In cities shaped by migration, the emergence of community storytelling initiatives and migratory archives becomes a powerful instrument for narrative restitution and spatial justice weaving together oral histories, photo‑essays, and public exhibitions devised by migrant groups in cities like London, Barcelona or Toronto these projects function as counter‑archives, countering official histories by foregrounding self‑authored narratives and embodied itineraries through collective mapping and multimedia storytelling migrant women, elders and youth collaboratively curate memories of border crossing, labour, kinship and settlement translating marginal spaces—community halls, informal markets, neighbourhood squares—into symbolic stages where diasporic identities are articulated and exchanged the integration of digital platforms and pop‑up exhibitions amplifies narrative reach beyond immediate surroundings, enabling the co‑production of urban memory across geographies and generations These initiatives do not merely document displacement—they actively reinscribe presence, asserting migrant subjectivities as integral to the city’s symbolic and spatial order In doing so they challenge erasure, reclaim space and forge solidarity rhythms across difference, constructing urban imaginaries rooted in translocal belonging, historic resilience and the ethical imperative of inclusive memory practice
Suárez, A., & Martínez, F. (2024). Diasporic memory and urban belonging: community storytelling in European cities. Journal of Migrant Cultural Studies, 5(2), 112–130
