Over the years of our activity in the MigLives and DEMO projects, we have put together collection of video-recorded interviews with migrants. The collection is hosted by the Archives of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at BGU. Dr. Adi Portugez, the director of Ben-Gurion Archives, curates the collection.
The collection holds over 100 interviews with persons who went through migration or displacement and with those who seek asylum in Israel. All interviewees share the experience of being uprooted from their homes and adapting to a new environment. We believe that the study of these experiences and educating about them, may promote understanding, tolerance, and cohesion in the Israeli society.
The interviews were collected by graduate and undergraduate students. Posted are only the interviews of those interviewees who gave their consent (in writing) for posting on the website. Each interview is accompanied by a short summary and key words in the collection's index, which makes it possible to search for specific items. The collection is being continuously updated. Based on our experience, we recommend the following uses of these video-interviews:
- Presentation of interviews in class to initiate an open discussion on the experience of migration.
- Presentation of selected extracts from interviews in class to trigger a discussion on focused issues (for example, migration in adolescence, families' migration, voluntary vs. forced migration, the experience of asylum seekers etc.).
- Presentation of interviews to engage students' motivation to perform interviews with migrants as a course assignment or research project.
- Presentation of interviews in conferences and other academic and professional settings to demonstrate personal experiences of migrants.
- Analysis of interviews on selected topics for academic papers and publications.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3HB_S4-B_prcvrGbrVok3tPU7N2OmJbE
