Building the ‘Here’ and ‘There’ in Different Sensescapes

Exploring the space of conviviality with newcomers and host communities

“…Research offers a chance for the unexpected creation of spaces for improvisation where the participants, through the mediation of food, can share a moment of conviviality where sharing your daily routine creates an environment of intimacy and mutual harmony (Cottino & Luraschi 2021). The analyses of my field data show the learning potential of sensobiographic walks and their capacity to create unprecedented relationships and conversations, fuelling a sense of friendship, familiarity and curiosity, far beyond the rhetoric of agency and empowerment that seem to narrow down adult education to compensate vulnerability (Formenti & Luraschi 2021).…”

“…The stories I chose for the following section are drawn from the second phase of 'Unexpected Subjects' . This phase represents the first experience with senso biographic walks (Järviluoma 2021) in Italy involving new migrants and natives (Formenti & Luraschi 2021). The participants were: -6 refugees from Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Somalia and Pakistan, living in Lecco at the Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (average age -27).…”

“…The method is very simple: I created six pairs made up of refugees and native to walk together in a place of choice called the 'place of the heart' . Natives led the first walk, telling their story of past and present sensations in the place; the refugee and myself as researcher listened, commented and asked questions (Formenti & Luraschi 2021). In the second sensobiographic walk, the newcomer chose his place of the heart and became the teller.…”

“…According to the walking methodology, walking and thinking with others is a celebration of the 'unpredictability of opening ourselves to possibility' (Springgay & Truman 2017, p. 1) and sounds, smells and other sensuous perceptions were the core of both conversations. During these experiences of researchaction, conviviality happened unpredictably and spontaneously as a gesture of sharing food between the young newcomers and the natives and it represents the potential of informal education among adults (Formenti & Luraschi 2021). Following Wildemeersch (2017), I use the word 'newcomers' to indicate 'migrants' in order to bypass normative categorisations and generalisations, and to suggest a feature of experience, i.e.…”

Transformative learning as societal learning

“…Consequently, learning in a migration society embraces not only transformative needs of migrants undergoing the process of new orientation and integration, but aims also at developing a vision of a new inclusive social model, grounded in diversity, multiple belongings, and recognition. Formenti and Luraschi (2020, 2022) combine TL with an ecosystemic imagination to investigate coexistence and embodied dialogue as a concrete, relational process occurring in a material and symbolic space and producing new unexpected modes of living together. They develop an innovative methodological approach facilitating the research and practice of fostering TL in migration societies: the sensobiographic walk, an educational and social intervention designed to foster understanding and inclusion between new migrants and members of the local community.…”