Game change: Engaging refugees in #digital_diaspora

This post forms part of our series in showcasing abstracts of presentations featured at our annual postgraduate interdisciplinary conference on refugee and forced migration research, hosted in November 2018 at The University of Melbourne.

ANH NGUYEN

Digital access and citizenship has been the game changer for refugees and asylum seekers in diaspora. Refugees in Digital Diaspora are connecting in real time and through social media. They are building on-line community archives and networks that have significant creative potential for Museum, Advocacy and Education programming and collection. Recently, Museums Victoria has been able to collect art and images from a detainee on Manus Island based on a Facebook friendship between an advocate and detainee since 2001. Vietnamese refugees from particular rescue boats or refugee camps are curating their own historical records and memories on Facebook and reuniting with one other worldwide.

What are the implications of these activities for community-based and museum collections? How can we better program for public engagement with contemporary migration issues? Anh Nguyen shares her research and game design education program for teachers and students to build video and board games based on oral histories that showcase their understanding of the complexity of choices that ordinary people make in becoming refugees. Explore in real time the museums engagement with digital life and migration, and discuss how to promote active engagement with contemporary and controversial immigration history.

Anh Nguyen is a Research Associate with Dr Moya McFadzean, Senior Curator Migration & Cultural Diversity at Museums Victoria. Anh’s work focuses on collaboration, research, community engagement with oral history of contemporary migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. She currently is completing her PhD about Vietnamese child refugees with Joy Damousi, Child Refugees and Australian Internationalism Laureate Fellowship at the University of Melbourne.

Image Credit: New Orleans Online (2018): https://www.neworleans.com/things-to-do/multicultural/cultures/vietnamese/