From photos to forensics: borders and fatalities in Calais, Italy, and the Mediterranean Sea
This session brings together researcher-practitioners whose work addresses transit spaces at the forefront of current geopolitical discussions: Calais, France and the Mediterranean Sea. Performance offers insights through practice-based methods and a platform for amplifying activism. The session considers questions of agency, the precarity of forced liminality, the gendered dynamics of migration, war, and poverty, and the publicity of migration fatalities.
COMPAS Seminar Series Michaelmas Term 2026
Theme: 'Migration, Performance, and Policy'
This interdisciplinary study series and study day explores the nexus between migration policy and performance. The series invites social scientists and humanities scholars who want to think together, beyond the questions and methods that dominate their own fields. The series focuses on two big questions: What can performance and performativity teach us about migration policies? What do migration policies teach us about performance in public and political discourse?
These seminars will take place at 3.45pm on Thursdays of Weeks 1, 3, and 5. Online and in person as listed.
Seminars 1 & 3 in this series are hybrid.
To join via Zoom, please use the registration link.
This study series is a collaboration between the University of Oxford’s TORCH Performance Research Hub, the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), and the Faculty of Music.