‘Sounds of migration’ project aims to reframe discussion of ‘polarising’ topic

Rescue efforts in the Mediterranean and traditional music on the streets of London form part of what is thought to be the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.

Some 120 sounds and stories across 51 countries make up the project, which has been a year in the making and was co-led by Oxford University’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (Compas).

The collection, in collaboration with the sound project Cities and Memory, aims to “reframe” conversations around the movement of people around the world.

It features an array of sounds ranging from migration-related protests in France and the US, to the everyday sounds of diaspora communities.

The global collection includes background chatter at Gurdwara community kitchen in London’s Southall, and steel drums being played as traffic moves along the streets of Brixton, in the south of the capital.

Rob McNeil, a researcher into migration in the media at Compas, said: “We’re trying to encourage people to understand migration in different ways, and to use different senses – in this case hearing – to form different types of knowledge about a complex issue.

“Listening to these sounds can give people a deeper and richer sense of what it means to migrate, what it means to lose loved ones to another place, how it feels to escape or to feel ‘at home’ – subtle things that define the experience of migration, but that a chart showing annual net migration or deportations will simply bulldoze.”

Stuart Fowkes, founder of Cities and Memory, said: “Migration is one of the most polarising topics in the world today, with many conversations retreading the same ground.

“Because sound transports us directly and vividly into the lived experiences of human migration, it allows us to reframe those conversations and throw a new light on its complex and multifaceted nature.

“Sound also grounds our experience and shows that migration is about the everyday, settled lives of countless millions of people – not just about arduous journeys across borders.”

Migration Sounds is an interactive online exhibition at citiesandmemory.com/migration, and will be the subject of a pop-up exhibition at the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum from November 6 to 8.