MRG Seminar: Voices in the Light: Life Stories of South Asian Migrant Women in Yorkshire

This presentation examines how South Asian migrant women in Yorkshire narrate migration, belonging and empowerment through memory, storytelling and creative self-expression. Based on life-history interviews and visual materials, it explores how women make sense of identity, agency and belonging in transnational and intercultural settings. By centring the women’s own voices, images and reflections, the presentation offers a closer understanding of how they interpret their lives, relationships and sense of self.

Drawing on decolonial feminist and intersectional perspectives, the presentation understands empowerment not only as a structural outcome, but also as a lived and relational process. It shows how migration is shaped by memory, kinship and gendered negotiation. It also highlights how childhood memories, meaningful personal objects
and everyday cultural practices help women negotiate identity and belonging within
racialised contexts. The presentation further reflects on the methodological and ethical dimensions of this approach. It considers how life-history interviews, personal photographs, significant objects and collaborative forms of reflection can reveal embodied and emotional dimensions of migration that are often overlooked in more conventional research.

Biography
Simona Sokolovska is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Deusto. Her research focuses on gender, migration, South Asian diasporas and the decolonisation of knowledge production. She works mainly with collaborative, visual and life-history methodologies. Her current postdoctoral research examines the experiences of South Asian migrant women in Yorkshire, building on earlier doctoral work carried out in the Basque Country. She has undertaken research stays at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India and at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

There is no need to register. Join us in Person at the University of Sheffield or online. 
Link to join online: https://meet.google.com/qdh-iiqy-thj