Benefits, Challenges, and Steps Forward on Using Poetry Workshops in Interdisciplinary Migration Research: Reflections from the Field and Methodological Insights

Abstract

This article offers a critical methodological reflection on the use of poetry workshops in migration research, positioning them as empowering, ethically complex, yet powerful research tools for studying migrant experience. While arts-based methods have gained momentum, their application often lacks critical reflexivity regarding their benefits, challenges, and interdisciplinary potential. Drawing on implementing and designing over 50 poetry workshops facilitated by the author across Bosnian/Yugoslav, U.S., and U.K. diaspora contexts, this paper employs an autoethnographic and participatory lens to explore the workshops’ dual role as sites of empowerment and tools for epistemic transformation. Beyond examining their use in participatory action research (PAR), the paper highlights how poetry workshops can serve as interdisciplinary research tools that capture not only emotional and narrative dimensions of displacement but also spatial and material aspects of migrant experience. In doing so, the paper contributes to a broader rethinking of qualitative migration research by integrating methods from the social-oriented to spatial-oriented disciplines. Ultimately, it calls for a shift from viewing poetry as an extractive technique to embracing it as a reflexive, practical research method, capable of producing richly layered, interdisciplinary knowledge about transnational migrant lives.

1. Introduction

In 1988, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak published her seminal essay Can the Subaltern Speak?, raising a provocative question about whether marginalized groups can have their voices meaningfully heard within dominant political and academic discourses. This work catalyzed a wave of scholarship aimed at amplifying subaltern voices and interrogating the power dynamics that exclude them [1]. It resonated across disciplines—including postcolonial, feminist, gender, and migration studies—highlighting how the experiences of marginalized groups, such as migrants, are often ignored, misrepresented, or co-opted by traditional research methods. Spivak also critiqued mainstream feminist and postcolonial scholarship for speaking about marginalized communities without meaningfully engaging with them [2].

Echoing Spivak’s critique, this paper asks: Can the Subaltern Write? Specifically, it explores how poetry—particularly in the form of participatory workshops—can be used to develop more ethical, reflexive, and collaborative research methods with migrant communities. Rather than assuming that marginalized voices can be heard simply by offering a platform, this question probes the methodological frameworks and power relations that shape how migrant narratives are elicited, interpreted, and represented in academic settings. It also challenges researchers to consider not only whether migrants are allowed to speak, but also how their expressions are mediated, and whether they are treated as meaningful epistemic contributions or reduced to aestheticized data. Crucially, the paper approaches the migrant experience as inherently interdisciplinary—shaped not only by social and emotional dimensions but also by spatial, material, and affective geographies. In this light, poetry workshops are proposed not only as creative tools for empowerment but as rigorous interdisciplinary methods capable of capturing the complex, multi-scalar realities of transnational life.

Within the framework of seeing migrants as a subaltern, the paper builds on growing scholarly interest in arts-based methods—especially poetry—as tools for exploring lived experience in migration research. Poetry has been increasingly recognized as a means of accessing emotional, symbolic, and often tacit dimensions of migrant life that are difficult to capture through conventional qualitative methods [3,4]. Poetry workshops in particular have gained traction within participatory action research (PAR) as spaces where migrants can express complex feelings of displacement, identity, and belonging [5,6,7]. However, despite their potential, these methods are often implemented with insufficient methodological reflection—frequently lacking clarity on ethical design, power relations, analytical frameworks, or interdisciplinary application [8]. This paper addresses these gaps by offering a reflexive methodological account of designing and implementing poetry workshops in diverse migration research settings.

Acknowledging the longstanding connection between migration, lived experience, and literature [9], this article adopts a reflexive, autoethnographic approach—a qualitative method involving critical reflection on personal experience to illuminate broader cultural phenomena [10]. Rather than presenting a systematic empirical analysis, it draws on the first author’s experience leading over 50 poetry workshops as a researcher with a refugee and migrant background to critically examine the use of poetry workshops as a participatory action research (PAR) method in migration studies.1

The article explores three interrelated dimensions of poetry as an arts-based participatory action research (PAR) method: first, its transformative potential to foster migrant empowerment; second, the methodological and ethical challenges it raises—particularly concerning power dynamics, participant agency, and the analysis of poetic data; and third, its evolving role within digital spaces, transnational collaborations, and interdisciplinary research. These insights underscore that poetry workshops should not be viewed as simplistic tools for data collection, but rather as reflexive, ethically grounded spaces for dialogic and participatory knowledge production, which is essential for capturing the layered and transnational nature of migrant experience both within and beyond academic contexts.

This paper contributes to the field by critically examining the methodological potential and practical implementation of poetry workshops as a qualitative PAR approach in migration research. Grounded in extensive fieldwork and informed by the lived experiences of both the researcher and participants, it offers a coherent and experience-based critique of how such workshops are applied. Importantly, it positions poetry not only as a participatory method but as an inherently interdisciplinary one, with methodological relevance across social, spatial, and creative academic domains. Finally, this piece openly acknowledges that although using poetry workshops to study migration experience, especially in a transnational context, does open a space to conduct research in a participatory, creative, and ethical way, it also comes with significant challenges and limitations in research design, implementation, and analysis that must not be overlooked.

2. The Migrant as Subaltern: Theoretical Pathways to Empowerment and Agency in Arts-Based PAR Research

Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s seminal work, the “migrant” in this paper is conceptually framed as the “subaltern”. The subaltern is understood as individuals or groups marginalized to the extent that their voices are either silenced or rendered unintelligible within dominant power structures [2]. Migrants often find themselves in this subaltern position, as their lived experiences of displacement, exclusion, and systemic oppression [11] remain underrepresented or misrepresented in mainstream narratives. They navigate complex layers of othering—both in the sense of being “strangers” in host societies and as individuals whose stories often challenge the homogenized depictions of identity and belonging, being in a constant struggle for ontological security [12]. Their subalternity is not fixed; on the contrary, it is dynamically constructed through intersections of race, class, gender, and legal status, among others, which exacerbate their socio-political invisibility and exclusion [13].

This subaltern status also extends to the realm of cultural representation, where dominant narratives about migration are typically constructed by policymakers, media, and academics—often without the direct involvement of migrants themselves [14]. In this context, migration research becomes a potential site of epistemic violence, where migrants are denied the power to define and narrate their own experiences [15]. Framing migrants as subalterns allows researchers to critically interrogate these exclusions and seek methods, such as poetry workshops, that offer pathways for reclaiming narrative agency and disrupting hegemonic knowledge production.

