Dear friends and colleagues,
Soon, the testimonies of migrants and refugees will be shared through the VOLARE educational platform. They will travel into lecture halls and classrooms, appear on mobile screens and take their place in public spaces, accessible to everyone.
In times of global uncertainty, wars, persecution, xenophobia, and racism, what power do testimony and voice truly hold? Can they bridge the gap between broadcasts, images and headlines, and the deeper understanding of lived experiences of others?
At VOLARE, through the multimodal framing of testimonies, we believe that education is enriched by the voices of others and that necessary scientific distance should not reinforce dominant discourse but instead serve historical memory and ethical responsibility by creating a shared framework of understanding for all.
The digital space lends itself to journeys, explorations and sensory experiences. It cannot remain enclosed within the certainties of our own safety but must stay open to understanding, awareness and empathy. Behind every testimony lies a story of displacement, a constant struggle for survival, everyday victories and defeats, pain and joy. We hear life stories, encounters, relationships and integration attempts. Education may not change the world, but it can change how we see it. It becomes the meeting point of testimonies and VOLARE’s effort to highlight their significance.
VOLARE’s testimonies are not isolated from the global context. On the contrary, they emphatically remind us that the experiences of migration and displacement transcend borders and eras and concern us all.
September 2025: genocide and famine in Gaza, civilian deaths in Ukraine and Russia, massacres in Sudan. In the face of all this, what is our stance?
As Paulo Freire wrote: “When one washes one’s hands of a conflict between the powerful and the powerless, one does not remain neutral. One takes the side of the powerful.”
At VOLARE, our position is clear.
A song for Gaza
Among the extensive multimodal material that the VOLARE team has carefully and persistently collected, the platform also includes 12 songs recorded exclusively for the VOLARE digital repository.
One of these is “Ya Zarif.” It is a traditional Palestinian song with a strong symbolic meaning, that speaks of the love and longing for the homeland, often sung at celebrations and gatherings.
The VOLARE Conference is coming soon!
Two months from now, on 21 and 22 November 2025, we will share our research journey on testimony, migration and critical pedagogy with academics, researchers, educators, students, friends and fellow companions. Over the course of these two days, we will present the design, motivations, and objectives of this innovative project, which approaches and highlights displacement testimonies not as archives of pain and suffering, but as critical pedagogical and political tools.
We are delighted to welcome Professor Shahram Khosravi (Stockholm University), whose keynote “Who Needs Migration Studies?” will set the stage for a critical engagement with migration narratives, as well as Professor Michelle Fine (CUNY & University of South Africa), with her keynote “Critical Participatory Action Research in Times of Rising Fascisms”.
Through three roundtables we will focus on interdisciplinarity, education and the digital dimension of testimony, highlighting VOLARE’s social impact in education (with Thaleia Dragona, Nelli Askouni, and Vassilis Tsafos), epistemological approaches to testimony (with Vangelis Karamanolakis and Akis Papataxiarchis), and the VOLARE digital repository (with members of our team).
Participants will also have the opportunity to join a workshop on participatory storytelling against xenophobia (with Samuel Finesurrey, Bashir Juwara, and Thierno Diallo), and listen to live music performances from different regions, featuring songs selected for the VOLARE repository (with Despina Apostolidou and Dimitris Mikelis).