In this talk, Prof. Bucken-Knapp will explore how three arts-based methods—comics, serious board games, and collaborative zines—can serve as research tools for personal reflection among researchers and participants, as well as a strategy to reach new audiences.

Messages from Ukraine interprets text messages from Ukrainian colleagues sent in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in comic form, highlighting themes of forced displacement through everyday war experiences.

At The Crossroads is a collaboratively designed serious game in which Ukrainian refugees share their stories of displacement at home and abroad through a simple board game that focuses on the challenges faced by those who fled.

Lastly, he will showcase three recent zine projects: 1) workplace challenges for migration professionals in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans; 2) how these professionals respond to media misrepresentation; and 3) how Thai performing arts students translate social commentary from performances into print. Each project emphasizes learning by doing and highlights the affordances of arts-based research as a tool to foster understanding and engage audiences.

Speaker 
Professor Gregg Bucken-Knapp
University of Gothenburg (Sweden)

Gregg Bucken-Knapp (Ph.D., The George Washington University 1999) is Professor in public administration. His research interests are migration and integration in a broad policy and administrative context.

His most recent book, Messages from Ukraine (co-authored with Joonas Sildre, University of Toronto Press, 2022) is a short graphic novel exploring the varied experiences of Ukrainians following the full-scale Russian invasion: those who were forced to flee home and seek safety elsewhere in Ukraine or abroad, those who remained to take part in war efforts, those who were abroad at the time and witnessed the unfolding of events from afar, and those who found themselves trapped in Ukrainian cities under siege.

Additional publications include monographs with State University of New York Press and Lexington Books, monographs and anthologies with Palgrave Macmillan, edited special issues with Comparative European Politics, and articles in International Migration, Journal of European Public Policy, Human Rights Review, European Studies, Nordic Journal of Migration Research and Journal of Baltic Studies, among others.