This reflective approach to lived experience aligns with feminist methodologies, which privilege personal narratives as valid sources of knowledge and challenge the rigid separation between the personal and the political [16]. In the context of migration, feminist approaches critique positivist traditions that reduce migrants to data points, instead emphasizing the epistemic value of everyday experiences, emotions, and relationships [17]. Poetry workshops, when grounded in these principles, become methodological spaces where personal stories intersect with collective histories across transnational contexts. Within these collaborative environments, participants are invited to construct and reconstruct their narratives, offering counter-narratives to dominant accounts of migration. As such, lived experience becomes foundational to conducting meaningful, qualitative research with migrant communities [18].

Within this lived experience framework, the concepts of empowerment and agency are central to challenging the subaltern positioning of migrants, yet both remain under-theorized in much of migration research. Historically, due to migration studies’ colonial and extractivist legacies [19], migrants have often been treated as research objects, rather than active participants. Empowerment, broadly defined as gaining control over one’s life and the ability to influence social systems [20], must be understood in more expansive terms. Arts-based approaches shift this focus from economic or political autonomy toward self-representation, emotional articulation, and collective transformation [21,22]. Empowerment, in this context, becomes an iterative and transformative process [23], unfolding across three interrelated dimensions: narrative, relational, and structural. Narrative empowerment enables migrants to frame their stories outside state or institutional discourses, often through poetry, performance, or visual art [24]; relational empowerment builds solidarity and transnational belonging [14]; and structural empowerment uses creative expression to challenge exclusionary policies, academic hierarchies, and extractive research practices [25]. Therefore, empowerment in PAR migration research should not be equated with mere methodological resistance—the use of methods that challenge existing power structures in empirical studies [26]—but understood as a broader, dynamic process of conducting research that fosters transformation through the implementation of creative expression methods.

However, even as poetry workshops offer spaces for narrative and relational empowerment, the risks of tokenization and extractivism remain high. Arts-based methods are often celebrated for their transformative potential without sufficiently interrogating the power dynamics involved in their application. Researchers must resist what Coemans and Hannes (2017) call the “spell of the arts”—a tendency to romanticize artistic expression as inherently emancipatory [27]. Instead, it is necessary to critically examine who truly benefits from these methods: do they empower participants, or do they primarily serve the academic careers of researchers [25]? In this paper, empowerment is not understood as a static endpoint, but as a dynamic, contested process shaped by the broader design and ethics of research. It is not enough for a method to be participatory in form; it must also be accountable in practice [25,27] and rooted in promoting migrant agency.

Similar to empowerment, implementing poetry workshops with migrant communities should strengthen the agency that migrants carry. While agency remains a contested concept in the social sciences—dialectically linked to the notion of structure [28]—it can be more clearly observed in arts-based research contexts. Here, agency refers to the ability of migrants to navigate, challenge, and transform their socio-political realities through creative expression. This concept extends beyond conventional understandings of agency focused on legal status or economic mobility. It includes forms of self-representation, meaning-making, and resistance to exclusionary narratives [13]. Agency is not simply an individual capacity; it is relational and context-dependent, shaped by intersecting factors such as race, gender, class, and migration status [29]. In poetry workshops, agency manifests discursively, emotionally, and collectively: through the challenging of dominant representations [29], the articulation of affective dimensions of belonging [3], and the fostering of solidarity within participatory artistic spaces [22].

Nevertheless, agency in arts-based migration research, including PAR poetry workshops, does not assume complete autonomy or freedom, as migrants remain embedded in constraining legal and social structures [30]. Rather, agency emerges through the ways in which migrants tactically maneuver within and against these constraints, using creative expression both as a form of survival and subversion [14]. Through this lens, agency is best understood not as an inherent attribute but as an ongoing negotiation of power, visibility, and self-determination in the context of displacement and bordering regimes. In participatory arts-based research, migrants assert agency by disrupting traditional hierarchies between researcher and subject, positioning themselves as co-producers of knowledge. This shift challenges established academic norms and resists the neo-colonial tendencies of extractive research [31], where the migrant voice is not merely permitted but actively re-centered and ethically represented. As Spivak (1988) reminds us, the subaltern requires not just the opportunity to speak but also the conditions for authorship, translation, and meaningful recognition [2].

3. Autoethnographic Positionalities and Research Projects: Implementing Poetry Workshops as a Researcher-Poet with a Refugee Background

This paper draws on autoethnographic reflections from over 50 poetry workshops designed, conducted, and analyzed by the first author, as well as on the author’s lived experience of displacement and poetry writing. Autoethnography, as a qualitative method, combines personal narrative with critical analysis to examine how individual experience intersects with broader social and cultural structures [10]. Autoethnography is a valid and highly recognized methodology in migration research [32] because it enables scholars to draw on their own embodied experiences of mobility, displacement, and belonging to generate critical insight [33]. Foregrounding reflexivity, positionality, and emotional knowledge allows researchers to challenge extractive and distanced modes of inquiry and instead center lived experience as a site of epistemic production [34]. In this context, the first author’s threefold positionality—as a former refugee and internally displaced person (IDP), a published poet, and a qualitative PAR researcher—shapes both the facilitation of workshops and the methodological reflections offered in this paper. These intersecting roles inform the insights presented, while also demanding continuous critical reflection on positionality, privilege, and relational ethics [35,36].

The first author’s reflections are deeply informed by their lived experience of displacement during the Bosnian and Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Having fled conflict as a child, their personal history offers intimate knowledge of the emotional, spatial, and political dimensions of forced migration, including the symbolic and material significance of borders [37]. This positionality serves as an epistemic standpoint aligned with feminist and decolonial approaches [36], while also presenting potential challenges related to bias, over-identification, and emotional entanglement. These tensions are managed through a reflexive practice that continuously interrogates the subjective within an ethnographic framework [35], ensuring analytical rigor while acknowledging shared trajectories with participants.

