical time of human suffering” (Globalizations, 2021): In this article, she explores notions of ontological recognition in relation to ecological disasters and survival, examining forced migration through the lens of time and the Anthropocene.
• “Transformations: A Personal History of Introducing Complicité into Academic Life and Learning Communities” (Genealogy, 2023): This piece reflects on her personal history and the introduction of “complicité” (collaboration/complicity) into academic life, further discussing her insistence that methodologies must act as tools for intervention rather than just disciplinary affirmations.
• “Hope, life and death: The Syrians are coming?” (Journal of Narrative Politics, 2017): An earlier exploration of narrative and political engagement that touches on the themes of displacement and the representations of the Syrian exodus.

Institutional Leadership in Arts & Migration

Canefe is a prominent leader in formalizing the role of the arts within forced migration studies:

• IASFM Leadership: While she served as the Vice President of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) and is the inaugural program co-director for the organization’s Arts and Forced Migration initiative. As the current President, she organized the Art as Action research cluster.
• Advocacy for Methodology: She advocates for using arts-based methods to support resistance and self-representation among displaced populations—particularly refugee women—thereby challenging the tendency to treat refugees merely as “passive victims” or “data points.”

Her recent work consistently argues that academic institutions must move toward collaborative co-creation, where artistic output is not just an “add-on” but a primary mechanism for preserving collective memory and challenging systemic injustices.

• Formalizing Arts-Based Methodology: She actively advocates for moving beyond traditional, detached academic rituals in migration studies. Her leadership seeks to institutionalize the use of arts-based methods—such as visual arts, performance, and creative storytelling—as legitimate, essential tools for research.
• Decolonial Knowledge Production: Her future trajectory emphasizes “epistemic restitution,” which involves utilizing arts-based methods to support resistance, self-representation, and the recovery of collective memory among displaced populations, particularly refugee women. This approach is designed to challenge the dominant, Eurocentric narratives that often frame displaced persons as passive subjects or fragmented legal categories.

Ongoing Creative and Academic Practice

Her personal creative work remains closely tied to her research on human suffering, trauma, and historical injustice.

Art/Essay Formats: Canefe is continuing her experimentation with the “art/essay” format in her scholarly publishing. By blending visual elements with narrative analysis, she aims to create a more effective “ethics of witnessing” that communicates the realities of mass displacement and systemic violence.

Public and Collaborative Installations: As a practicing visual artist and mural painter, she maintains an active portfolio of public installations. These projects often serve as spaces to explore themes of memory, dispossession, and citizenship, bridging the gap between artistic inquiry and political discourse.

Innovative Knowledge Economies: Her current research projects, such as Statelessness as a Permanent State and her work on the Ethics of Witnessing and Redefining Collective Responsibility, incorporate these artistic methodologies to analyze the “cyclical temporality” of displacement and the structural impacts of planetary inequalities.

Rather than separating her artistic practice from her academic research, Canefe’s future projects are defined by a commitment to co-creation and collaborative inquiry, where the aesthetic and the political are permanently entwined to address the global crisis of forced migration.

KATARZYNA GRABSKA

Dr. Grabska’s work centers on gender, generation, youth, displacement, refugees, and the role of arts and creative practices in contexts of war and exile. She regularly uses visual methodologies, including film, as well as feminist and collaborative methodologies.

She was previously a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). She currently holds a position as a Research Professor at the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies (University of Geneva). Additionally, she serves as a visiting professor at the Ethnology Institute at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

She led a major research project focused on arts, artists, and activism in the context of war and exile, the INSPIRE project (2022-2026). The INSPIRE project (Inspirational Creative Practice: The Work of Artists after War and Violent Conflict) is a major research initiative hosted by the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO).  It is led by research professor Katarzyna Grabska and explores the intersection of art, activism, and ethnography in the context of violent conflict. The project seeks to establish “inspiration” as a new field of ethnographic study. It examines two primary dynamics:

• Motivation: What inspires and motivates artists and activists engaged in creative practice during and after war.
• Impact: How these artistic expressions and creative practices inspire and mobilize others toward social justice.

