ATLAM – Audio/visual Transfer in Latin American Migration
ATLAM is an interdisciplinary PhD-project (2023-2027) conducted at Ghent University within the faculties of Arts & Humanities and Sociology. The researchers are affiliated to CESSMIR, TRACE and Multiples.
The research is further informed by a research stay at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Xochimilco (UAM-X) within the doctoral program of Humanities and Social Sciences (División de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales).
Fields of Research
- Migration
- Audio/visual Translation
- Critical Discourse Studies
- Sociolinguistics
This research focusses on audio/visual representations of migration and borders in the context of Latin America – Abya Yala. Tracing the narratives’ inter-semiotic transfer processes, the research explores cross-border belonging, community and resistance through decolonial epistemologies of the in-between.
The project critically analyzes dominant migration discourses–(re)produced at an increasingly accelerated pace in today’s digital mediascapes. The research further explores the creative potential of audio/visual and mobile practices to construct and circulate counter-narratives. Centering a diverse audio/visual corpus of photography, film, visual art, and music, the research foregrounds alternative ways of representing migration and borders, fostering new imaginaries of belonging beyond national borders.
Combining methods of Ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico, and Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) of an audio/visual corpus, the research is grounded in perspectives from Abya Yala – the original name given to the entire continent and reclaimed as a decolonial response to the colonial construct of “Latin / America”.