The author’s experience as a published poet further enhances the methodological foundation of this paper, offering a path toward a more inclusive social science that values creative and diverse voices in knowledge production [38]. Through the publication of 47 Poems about Love, Pain, and Bosnia (Literary Union), which was praised by critics [39], and work as a UNESCO-recognized poet in Bosnia, the author has consistently used poetry as a mode of addressing displacement, xenophobia, and interethnic division at local, national, and transnational scales [40]. This dual identity as poet and researcher informs the analysis of poetry workshops, positioning creative practice not as supplementary but as epistemologically central to the research. The author’s editorial collaborations with Literary Union, a post-Yugoslav literary collective, and Blank Pages, a grassroots transnational art movement based in Germany, reflect a broader commitment to creating participatory spaces for marginalized voices—an ethos mirrored in the workshops examined throughout this paper.

However, this positionality also introduces potential ethical and analytical challenges [41]. As both a facilitator and ethnographic researcher of migration, the first author acknowledges the potential biases in migration-oriented creative PAR research. To mitigate these concerns and ensure a broader critical perspective, the second and third authors were included as collaborators on this paper. While the ideas and fieldwork originate from the first author’s work, the inclusion of additional authors ensures that this ethnographic study maintains critical depth and interdisciplinary analytical balance. By adopting a collaborative approach, the paper aims to transcend the boundaries and ethical challenges of autoethnographic work in migration [42], offering insights that are both personal and broadly applicable to migration research.

Although the first author’s lived experience of displacement and poetry writing provides a starting point for this piece, autoethnographic reflections predominantly stem from methodological insights gained through designing and conducting over 50 poetry workshops with diverse migrant groups across multiple projects. These projects include:

• A study on Bosnian IDPs and Sarajevo Serbs, University of London Summer Fellowship, 2012 [43].2
• Fulbright research on second-generation Bosnian Americans at Saint Louis University (2022–2023).
• Digital poetry project, The Poetry of Belonging, on immigrant-background narratives (2022–2023).3
• Doctoral research design notes from Making Home Across Borders: Transgenerational Journeys of Homing and Border Experiences of the British Yugoslav-Serb Diaspora (University of Sheffield, late 2023–mid 2025).

The first of these, conducted under the University of London Summer Fellowship, explored the experiences of Bosnian IDPs and Sarajevo Serbs living in Bijeljina, Bosnia, particularly those residing in the informal settlement known as the Loznička Ghetto. Eight poetry workshops were held inside participants’ homes, fostering intimate, trust-based environments for sharing. The sessions were organized around two distinct age groups: older war refugees (aged 50–70) and their children (aged 18–35), allowing for generational comparison. Data collected included handwritten poetry drafts, recorded group discussions, and participant feedback forms, which, together, traced shifting understandings of home and identity in a post-war context [43].

The Fulbright research at Saint Louis University (2022–2023) involved the exploration of hybrid identities of second-generation Bosnian-Americans in urban settings. This Missouri-based study consisted of four group workshops with 15–25 participants each and 18 individual workshops, both online and in person. Primary data collection methods also included pre- and post-workshop structured interviews, which also included reflections on the benefits that poetry workshops brought to the participants. Additional reflections stem from research fieldwork notes taken at group discussions facilitated at the end of each workshop, often culminating in open mic sessions.

In the Poetry of Belonging Project (2022–2023), the focus shifted to a digital format, accommodating three in-person and two online group workshops, and 22 individual online workshops examining the experience of growing up as a young first- and second-generation immigrant in the United States. Reflections on the experience of being a participant in poetry workshops were collected through two post-workshop feedback forms sent via email, which were filled out in an open-format response style. Within this project, 16 additional feedback notes were collected during the Poetry of Belonging workshop at the University of California, Davis in 2023. This approach not only facilitated the collection of immediate reactions to the workshops in the first round of feedback, but also provided insights into the long-term impact of poetry workshop participation via a second round of feedback forms sent between three and six months post-workshop. Further, this feedback was instrumental in understanding the utility and limitations of organizing online poetry workshops.

Lastly, in the doctoral research project at the University of Sheffield (late 2023–mid 2025), methodological insights derive primarily from detailed research design notes rather than from direct workshop implementation to date. The central methodological focus of this project is the development of an innovative framework for conducting online poetry workshops that explore and articulate the interdisciplinary experience of home, displacement, and border-crossing among members of the Yugoslav-Serb diaspora in the UK. The workshops are designed to investigate transgenerational journeys to the homeland, integrating biographical, emotional, and spatial dimensions. A key methodological contribution of this research lies in its incorporation of poetry workshops into an explicitly interdisciplinary design that bridges socio-anthropological approaches with socio-spatial thinking. Drawing on human geography, urban studies, and landscape architecture—as well as migration sociology and diaspora studies—the project reframes poetry not merely as creative expression but also as a research method capable of capturing how migrants relate to space, memory, and belonging. The design engages themes such as domestic and public homing, material and immaterial attachments to place, and affective geographies of displacement and return. Poetry workshops are not treated as isolated activities but as integral instruments for producing layered, cross-disciplinary qualitative data on diasporic life. This methodological model contributes to ongoing efforts to advance participatory action research in diaspora and migration studies by creatively engaging migrants as co-producers of situated spatial knowledge [44,45].

The reflections shared in this paper are grounded in sustained engagement with displaced, refugee, and migrant communities across varied contexts, generations, and platforms. However, several limitations must be acknowledged in relation to the scope and composition of the workshops discussed. First, the majority of participants were from Bosnian or former Yugoslav backgrounds, which may limit the diversity of migratory trajectories and cultural frameworks explored. Second, the research was largely conducted in Global North settings, particularly the U.K. and the United States; therefore, it underrepresents displacement experiences situated within or originating from the Global South. Third, a consistent gender imbalance was observed across all projects, with significantly more women than men participating—an asymmetry that inevitably shaped the workshop dynamics, thematic focus, and forms of expression. Finally, the first author’s positionality as a former Bosnian refugee, a published poet, and a researcher influenced the design, facilitation, and interpretation of the workshops. While this perspective enriches the work through shared lived experience, it also requires ongoing reflexivity to ensure analytical rigor and ethical attentiveness.