Scope and Methodology

• Geographic Focus: The research focuses on creative practices in Sudan and Myanmar, as well as the experiences of artists and activists in exile across four European countries: France, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.
• Collaborative Approach: The project bridges the social sciences and humanities by combining scientific and artistic methods. Key methods include:
  • Multi-sited ethnography.
  • (Creative) life history interviews.
  • Collaborative arts-based workshops.
  • A dedicated virtual platform that acts as both a research tool and a public archive for sharing outcomes.

The project is directed by Katarzyna Grabska and includes a multidisciplinary team:

• Cindy Horst (Research Professor)
• Marte Nilsen (Senior Researcher)
• Trude Stapnes (Doctoral Researcher)
• Sara Christophersen (Research Assistant)

The work is supported by an advisory board comprised of artists, academics, and cultural institutions to ensure high-quality artistic engagement and dissemination beyond traditional academic outputs.  The project is concluding its research cycle, with its end date scheduled for September 30, 2026. The team has been consolidating their ethnographic findings on how artists in Sudan, Myanmar, and exile communities mobilize creative practices to navigate violent conflict and social transformation.

Dr. Granska has recently co-edited special issues focusing on the relationship between art, conflict, and displacement in Conflict and Society and Music and Arts in Action.

• Selected Publications:
• Grabska, Katarzyna, and Cindy Horst. “Introduction: Art, Violent Conflict, and Displacement.” Conflict and Society 8, no. 1 (2022): 172-191.
• Grabska, Katarzyna. “Visual storytelling about genocide, displacement, and exile: encounters with Rithy Panh.” Conflict and Society 8, no. 1 (2022): 192-211.
• Grabska, Katarzyna, and Roy Huijsmans. “Dance as Liberating and as Limiting, as Connecting, Creating and Crossing Boundaries: Interview with Prumsodun Ok.” Music and Arts in Action 8, no. 1 (2022).
• Grabska, Katarzyna, and Christina R. Clark-Kazak, eds. Documenting displacement: questioning methodological boundaries in forced migration research. Vol. 7. McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP, 2022.

STACI MARTIN

Dr. Staci B. Martin, a faculty member at the School of Social Work at Portland State University, is a researcher and practitioner whose work extensively integrates arts-based methodologies into peacebuilding, education, and psychosocial support for vulnerable populations, particularly refugee youth.

Her recent and ongoing work focuses on the following key areas:

• Arts-Based Approaches to Mental Health: Her current research explores how arts-based methodologies can be applied to support the mental health and well-being of young refugees (ages 18–35) and host peacebuilder leaders. She investigates how these creative strategies can be used to measure community-based learning and foster psychosocial healing.
• Critical Hope and Peacebuilding: Martin specializes in “critical hope”—a pedagogy and research framework she developed—to foster transformative action and dialogue within conflict and protracted settings. She has implemented and evaluated various psychosocial peacebuilding programs internationally, such as the Pambuzuko Project (Kenya), the Khelera Sikou Project (Nepal), the Irie Project (Jamaica), and the Nthabiseng Project (South Africa).
• South-South Knowledge Mobilization: A major component of her current research explores how South-South knowledge mobilization can empower communities in the Global South, enabling them to lead in the creation of their own research, knowledge, and practical solutions.
• Publications and Practice: Her scholarship is often centered on the “third space”—collaborative environments co-created with BIPOC communities. Recent academic contributions include the textbook Peacebuilding Practice: A Textbook for Practitioners and her work, Global South Scholars in the Western Academy: Harnessing Unique Experiences, Knowledges, and Positionality in the Third Space.

Selected Publications:

Martin, Staci B., and Deepra Dandekar. Global South scholars in the Western academy. Abingdon: Routledge, 2022.

Martin, Staci B., Hayso Thako, Rey Ty, Sudarat Tuntivivat, and Rattanak Ly. “The hope industrial complex: resisting manufactured and false hope with critical hope in peace education, Thailand’s refugee context.” Teaching in Higher Education (2026): 1-12.

Exploring the Impact of Community Engaged Work Through Arts-Baws Methods with Child, Youth, and Family Studies Practicum Students, Community Partners, and Community Members with Staci B. Martin

KIRIL SHARAPOV

Professor Kiril Sharapov is a Principal Investigator and Professor in Forced Migration at Edinburgh Napier University who has increasingly integrated arts-based research methodologies into his work to explore complex social issues. His most prominent recent work in this area is Caring to Survive: The Art of Surviving inside Ukraine’s Disability Crisis. This 30-month, UKRI-funded project (beginning in June 2026) is a collaborative initiative that places persons with disabilities in Ukraine at the center of research. Professor Sharapov serves as the Principal Investigator for the project, which aims to document the informal care networks and everyday survival practices—referred to by the team as the “aesthetics of care”—that have emerged during the war.

