The project “MIGRIMAGE: Images of Migration on Europe’s Southern Border” was presented on 29 October in Lecce (Italy), in the framework of the Sabir Festival (www.festivalsabir.it). MIGRIMAGE was introduced by our Italian partners from the University of Salento and Arci Lecce. The participants of the event got to know MIGRIMAGE through the presentation of the specific training pathways of the project, which integrate communication studies in new media (in particular #digitaljournalism) and communication for social transformation.

“It seems incredible that we still do not accept that homo sapiens is first and foremost a migrant,” said Professor Stefano Cristante, scientific referent of #MIGRIMAGE for #UniSalento, “If migration is due to a real problem it is also and above all an opportunity for evolution. Our challenge is to train journalists who do not deal with the migration issue as a social emergency, but by rethinking the narrative model on the basis of the consideration that these processes are part of our essence of sapiens, in order to get out of the illusion that #migrations are a burden on the shoulders of the West. Our hope is that projects like MIGRIMAGE will help us to open our minds and consider ourselves not guilty but responsible for the processes in which we are protagonists, forming a new class of journalists aware of the urgency of a new approach to the question of migration and cross-border studies”.