A few days before the end of 2025, VOLARE is completing its cycle. Following the international conference held in Athens under the title “Digital Multimodal Narratives: From Displacement Testimonies to Critical Pedagogical Praxis” and the rich discussions that unfolded over two days, we were pleased to see that both the repository and the project’s overall research trajectory have been received very positive feedback from the educational community.
The conference captured the project’s two-year journey, highlighting its design process, transnational communication, the challenges encountered, as well as the creative tensions that emerged within an interdisciplinary and multilingual research team. Reflecting on these two years of collective and collaborative effort, we realise that VOLARE has been a learning journey for all of us, an exercise in understanding new tools, new perspectives, and new ways of listening to and learning from the testimonies of displaced people, with respect and responsibility. You can explore all previous newsletters documenting this journey on the VOLARE website: https://volare-project.eu/el/blog/.
Beyond its pedagogical dimension, which highlights the central role of experience and lived reality in understanding social phenomena, VOLARE is also a scientific endeavour that contributes to the public debate on migration and displacement. The two-day conference highlighted this contribution through the keynote speeches of social anthropologist Shahram Khosravi and social psychologist Michelle Fine, both scholars, researchers, and activists committed to social justice and to the inclusion of displaced voices in the Western world. The intersection of different perspectives on the notion of the archive and the repository, as well as the political and pedagogical significance of such initiatives, generated strong interest among the approximately 200 participants who attended the conference, both in person and online.
- The repository is now fully available for use in classrooms and lecture halls: https://repository.volare-project.eu/
- The multilingual, open-access e-book, which documents the process of creating the repository through the diverse scientific perspectives of the team, is available here: https://pergamos.lib.uoa.gr/uoa/dl/object/5317083
An ending is also a new beginning: VOLARE will continue its journey through the use of the platform and the dissemination of the testimonies.
Our commitment remains unwavering: the lives and voices of all people deserve space and value, both in public history and in the difficult and precarious present of Europe and the Western world.
The VOLARE research team wishes everyone a New Year filled with greater solidarity, democratic vigilance, and collective processes.
The VOLARE team
International Conference: Voices, Testimonies, Encounters
The conference brought together 27 speakers from Greece, Bulgaria, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including academics, researchers, musicians, educators, and artists. The strong public attendance, together with the presence of many of the protagonists of the testimonies, who travelled in order to participate, meaningfully framed the programme of the five sessions. Each session opened with short excerpts from the testimonies featured in the repository, shared by migrants and refugees and/or individuals who have worked in the field and reflected on their experiences.
The conference concluded with the voice of Despina Apostolidou, accompanied by musician Dimitris Mikelis.