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Year of Mygration

Migrants and migration matter to The Open University and to all of us.

The Open University's Year of Mygration stands as a remarkable introduction to diverse perspectives of migrants and migration. The Open University is ‘open to people, places, methods and ideas’ so has always welcomed migrants as students and staff, and has encouraged pioneering methods of learning, teaching, research and engagement around the themes of migration, refugees, mobility and belonging. 250 separate contributions have been gathered under the heading of a Year of ‘My-gration’ to emphasise that we are all affected by migration, whether or not we ourselves or immediate families are migrants. The issues of migration are vital to understanding not just current UK politics but also the world’s economies and communities.

The origins of this Year of Mygration are in a collaboration between the Citizenship & Governance and the International Development & Inclusive Innovation Strategic Research Areas of the OU. The idea was to share a reflection every day, Monday to Friday, for 50 weeks of a year, on the broad theme of migration which showcased the work of the OU academics and our partners, be it a short blog, podcast or archive clip, a tweet or a link to a longer article. We numbered the posts from 1 to 250 partly so that anyone can start their own Year of Mygration in any year and at any point in any year. We appreciate that migrants and the whole world live with migration 7 days a week for the whole 52 weeks of the year but we believe that there is a value in this exercise and we would welcome anyone creating their own sequels. As the OU enters our 50th anniversary year, 2019, we remain committed to being ‘open to people, places, methods and ideas’.

BBC tuning in

Day 9, Year of #Mygration: Brokers and diasporas at the BBC World Service

Eva Nieto-McAvoy of the Open University is presenting tomorrow, 12 January, at the Open University’s London offices in a Council of European Studies workshop on ‘Brokerage in a diverse Europe: Intermediaries, go-betweens and bridges’.

11th January 2018

Day 8, Year of #Mygration: Research with migrant families

How do original insights into migration emerge from Open University researchers in partnership with scholars based in other institutions?

10th January 2018
Hands holding notes on paper

Day 7, Year of #Mygration: Who counts as a refugee?

A free @OpenUniversity course open to all, offers an introduction to that subset of migrants who are refugees or asylum-seekers. Through the stories of Lotte, Wolja, Victor & Françoise, a century of official UK attitudes to ‘aliens’ is also explored.

9th January 2018
Shutterstock-289745486 - Indian ox and cart

Day 6, Year of #Mygration: Punjab to Chatham

The Open University course materials demonstrated being ‘Open to People’ through such programmes as Punjab to Chatham, filmed on location in India and the UK in 1980 and 1981.

8th January 2018
Shutterstock-530282419 Immigration Law

Day 5, Year of #Mygration: Migrants and Migrant Lawyers

Our Year of ‘Mygration’ is so called to encourage us all to think of how migration and migrants have affected us, whether or not we ourselves are migrants or scholars of migration.

5th January 2018
Jennie Lee

Day 4, Year of #Mygration: ‘An Experiment in Prejudices’ by Jennie Lee

Being ‘open to people’ is a virtue of relevance to our topic of migration and beyond but it should not be taken for granted.

4th January 2018

Day 3, Year of #Mygration: Who are we?

Who are we? Yesterday’s reflection showed how the @OpenUniversity was addressing the issue of migration in our first decade, the 1970s.

3rd January 2018
Wilson Brooks

Day 2, Year of #Mygration: Ukranian class in a Toronto school

An example of a programme which offered wider perspectives on immigration is ‘We’re all immigrants here’, reporting from Toronto in 1978. This extract sets the scene and the whole programme can be viewed via a further link. 

2nd January 2018
Stuart Hall

Day 1, Year of #Mygration: 'The endless unfinished conversation of identity'

One of the intellectual giants of the first 50 years of The Open University was the late Professor Stuart Hall. Courtesy of the Stuart Hall project trailer, we can hear his voice addressing migration and identity.

1st January 2018

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