This presentation was delivered by Liz Miller, Professor in Communication Studies, Concordia University, as part of ‘Engaging Communities with Archives: Video as a tool for activism, advocacy, and archival work’, a collaborative online event hosted by the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) on 7 Sept 2021. The webinar focused on archival initiatives and participatory projects that aim to train or support community groups in using video to tell personal stories, bring about social change, or archive and preserve activism and advocacy work. The presentation focuses on Mapping Memories, a participatory media initiative that offered over a hundred young individuals the opportunity to recount their stories of refugee experiences on their own terms.

1. Mapping Memories:
Participatory Media, Place-Based Stories, Refugee Youth
www.mappingmemories.ca (2007-2012)

2. What?
Five-year collaborative media project – 2007-2012
Ten workshops involving over 180 youth participants with refugee
experience. University-Community collaboration.
Where?
Center for Oral History and digital storytelling, Concordia (COHDS).
Why?
To build understanding about youth with refugee experience in Montreal
How?
*Participation is key both in the co-creation of materials but also in the
dissemination of the work. Longevity - archives, platforms,
participation evolved over time.

3. Methods
Participatory Media – overall method
Oral history – life stories lasting 2 to 8 hours
Documentary – documenting process and films
Digital storytelling – 4 to 6 minute self-authored films (30)
Mapping – new media platforms
Live Sound walks – through neighborhoods
Bus tours – guided bus tours

4. Who?
Advocacy
Canadian Council for Refugees
Education
Media Educator, Ministry of Education – Michele Luchs
Service
Montreal City Mission, YWCA, Express
University Partner/Participatory Research
Life Stories of Montreal, Centre for Oral History and Digital
Storytelling, Concordia Montreal

6. Montreal City Mission
One-day workshops over a year

7. YWCA, 13 weeks, a bus tour

8. Weekend Workshops – Cotes-des-Neiges Youth Center

9. Weekend workshops with EXPRESS, Queer Refugees

10. By taking an image of a subject in front of a
window or light source you can create a
silhouette effect.
Re-framing refugee narratives

12. Co-creating archives/ Animating archives
Archive - More than 30 first-person digital stories &
documentaries
Archive - Life Story Interviews
French and English book for teachers and organizers
School tours – 20 school visits
Film screenings
Gallery and museum exhibits
Bus and Walking tours
Subway campaign (QR code)

13. Life Stories of Montreal of Survival and Displacement
Directed by Steven High (2006-12)
• A participatory oral history project exploring Montrealers’ experiences and
memories of mass violence and displacement.
• Trained community members from Rwanda, Haiti, Cambodia in audio, film and
life story
• Resulted in more than 500 Montreal interviews (as well as marriages and more)

14. 4 Years later…
Living Archives (2016 2020)
A digital archive of 29 stories from Rwandan exiles and
Genocide survivors in Canada to engage in “sustained listening.”
Objective:
To offer a vital training platform for the next
generation of oral historians as well as a resource for survivor
communities.
Partners:
Cohds &
Page-Rwanda –
The Association des Parents et
Amis des Victimes du Génocide
des Tutsis au Rwanda.
https://livingarchivesvivantes.org

15. The Atlas of Rwandan Life Stories
AtlasCine - Open access tool to map life stories
https://rs-atlascine.concordia.ca/rwanda/index.html
Developed by Sébastien Caquard (Director of the Geomedia Lab & Co-Director of COHDS)

16. Tension 1: Process and intimacy of an interview versus long-term
archival quality.

17. Tensions 2: Public History and outreach efforts
versus privacy and immediate safety

18. Tensions 3: Short Narrative Unit versus Long Narrative Unit
Solution –diverse platforms to feature both as audiences are wide ranging
(relatives, students, historians etc)
“The focus on life stories serves to de-centre the violence, situating it in the long history
of a life lived and remembered.” – Steven High

19. Tensions 4: Aesthetics, Access, Ownership
Creating our own platform or using what already exists

20. Tensions 5: Longevity (lives change and consent
and participation may also change over time)
180 youth participants / 3 over ten-year period 89 to 29, one particular community archive
(new participants in transcription)

21. Mapping Memories: Participatory Media, Place-
Based Stories, Refugee Youth
www.mappingmemories.ca