BEARLIV · Conciliating a ‘Bearable Life’. Participatory Action Research on Entangled Cross-Border Mobilities

Despite their high hopes and aspirations, people crossing borders in search of a ‘better life’ are frequently led to reassess and pare down their ambitions and expectations, and to realign them towards what this project conceptualises as a ‘bearable life’. This is a key finding of the ERC StG on which the present PoC builds. To put the notion of ‘bearable life’ to the test, explore its value, and operationalize its social innovation potential, the PoC develops a ground-breaking applied anthropology framework involving different stakeholders and protagonists of cross-border migratory flows in Ecuador. Participatory action research will proceed in close collaboration with local associations working with different mobile populations –characterised as ‘returnees’, ‘migrants’, and ‘asylum seekers’– and rely on a unique and experimental combination of research techniques, among which focus groups, participatory video, walking interviews, and digital storytelling.Our first ambition is to identify concrete problems, lines of conflict, and needs related to different cross-border mobilities, exploring how they converge, diverge, and relate to one another by putting them into effective dialogue. Secondly, based on the participatory analysis of such needs, we aim to collaborate with NGOs, governmental organisations, and IOs to convene public debates and fora (on- and offline) and produce complementary outputs. The latter include recommendations, academic publications, and multimedia content (such as podcasts, videos, and articles) elaborated collaboratively with the project’s stakeholders both for their own benefit and to the attention of local, regional, national, and international institutions. The ultimate goal of BEARLIV is to propel societal innovation by co-producing, informing, and influencing advocacy efforts and policymaking on cross-border mobilities, and to generate transferrable insights and strategies for applied research in other world contexts