On April 21, 2021 the kick-off meeting of the project BRIDGES was held virtually. Coordinated by CIDOB, BRIDGES seeks to understand the causes and consequences of migration narratives in a context of increasing politicization and polarization

By focusing on six current/former EU countries (FR, GE, HU, IT, SP, and UK), BRIDGES has a three-fold objective.

First, at the academic level, it aims to understand the processes of narrative production and impact and their mutual interaction. This entails analysing: a) why some narratives have become dominant over others in public and political debates from a historical perspective; b) how narratives shape individual attitudes in Europe and potential migrants’ decisions in countries of origin and transit; c) how narratives impact policy decisions and outputs both at the national and EU levels; and d) how individuals and policymakers become in turn narrative producers (‘shaped shapers’) and influence each other.

Second, at the policy level, it aims to foster evidence-based policies. By developing a typology of government strategies for responding to populist narratives, the project will provide policymakers with recommendations on how to redress a tendency towards increasingly symbolic policies in the field of migration and integration.

Third, at the societal level, BRIDGE’s objective is to create spaces for dialogue between actors involved in narrative production as well as to exchange innovative good practices among artistic communities, civil society organisations and migrant communities focused on how to build more inclusive accounts. The project objectives can only be achieved if we bridge – hence the name BRIDGES – several critical gaps between disciplines and between research and practice.

A key added value of the project is its interdisciplinarity and co-production approaches, including three interactive workshops with policy, media and civil society actors, an itinerant photojournalism exhibition and two hip hop contests to reflect on the challenges of multicultural and increasingly diverse societies.

BRIDGES has a Gender Observatory to ensure the quality and ethics standards of the research, as well as a cross-cutting gender perspective in all BRIDGES activities.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101004564.