Key Arts-Based Components of the Project:

• Arts-Driven Methodology: The project uses an arts-based and social science approach to reach experiences that conventional research often misses.
• Training & Co-Creation: The team is training ten Ukrainian artists (two from each of the five participating cities: Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, and Cherkasy) in arts-based research methods. These artists then lead creative workshops and one-to-one sessions with participants in their homes.
• Creative Outputs: The project documents these experiences through audio and video testimonies, commissioned artworks, and a culminating “Festival of Care” designed to showcase the creative and documentary work developed with participants.
• Collaborative Partnerships: The research is conducted in partnership with People’s Palace Projects (PPP) at Queen Mary University of London, the National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine (NAPDU), and the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. PPP leads the arts-based research methodology, collaborating with creative partners such as Clod Ensemble (utilizing their “Circle of Care” methodology) and Graeae Theatre Company.

Selected Publications:

Mendel, Jonathan, and Kiril Sharapov. “Human trafficking and online networks: Policy, analysis, and ignorance.” Antipode 48, no. 3 (2016): 665-684.

Sharapov, Kiril. “Public understanding of trafficking in human beings in Great Britain, Hungary and Ukraine.” Anti-trafficking review 13 (2019): 30-49.

Sharapov, Kiril, and Heather Komenda. “Conceptualising Vulnerability in Forced Displacement: The Role of Human Rights‐Based Approaches in Mitigating Trafficking Risks—Findings From Poland and Romania.” International Migration 63, no. 5 (2025): e70081.

JESSE O’REILLY CONLIN

Jesse O’Reilly-Conlin is a writer, editor, and researcher whose work explores themes of movement, displacement, and the ethics of human connection. While his academic and professional background is deeply rooted in humanities, history, and refugee studies, he engages with arts-based and narrative practices as fundamental components of his work. He is also current PhD student in the Humanities Program at York University (Toronto), focusing on refugee studies. He holds an MFA in creative nonfiction and has authored works such as Visiting Africa: A Memoir (2021) and the novel Wanaka (2023). His writings explore movement, displacement, and the ethics of travel.

Approach to Narrative and Creative Work

O’Reilly-Conlin describes himself as a lyrical and “elliptical” writer who utilizes image, symbol, metaphor, and juxtaposition as his primary narrative building blocks His work is characterized by:

• Creative Nonfiction: He holds an MFA in creative nonfiction and treats travel and personal narrative not merely as travelogues, but as windows into emotional and speculative exploration.
• Ethical Storytelling: His writing, such as his memoir Visiting Africa, is an intentional investigation into the ethics of travel and the responsibility of the privileged to encounter a world marked by inequality. He emphasizes the power of language to document human interaction and challenge dominant narratives.
• Interdisciplinary Focus: His work often bridges the gap between academic study (including his current doctoral research in the Humanities Program at York University) and creative practice.

Jesse O’Reilly-Conlin’s doctoral research at York University is centered on the intersection of refugee studies and visual culture. His dissertation is titled “In Their Own Images: Exploring the Photographic Practices of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh.” The core of his work investigates how displaced Rohingya individuals utilize photography to counter the often-dehumanizing narratives produced by humanitarian organizations and global media. By centering the lived experiences of refugees, his research explores how the camera can serve as a tool for agency, allowing displaced people to frame their own stories and claim authority over their visual representation. His research draws from a multidisciplinary approach, combining:

• • Critical Refugee Studies: To analyze the political dimensions of displacement.
  • Photography Theory: To understand the power dynamics of the image and the politics of looking.
  • Narrative Inquiry: To explore how personal accounts and visual artifacts communicate the realities of life in exile.

By focusing on the Rohingya experience in Bangladesh, his work contributes to the growing scholarly dialogue on how marginalized groups use the arts to resist victimization and assert their presence as active participants in the discourse surrounding their own forced migration. O’Reilly-Conlin also works as an editor at Demeter Press, a publishing house known for its interdisciplinary and intersectional focus on motherhood, gender, and social issues.