Who is running this project?
The project is led by Dr. Tony Capstick in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics. Non-governmental organisations Mosaik, the Reading Refugee Support Group and the Councli for at Risk Academics (CARA) are also collaborative partners in the project. The project is funded by the University of Reading’s Research Endowment Trust Fund.
What is this project about?
With the aim of addressing the limitations of traditional research methodologies, the CV19MM project seeks to identify the ways refugees and migrants share information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic across their networks, along with investigating the languages used by displaced persons and their families to share information about the virus.
By using online technology, the project hopes to gain a better understanding of how social media is used by migrants and refugees to share information, and use both existing and new linguistic resources. Online technology and the internet are used significantly in the project and are also utilised by researchers when uploading their data. Furthermore, the project endeavours to establish a database where refugees and migrants can access information relating to COVID-19.
The project also seeks to help ensure the voices of refugees are not lost when charities speak on their behalf, and aims to enable displaced persons to conduct research in their own languages.
The findings of this research are likely to be of interest to researchers, teachers, English as a foreign language professionals and other individuals who work with refugees, migrants and displaced persons.
Written by Sam Kelly, Part 3 BA placement student of Language and Migration module, Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics.
