Digital storytelling as transformative practice: Critical analysis and creative expression in the representation of migration in Ireland

Abstract

Digital stories are hyper short, personally narrated multimedia fragments. The process of creating a digital story offers points of departure for critical reflection, creative self-expression, collaboration and dialogue around issues that are often silenced and marginalised. These digital narratives centre the voice of the storyteller and utilise both moving and still images to visually accompany the spoken word. Individually selecting a story and collaboratively producing the audiovisual expression of that tale presents new possibilities concerning the politics and ethics of storytelling. Participants in this study are from a heterogeneous grouping of undocumented migrants to Ireland and are positioned as the central actors/producers of their migration stories, allied to the use of digital media technologies in the generation of documentary storytelling accounts.

Keywords:

• digital stories
• storytelling
• communities of practice
• irregular migration
• critical pedagogy
• narrative