4. Benefits and Methodological Contributions of Poetry Workshops in PAR Migration Research

Methodological choices shape the power dynamics of research—they can reinforce, reproduce, or challenge them. In migration studies, integrating poetry workshops into participatory research offers an opportunity to disrupt traditional hierarchies and foster more equitable knowledge production. As Ross (2017) argues, research design should not only answer questions but also address power imbalances inherent in the research process [46]. The recent rise of arts-based approaches in migration studies reflects a broader shift toward creative, participant-led methods [21,47,48]. Poetry workshops, in particular, provide migrants with a powerful and accessible medium for expressing complex experiences. They promote collective reflection and narrative co-production, amplifying migrant voices and fostering empathy in both academic and public discourse [6]. As such, they serve as both a methodological innovation and a tool for ethical, participatory engagement.

4.1. Empowerment Through Expression

One of the central benefits of using poetry workshops in migration research is their potential to foster both individual and community empowerment. When designed with participant co-ownership, cultural sensitivity, and ethical reflexivity, workshops can become spaces of meaningful self-representation and agency. Without these principles, however, they risk reproducing extractivist practices and tokenism [24]. Through writing and sharing poetry, migrants may assert their voices, but whether this translates into genuine empowerment depends on the extent to which they retain control over how their narratives are shaped and interpreted. This paper rejects top-down models of empowerment common in liberal multiculturalist framings, which risk reinforcing paternalistic dynamics. Instead, drawing on feminist practice [49] and Opie’s [50] critique of imposed resilience, it views empowerment as a process of self-determined agency and narrative reclamation. This principle has guided the design of the first author’s poetry workshops, including those in the Poetry of Belonging project with Bosnian-Americans in St. Louis, which were co-organized with community members, and the author’s doctoral research, where life history interviews and mapping exercises inform individualized poetic prompts. Such co-creative approaches redistribute power in the research process and reinforce participant ownership over their stories [25].

A second key benefit of poetry workshops is their ability to create safe and inclusive spaces for migrants to express experiences and emotions often left unspoken. Many migrants live on the margins of society, facing structural exclusion while carrying the weight of trauma, discrimination, and violence. As a result, silence becomes a survival strategy—even as it deepens social isolation. Creative programs such as poetry workshops offer supportive environments to channel these difficult emotions and give shape to otherwise unspoken narratives [7]. For the first author, this became evident in their research with displaced family members during the University of London study. Stories long left unspoken—including an aunt’s poem about losing her sons—emerged in workshop sessions, highlighting poetry’s potential to break intergenerational silences. Similarly, the first author learned of their father’s emotional experiences of war not through conversation, but through his book, The Lost Homeland. Poetry, in these cases, functioned as a medium of emotional and intergenerational recognition [22], demonstrating what Nagl [51] calls “the power of the workshop.”

Ensuring emotional safety also requires careful attention to where and how workshops are held. Researchers should not assume authority over the workshop setting but should defer to participants or trusted community gatekeepers. In the author’s workshops with Sarajevo Serb refugees in Bijeljina, participants declined to meet in the city library due to hostility from the local community [52]. Instead, sessions took place in the Loznička Street ghetto, a refugee-established neighborhood from the 1990s. This choice reflected both a need for safety and an acknowledgment of participants’ limited access to resources like time and transportation. In the author’s current doctoral research with the Yugoslav-Serb diaspora in the UK, workshops are conducted primarily online, reflecting both the transnational nature of contemporary migration and the practical need to ensure accessibility. Additionally, individual sessions are favored over group formats to support in-depth reflection on personal and often sensitive topics related to homing and bordering. Adapting workshop formats to participants’ emotional, spatial, and logistical needs is essential to building safe and inclusive research spaces.

A third benefit of poetry workshops, as evidenced across the first author’s research projects, lies in their capacity to foster organic community-building—often in ways that extend beyond the formal research design. While creative methods are widely recognized for their expressive potential, their role in cultivating shared space and intersubjective connection within diasporic contexts is equally significant [53]. During the University of London project, the first author observed how participants initiated informal reading groups and continued poetic dialogue beyond the structured workshops. These gatherings, which were self-organized and unprompted, became communal acts of cultural affirmation. Similarly, in the ongoing doctoral research, several Yugoslav-Serb diaspora organizations not only offered venues and logistical support but also actively plan to include the workshops as part of their community programming. These responses were not incidental—they reflected the participants’ recognition of the workshops as spaces for collective identification and creative autonomy. For the first author, these moments affirmed a core tenet of participatory action research: that its most meaningful impacts often emerge not from what is facilitated, but from what is co-claimed. Poetry workshops became generative because they resonated with pre-existing desires for expression, dialogue, and cultural belonging, allowing agency to unfold not from a method imposed, but from a method embraced.

A fourth benefit of poetry workshops lies in the tangible creative output they generate, which offers a basis for ethical reciprocity—an ongoing concern in the first participatory research [27]. Too often, PAR in migration studies invokes participation without returning value to participants. In contrast, the first author’s workshops prioritized concrete outcomes: a co-edited multilingual collection in the Blank Pages project, an audiovisual poetry series from Poetry of Belonging that reached over half a million viewers, and published poems by five participants during the Fulbright research. These were not just outputs, but moments of recognition. Still, the first author remains critically aware of structural limitations—some work remained unpublished due to funding and time constraints. This has deepened a commitment to post-fieldwork reciprocity through community events, co-authored publications, and the return of poetic artifacts to participants, as in the doctoral project research design. For participatory methods to be truly ethical, especially in work with displaced communities, they must ensure visibility, authorship, and acknowledgment beyond the research process.

4.2. Poetry Workshops in Interdisciplinary Conceptual Frameworks: Reflections from the Making Home Across Borders Research Design

While poetry workshops are often valued for their expressive and participatory potential, they also offer significant methodological value for spatially oriented disciplines such as human geography, urban studies, landscape architecture, etc. This section reflects on the first author’s Making Home Across Borders project to explore how poetry workshops can serve as creative methods for investigating spatial belonging, memory, and migrant subjectivities. Creative approaches in spatial research have increasingly focused on affective, situated, and embodied knowledge production [53,54]. When carefully constructed, poetry workshops can bridge the emotional and material aspects of place-making, enabling researchers to engage with transnational migrant lives in ways that conventional methods often cannot.

