Dissemination

Research data from fieldwork in the context of ACTinPRISON was presented at the International Conference on Multimodality – ICOM-11 Designing Futures, in London (28-29 September 2023). Specifically, one of the research members, Roula Kitsiou, participated in the panel “Multimodal bridges in emergent multilingual contexts” with a paper under the title “Designing Multimodal Paths to Make Sense of the Prison’s Spatial Repertoire”. She referred to aspects of multimodality construed as a bridge for making sense of the space in prison by both young prisoners and young students who participate in the project. Taking into consideration the fact that some refugees/asylum-seekers or migrants are led to the prison as soon as they enter the country, it becomes their first place of familiarizing with the country. Thus, space as a mode shapes their emergent multilingual repertoire in an even more complex way that needs to be further explored. In addition, students often have a romanticized or apolitical picture of the prison that is transformed through the experience of participating in ACTinPRISON. As Adami (2017) points out, there is limited research on multimodality in contexts of superdiversity, whereas we know little about the ways emergent multilinguals engage their multimodal resources in communication (Bengochea, et al., 2018). Therefore, Kitsiou opted for highlighting how different modes of communication contribute to meaning-making and languaging while (re)designing learning, teaching and place-making (space) on the basis of “docta spes” (educated hope) for a more inclusive everyday life envisioning a hopeful future.