The Refugee Tales Project as Transmedia Activism and the Poetics of Listening Towards Decolonial Citizenship

Abstract

The Refugee Tales project aims to raise awareness about the experiences of asylum seekers in Britain. It pivots around a walk through the British countryside, which becomes the occasion to share tales about immigration detention, subsequently published in a series of anthologies. In this essay, I frame Refugee Tales as a series of activist citizen media practices, engaging in prefigurative politics by providing refugees with a chance to perform a critical form of citizenship. Finally, I discuss how the tales themselves juxtapose forms of sympathetic and hostile listening.