In this interdisciplinary framework, creative participatory expressions become a site of epistemological encounter between social, spatial, and sensory disciplines. Sociologists may attend to the discursive and narrative production of belonging; geographers to emotional geographies [55,56] and spatial memory; urban scholars to informal uses of space [57]; and landscape scholars to embodied interactions with environment and memory [58,59]. Poetry’s openness to metaphor and ambiguity enables it to surface topophilic bonds [60], ruptured spatial trajectories, and the sensory textures of migrant displacement in the cities [61]. Concepts such as landscapes as narratives [62], micro-geographies [63], and spatial storytelling [64] further position poetic inquiry as a tool for capturing complex experiences of place and displacement. Rather than isolating disciplinary readings, the workshop facilitates a dialogic process in which poetry becomes a co-produced method of mapping affective and spatial knowledge [44].

This interdisciplinary framing is operationalized in the first author’s doctoral research, which draws on and expands upon Boccagni’s [65,66] framework of “homing” to explore how diasporic communities negotiate belonging across scales of place, memory, and identity. Poetry workshops are structured around two key themes, “Border Stories” and “Homeland Letters”, which invite participants to narrate their movements across national, emotional, and symbolic borders. These narrative threads expose the tension between nostalgia and transformation, allowing migrants to articulate how the meaning of “home” shifts across spatial, generational, and geopolitical contexts. Rather than functioning as isolated exercises, the workshops are embedded within a methodological architecture informed by the dimensions of homing: domestic/public space, proximity/distance, and material/immaterial attachments [65]. These dimensions are translated into workshop prompts, but they are also adapted dynamically based on participant feedback and thematic resonance. The workshops thus operate as both analytical and imaginative spaces, where migrant subjectivities are expressed through a spatially grounded creative form.

These workshops do not merely document diasporic experiences; they expose the inherent theoretical ambivalence of concepts like home and belonging, and borders, embodied in the paradigm of the migrant struggle for ontological security [12]. Migrant transnational lives arise not from the lone heroism of the migrant but from the collective act of forging connections, where shared memories and experiences emerge precisely from the void of familiar ground, in which the migrant ontology is not framed in spatial binaries of migratory experience, but in its pluralities. The poetic data allows for a multi-layered articulation of these contradictions, resonating with the call for creative methodologies that honor the fluidity of transnational attachments.

As seen, the poetic form itself offers methodological advantages. Unlike structured interviews, poems permit contradiction, ambiguity, and metaphor—qualities that are especially suited to capturing the layered experiences of transnational life [67]. It can connect architectural memory, bureaucratic rituals, and emotional dissonance: comparing an immigration queue to a grandmother’s kitchen floor, a passport stamp to tram tracks, and a suitcase to a concrete tower, for example. These metaphors collapse affective and material geographies into a single sensory narrative—something difficult to access through non-PAR and non-art-based methods. Therefore, one of the most relevant potential benefits of applying poetry workshops as research tools is the interdisciplinary nuance of qualitative data gathered through poetry workshops. Here, the emphasis is on the interdisciplinary and nuanced function of poetry workshops. By incorporating poetry workshops into migration research, scholars can access a different realm of understanding and interpretation from different disciplinary perspectives [68]. Despite numerous calls for inter- and multidisciplinary approaches, migration research remains partially fragmented along disciplinary lines [69]. We must, as Borkert says, move out of our disciplinary comfort zones [70].

Ultimately, the interdisciplinary value of poetry workshops lies in their capacity to connect the personal with the spatial, the textual with the material, and the affective with the political. They allow researchers to approach migration not just as movement across borders, but as lived experience inscribed in space, memory, and emotion. As part of the broader turn toward creative and participatory spatial methods, poetry workshops provide a flexible and responsive methodology for exploring diasporic geographies and the layered landscapes of home, offering diverse empirical perspectives that bridge disciplines rather than further fragment the field.

5. Reflections on Challenges and Dilemmas in Poetry Workshop with Migrants

While poetry workshops present innovative approaches for delving into and comprehending migrants’ experiences, their integration into researching migration experiences comes with inherent complexities. These creative platforms, while abundant in expressive possibilities and crucial for participatory research, also pose challenges and ambiguities that demand thorough scrutiny. Acknowledging these factors is imperative for researchers intending to utilize poetry workshops in a manner that is both respectful and impactful, ensuring that while reaping the benefits, they remain mindful of addressing associated challenges.

The language used in the workshop is the first challenge of this method, as there is an unmistakable inter-relational and co-constructive connection between language and culture [71,72]. It affects the thought process and understanding of participants’ experiences. If the workshop is not conducted in the native language of the participants, it could put the core of the data gathered during workshops in question. Even if translation is applied, it might lead to the loss or dilution of nuances, cultural references, and emotional depth inherent in the original language [73], thus impacting the authenticity and efficacy of poetry in migration research. One of the most notable examples from research projects reflected on in this paper was with the concept of zavičaj, which repeatedly surfaced in the first author’s work in Bosnia, Missouri, and in pre-workshop life interviews with older Yugoslav immigrants in the U.K. Unlike domovina, which refers to the homeland in a national sense, zavičaj describes a local homeland [74], a specific village, neighborhood, or region to which a person feels a deep-rooted attachment. It is less about citizenship or ethnicity and more about embodied memory and place-specific belonging. For many participants, especially among older generations, zavičaj was foundational to their emotional geography and poetic articulation of loss. This spatial intimacy is often lost in translation and is difficult to replicate when not working in the participants’ first language, as some experiences of displacement, of refugeeness, can only be expressed in the mother tongue [75].

This means that, when possible, the poetry workshop should be led in the language(s) of the group studied. Language was and is still a tool of colonization, a modus operandi of linguistic imperialism [76]. It cannot be separated from migration research as it leads to Anglo normativity—the dominance and normalization of the English language and Anglophone cultural standards as the default or superior mode of communication and cultural expression [77]. Consequently, it penetrated academia, privileging English in academic and research contexts [78]. This results in English often being associated with power, knowledge, and progress at the expense of other languages and means of expression [79,80], negatively affecting migrant groups and their cultural production. Therefore, it is essential for poetry workshops to recognize and honor the diverse multilingual and multicultural backgrounds of their participants. This recognition imbues research with a broad range of perspectives and breaks down linguistic hierarchies.

