SO-CLOSE: a project giving a voice to refugees to support social integration
Researchers at UAB are conducting the SO-CLOSE project to combat the stigmatization of refugees and asylum seekers and to promote their integration into host communities through the design of technological and digital tools aimed at all audiences, organisations, and institutions.
What do the stories of refugees in Europe since 2015 have in common with those who fled war and violence in 1939, 1946, or 1991?
What links connect a Spanish Civil War exile with an Afghan refugee?
What can the experience of a Ukrainian woman tell us about how Greek women deported in 1949-50 to the island of Trikeri lived? And conversely, how can we use these experiences to improve the integration and well-being of people fleeing war, climate change, religious, political, or gender persecution, or genocide today?
To address these questions, we created SO-CLOSE, a UAB-led project that began in 2020 and will conclude at the end of 2022.
Our project has had and continues to have a central aim: to help combat stigmatization and hate rhetoric and to facilitate the integration of refugees (and asylum seekers) in Europe through mutual understanding between these people and the communities that have welcomed them, using history and personal experiences and narratives as a central vehicle for dialogue. All this is achieved through attractive, innovative, and replicable technological tools that can be used in schools, museums, cultural institutions, public administrations, and civic organisations beyond the active life of SO-CLOSE.