Mapping entangled mobilities: Using participatory counter-cartography to explore the migration of objects and people across (neo)colonial spatialities

• Sarah Linn_ Manchester Metropolitan University, England

• Jina Lee_ University of the Arts London, England

• Migrant Youth Researchers

• Jennifer Cromwell_ Manchester Metropolitan University, England

• Caitlin Nunn_ Manchester Metropolitan University, England

This paper explores the creation of a counter-map that represents the entangled mobilities of ancient objects and contemporary migrants. Currently exhibited in Manchester Museum as part of the Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging project, the map was produced by a creative cartographer in dialogue with project researchers and young people from Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian and Kurdish backgrounds. The map was developed from youth researchers’ personal ‘journey maps’ and narratives and archival research into ancient objects from their region of origin, drawn from the museum collection. Reflecting the complexities and ambiguities of migration, the map renders places, borders and movements as fractured, partial and mutable. In doing so, it confronts the (neo)colonial forces that shape maps and mobilities. Simultaneously, this creative representation serves the practical-political purpose of safeguarding youth researchers from the risks of challenging fixed imaginaries of spatial-temporal borders within a heritage institution - and city - grappling with their own colonial legacies.