The second methodological concern is poetry interpretation and understanding. Poetry can and is open to interpretation, and different readers may derive different sociocultural meanings from the same word. There are different lexical semantics across cultures [81]. This variety of interpretations can be both a strength and a limitation in migration research. Nevertheless, it is a monumental challenge. Interpreting a poem can reveal multiple perspectives and experiences of migrants. For instance, many participants from the University of London project workshops frequently evoked the terms napolju (outside, outdoors) and grad (the city), which carry meanings far beyond their literal translations. In the Yugoslav cultural lexicon, napolju connotes more than the physical outdoors—it signifies a vital sense of social presence and active urban place attachment [82]—while grad is not simply an urban space but a symbol of modernity, status, and rootedness; to “be in the city” (biti u gradu) often implies being recognized, respected, and carrier of spatial agency [83]. Navigating these interpretations can also make it difficult to draw conclusions or correlations about the experiences of migrants based solely on the written text. Poetry in migration research demands a careful and subtle approach to interpretation, considering the individual experiences and cultural backgrounds of both the poet and the researcher.

To address these interpretation issues and obtain a deeper understanding of data from poetry workshops, a combination of qualitative research methods should be employed [84] in conjunction with the workshops. To understand a participant’s poetic work, pre- and post-workshop interviews, ethnographic meetings, or focus groups can be conducted. Collaborative one-on-one pre-poetry workshops also encourage discussion. In the first author’s University of Sheffield research design, they intentionally avoided rushing into the poetry itself. Instead, the process began with a series of informal ethnographic meetings to build trust and explore themes organically through conversation. These meetings were followed by life history interviews and life-mapping sessions that helped participants reflect on their journeys of migration, identity, and belonging across time and space. Only after these narrative foundations are established, a proper transition into poetry workshops, allowing participants to articulate poetic reflections on their terms, can be made. This participant-led progression ensures the workshops were not isolated methodological events but were strategic parts within a broader framework of co-created, reflexive, and context-sensitive inquiry on migration experience.

The next methodological challenge of using poetry workshops in migration studies that arose from the extensive fieldwork was the ambiguity of who should lead the workshop. Language presents the first and last barrier to implementing poetry workshops. Therefore, a prerequisite for leading a workshop is being a native or native-like speaker from the community. This methodological position comes from another requirement of a successful poetry workshop—establishing trust. In practicing participatory research, in which poetry workshops are included, trust constitutes a dialogical way of opening a space for sharing subjective experiences [30]. However, developing trust with the community is a long and complex process. To overcome this challenge in the two workshops with refugees in St. Louis, the primary facilitator that the first author collaborated with was Anna Ojascastro Guzon, an immigrant-background poet who co-founded an organization, “YourWords STL”, which offers free creative writing programs to youth in underserved St. Louis communities. Anna, as a poet and a gatekeeper, opened space for the transfer of communal trust she holds to me as a fellow migrant poet. Therefore, artist gatekeepers should be the first choice if the researcher is not linked to the community. If that is not possible, it is crucial to involve bilingual or multilingual facilitators who are fluent in both the participant’s mother tongue and English. They can act as interpreters, ensuring effective communication between participants and the research-poet.

Furthermore, the practice of conducting poetry workshops with migrants demonstrated that poetry workshops require the facilitator’s poetic expertise, at least to a certain extent. A poet, researcher-poet, or poet-researcher should aim to lead or at least co-lead the workshop. This perspective recognizes the labor and expertise that goes into creating poetry and argues that it should not be devalued or dismissed as a technique. Here, we disagree with Fukuyama and Reid, who claim that “one need not be an expert in creative writing to use various techniques in presenting or in working with poetry” (p. 84) [85]. This approach dismantles the expertise and skills of a poet and diminishes the value of being a poet. A poet’s authenticity and credibility in the workshop can significantly impact its success. A skilled facilitator with concrete poetry skills can guide participants more effectively in exploring and expressing complex emotions and stories, enhancing the workshop’s methodological and emancipatory potential. This methodological standpoint promotes recognizing art and poetry as work and “invisible labor” [86]. Skilled facilitators with expertise in poetry and migration research are crucial in developing a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by migrants.

The use of poetry data in migration research presents ongoing challenges related to analytical clarity and transparency, posing the question of how to analyze poetry in the context of migration research. Analyzing poetry in the context of migration research requires a distinct and careful approach that incorporates multiple potential analytical obstacles. It involves delving into the layers of meaning and symbolism within the poems, as well as considering the cultural and social contexts in which they were created. A common weakness in the methodology sections of many journal articles and theses is the use of generic technical methods terminology instead of a clear and transparent description of what actually happened in the research process. This is particularly evident in data analysis sections of methodologies. Here, procedures such as “thematic analysis” and/or “coding” are often described at length but without any reference to the author’s actual data” [86] (p. 112); [87] (p. 990) outlines a process of rereading transcripts and assembling poetic fragments to distill themes, yet the lack of detail on selection criteria or interpretive logic raises concerns about replicability. Similarly, Stapleton [88] (pp. 456–457) describes coding based on quotes that felt particularly “poignant” or appeared to “speak to one another,” offering valuable insight but still relying on intuitive judgments that can be difficult to trace methodologically. While both authors contribute to legitimizing poetic inquiry, these examples reflect a broader tendency within arts-based migration research to under-specify how poetic data is analyzed. This points to the need for more reflexive, transparent approaches that maintain creativity while clearly outlining the analytical steps taken.

Drawing from their experience of integrating poetry workshops into qualitative research, the first author argues for methodological clarity when analyzing poetic material—particularly regarding the unit of analysis, coding strategy, and thematic structuring. In the first author’s doctoral study on the transgenerational experiences of the Yugoslav-Serb diaspora in the United Kingdom, poetry is employed not as empirical evidence per se, but as a reflexive and interpretive tool that complements the conceptual framework of homing [66,67]. To ensure analytical coherence, the first author developed a theory-led but flexible coding approach. Rather than employing open-ended coding, which, while generative, can become unwieldy with metaphor-rich texts, or axial coding that risks flattening interpretive nuance, their method begins with theoretically anchored categories derived from Boccagni’s dimensions of homing: domestic and public spatial practices, proximity and distance, and material and immaterial dimensions of belonging. These categories guide the coding process and are iteratively refined through close engagement with the poetic content. For example, a line such as “the warmth of a distant kitchen” is coded under material homing, as it evokes sensory memory and spatial attachment. A metaphor like “threshold” is interpreted in relation to border-crossing, representing both literal and symbolic transitions. A complete poem describing a return visit to Serbia, juxtaposing alienation with comfort, might be analyzed at the macro level as an integrated narrative of diasporic belonging and estrangement. The unit of analysis—whether word, line, stanza, or entire poem—is determined contextually based on interpretive weight and alignment with the theoretical framework. This aligns with Braun and Clarke [89], with Saldaña’s [90] emphasis on deductive or concept-driven thematic coding, and with Fereday and Muir-Cochrane’s [91] hybrid coding model that combines pre-determined theoretical lenses with iterative, data-informed refinement.

