Paper short abstract:

Studying transborder work between Poland and Germany, we use sensory and collaborative methods: photography, soundscapes, videos with participants, videos of our travels, and a collaborative artistic-academic project. In this paper, we discuss some of the innovations and challenges of our research.

Paper long abstract:

In the project "VISION: Envisioning convivial Europe," we research the work and everyday lives of transborder workers who wake up around 2 am in their towns and villages in western Poland and travel 2-3 hours each way to work in one of the many warehouses in Brandenburg, the region around Berlin, or the giga-factory producing electric cars in Grünheide, close to the Polish border. Both Brandenburg and regions on the Polish side of the border are often considered “inner peripheries” and suffer from remoteness, outgoing migration, and aging, which all contribute to gradual decline. As an object of research, these areas are fascinating but also challenging as we focus on a geographically dispersed region with poor communication links. We research people who are a big part of their days (and nights) “on the move” and to meet them or follow their paths, we are also often on the move, struggling with long commuting (to the different research sites), border controls, traffic, lack of public transport between some of the sites, and our own bodily limitations.

In our research, we employ multimodal and collaborative methods as we aim to produce research that is both academically innovative and socially powerful. We work with photography, video, and soundscapes and facilitate a small collaborative project with recent migrants and transborder workers. In this paper, we discuss some of the innovations (e.g., in film editing or our collaborative work) and challenges of this sensory “ethnography on the move.”