Representing Her Trajectory: reflections on an arts-based research on women migration and data visualization

Abstract

In recent decades, women have increasingly left their countries of origin, leading to an increase in transnational migration. Her Trajectory (2020), a project created by the author, represents women migrants’ paths, affects and experiences through counter-mapping and data visualization. Presented in web form (see https://hertrajectory.com/ ), this arts-based research project shows the migratory trajectories of 18 women participants by placing them and their personal objects onto a map, alongside their own object narratives. This article reflects on how the aesthetics and deployment of the textual, visual and kinetic designs re-humanizes migrants through their own narratives. The article also discusses how arts-based research could encourage participants to contribute their vernacular creativity to emotively transform migration studies.