This approach is both linguistically and conceptually grounded. The selection of coding units is informed by poetic form, metaphorical density, and cultural symbolism—particularly when participants write in Serbian, where meaning is often shaped by idiomatic expressions and historical nuance. Methodological transparency is critical here. Researchers must clearly justify their choices of analytical units and provide a rationale for how these correspond to theoretical constructs. Where ambiguity persists, the first author incorporates collaborative interpretation strategies, including follow-up conversations or participant-led clarifications, echoing calls for co-produced meaning-making in arts-based research [92,93]. Ultimately, this analytical model bridges poetic form and migration theory, ensuring that interpretive depth is not sacrificed for thematic coherence. By grounding the analysis in a robust theoretical framework and embedding participant voice within the interpretive process, the approach contributes a methodologically transparent and epistemically ethical model for analyzing poetic data in migration research.

6. On Ethics and the (Digital) Future of Poetry

Incorporating poetry workshops into migration studies introduces a unique set of ethical considerations. The researchers in migration studies should strive to develop an “ethical” radar that is present throughout all phases of the research—before, during, and after [18].

The initial ethical concern in poetry workshop research that stems from our work is safeguarding participants’ privacy, particularly given the emotionally charged and personal nature of poetic expression. Migrants may inadvertently disclose sensitive information—especially related to legal status, trauma, or political histories—as the first author witnessed during their workshops with Sarajevo refugees and second-generation Bosnian-Americans. In such contexts, the distinction between confidentiality and anonymity becomes crucial. Full anonymity—where neither the researcher nor readers can identify participants—is rarely feasible in arts-based participatory research. Instead, the first author ensures confidentiality by employing robust de-identification strategies: names, locations, and time references are altered, while maintaining the sociopolitical and cultural integrity of the narrative [94]. For instance, in one case, they changed a participant’s name to a culturally similar pseudonym and substituted a specific town with a nearby locality that carried comparable demographic and historical characteristics. This process protects participants from potential harms—such as risks to immigration status or social standing—without erasing the context that gives their expression meaning [95]. Additionally, the first author approaches consent not as a one-time agreement, but as an ongoing, relational process throughout the research. In their doctoral project design with the Yugoslav-Serb diaspora in the UK, the first author’s consent protocols are integrated across the preparation, data collection, and analysis stages of the workshops. Participants are informed from the outset that their identities will be kept confidential and that they retain the right to withdraw or modify their contributions at any stage of the research.

Second fieldwork reflection regarding ethical concerns of implementing poetry workshops is to acknowledge the vulnerability of migrants in their research [96]. The presence of stress, trauma, and posttraumatic stress disorder among migrants is abundantly recognized in the field [97]. Fieldwork, in which either the respondent or the investigator is emotionally engaged, can permanently change both [98]. Specific and straightforward methodological steps should be clearly outlined in the research design, particularly in response to situations like the one mentioned. Hence, the potential for emotional distress cannot be neglected. Poetry can evoke intense emotions, and facilitators should be able to support participants with unexpected emotional responses. During a ‘Poetry of Belonging’ workshop with older U.S. migrants, a group of Sudanese refugees began discussing traumatic state violence they had experienced. To prevent re-traumatization, the session was paused, debriefed, and ultimately that part was excluded from the workshop. Even with the best preparation and support, predicting or controlling how participants may be affected by engaging in poetry workshops is always not possible. Therefore, researchers must prioritize participants’ emotional well-being and safety throughout the process, providing resources and referrals for support if needed. If it becomes evident that the workshop is causing harm or distress to the participants, it should be halted without delay. It becomes evident that the workshop is causing harm or distress when participants exhibit signs of discomfort, such as emotional withdrawal, visible agitation, or reluctance to engage in the activities. Additionally, if participants verbally express feelings of unease and frustration, or if the workshop facilitator observes escalating tensions or conflicts, these are clear indicators that the session should be paused or halted. If the distress is not visibly apparent, it is crucial to create opportunities for participants to express their feelings in a safe and confidential manner, such as through anonymous feedback or check-ins throughout the workshop, or moving away from group to individual workshop sessions. For instance, during their workshops with Bosnian Serb IDPs, the first author incorporated anonymous reflection cards at various points during the workshop and reduced the size of the workshop to be able to act promptly in situations that are potentially stressful to the participants. Hence, specific and straightforward methodological steps should be clearly outlined in the research design, particularly in response to situations like the one mentioned.

Third, it is critical to recognize that ethical considerations are not restricted to the workshop setting alone; rather, they extend far beyond it. Researchers must be mindful of the ethical implications at every stage of the research process, including the relationship between the researcher and participants, such as gender dynamics, class, race, and ethnicity, among others. For instance, during the first author’s workshop with UC Davis Chicana Studies students, it was essential to acknowledge that their “whiteness” might affect the workshop participants, as the relevance of race within the context of the United States holds a higher position than in Southeast Europe. Similarly, regarding national and ethnic identity, during their numerous workshops in Bosnia, which included Bosniaks (previously known as Bosnian Muslims), they started every session, both group and individual, acknowledging their position as an Orthodox-Serb, accepting the presence of ethnoreligious and nationalistic tensions between the two groups, stemming from the 1990s war [99]. Understanding the intra-group dynamics of poetry workshop participants is essential, as the same cultural group of migrants carries multiple migrant trajectories, positions, and histories [100].

The fourth reflection from the field is on potential extreme proximity to the subject of their research or on “being too close to it” [101]. In such cases, the researcher may find themselves emotionally attached to the participants or their stories, leading to potential biases and challenges in maintaining objectivity. Hromadžić reflects on her work in anthropology, particularly with displaced Bosnians [101]. She argues that the commonly held notions of “objectivity” and “distance” can be problematic. She argues that it is through emotional engagement and a willingness to get “close to it” that we can gain a deeper understanding of the experiences and perspectives of not only the groups we study but also of ourselves as researchers and our academic pursuits. This closeness, often perceived as a hindrance to scientific objectivity, can, in the context of poetry workshops, become a profound advantage. Accepting the research “closeness,” the trust and vulnerability mentioned above can be directly incorporated into poetry workshops. In their poetry workshops, the first author always starts by sharing a childhood artifact—a photo of their family taken in the 1990s in Sarajevo, during their refugee years, creating a sense of closeness among the participants through material objects of displacement [102]. However, ethical considerations in migration research always require researchers to be mindful of the power dynamics and potential biases that may arise from their own identities and positions [98], even if they share the same background as their participants. Therefore, a constant evaluation and re-evaluation of the researcher’s positionality is crucial in successfully implementing poetry workshops.

The last fieldwork reflection on using poetry workshops in migration studies might be the most important one—the relevance of poetry in the current socio-cultural and political momentum [103]. In an era where the pragmatic and the immediate often overshadow the reflective and the profound, poetry’s place might seem akin to, as Dana Gioia notes in his seminal piece “Can Poetry Matter?”, that of “priests in a town of agnostics.” [104]. This metaphor strikingly captures the marginalization of poetry and, by extension, the potential challenges in engaging a wider audience or participants in migration studies through poetic expression. Yet, the efficacy of poetry in this context hinges on its accessibility and its resonance with the experiences of those it seeks to represent. The researcher must pose this question, especially having in mind digitalization: Can poetry cut through the clutter and grasp the interest of people overwhelmed by information and diversions? The short answer is—yes. However, it requires skillful and intentional framing of the research, as well as creative and innovative approaches to sharing and disseminating the poetry [105]. One possible way forward is to collaborate with community organizations or creative writing programs that already have established relationships with migrant communities, or redesigning poetry workshops to be aligned with the interests of the participants, offering the potential of research output as a digital publication. For instance, the first author rebranded poetry workshops into Instagram poetry workshops, working with young migrant-background students at St. Louis University in 2023. This approach allowed for the exploration of migration experiences through a medium that the participants were already familiar with and engaged in. Similarly, the first author’s “Poetry of Belonging” workshops were branded as TikTok poetry workshops, targeting a younger audience that actively uses the platform for expression and community building, simultaneously acknowledging the position of poetry within the digital landscape and utilizing its creative possibilities.

This rebranding of classical, in-person, pen-and-paper poetry workshops with migrant communities as digital, interactive, and accessible experiences not only increases the reach and engagement of participants but also enhances the visibility and impact of the research. To dismantle the digitalization of poetry nowadays would also be to dismantle the effects it has on migrant-background poets such as Rupi Kaur and Ocean Vuong, who rose to global fame through online presence.4 By utilizing digital platforms and social media, poetry in migration research can overcome some of the challenges of engaging a wider audience.

7. Conclusions and Potential Steps Forward

This reflexive paper draws on autoethnographic insights accumulated across four independent research projects to argue that poetry workshops constitute a distinctive, interdisciplinary methodology for migration studies. Inspired by Spivak’s (1988) provocative question—can the subaltern speak, or, in this context, write— it explored whether migrant-authored poetry can both convey the layered realities of displacement and unsettle scholarly narratives that too often flatten them [2]. Poetry, with its density of affect, sensory imagery, and symbolic resonance, is uniquely positioned for such counter-speech. Yet what matters most is not simply the poems themselves, but the workshop process that invites participants to compose, perform, and collectively interpret their pieces. In that dialogic space, migrants reclaim narrative agency while researchers witness how meanings are produced across social, emotional, and—crucially—spatial registers.

Methodologically, the workshops demanded continual reflexivity. Language posed an immediate challenge. Analysis presented a second hurdle. A single line of poetry can exceed a paragraph of prose in density. Hence, migrant poems should be analyzed in a reflexive, contextual, multiscalar, and interdisciplinary framework. At the micro-level, they can be coded for imagery, metaphor, and material objects; at the meso-level, they can map group sociocultural and spatial references onto participants’ mobility trajectories; and at the macro-level, each poem can be situated within broader political-economic contexts. Crucially, participants can and should be invited into the interpretive phase, annotating their poems and debating alternative readings. This co-analysis not only mitigates the risk of imposing external meaning but also underscores the workshops’ collaborative ethos. A notable methodological evolution across projects involved the incorporation of digital platforms. Poetry workshops can take place in community centers or university rooms; yet they can also unfold partly or wholly online, becoming a highly useful tool for studying diasporic experiences.

Ethics remained a constant concern. The intensity of disclosure in poetic form can trigger emotional vulnerability, especially when memories of persecution or loss resurface. To safeguard well-being, this paper reflects on an ethics-of-care framework: pre-workshop briefings clarified voluntary participation; real-time check-ins allowed pauses or withdrawals; post-workshop debriefs signposted support services. These practices demanded time and resources but were non-negotiable for maintaining trust.

Across the four research settings, poetry workshops emerged as an innovative, ethically attuned interdisciplinary PAR response to persistent gaps in conventional qualitative methods. Far from being therapeutic, this creative method generates empirical material of surprising breadth. Poems routinely stitched together domestic interiors, urban landmarks, border checkpoints, and digital platforms, creating textual cartographies that bind social to spatial. Migrant poems extend the evidentiary base of migration studies beyond the psychosocial to embrace the spatial imagination that preoccupies human geography, urban and landscape studies, and architecture, becoming a powerful interdisciplinary art-based research tool.

Taken together, these reflexive insights highlight the twofold contribution of poetry workshops. Substantively, they surface socio-emotional textures of migration—dwelling, nostalgia, loss of familiar bonds, integration anxieties—and map the spatial orders—homes, checkpoints, skylines, landscapes —through which those textures are lived. Methodologically, they bridge disciplinary divides: sociologists gain access to affective registers; geographers encounter lived representations of space; architects glimpse how built form is archived in memory.

In closing, poetry workshops remind us that artistic practice is not a decorative adjunct to scholarly inquiry but a critical mode of knowledge production. As long as researchers remain alert to language politics, analytic complexity, and ethical urgency, such workshops can expand migration studies toward a more inclusive, interdisciplinary, and reflexively grounded future—one in which migrants write not for the archive but as the archive of their, and our, own moving worlds.