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Overview
Migration Sounds is the first ever global collection of the sounds of human migration, using sound to reframe and reimagine conversations around migration.
Sound recordings telling the personal stories of migration from 51 countries have been recomposed and reimagined by artists from all over the world, taking these sounds to an entirely new place.
You can explore the sounds in the Migration Sounds player, or navigate the global sound map.
The project is the result of a year-long partnership between Cities and Memory and the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford.
Researchers
Stuart Fowkes, Cities and Memory
Delphine Boagey, Communications co-lead (COMPAS)
Rob McNeil, Communications co-lead (COMPAS)
What are the sounds of migration? Often they are the sounds of everyday life as experienced in a new place – not just the sounds of the headline-grabbing aspects of migration.
Since the dawn of human society, people have moved from place to place and built new lives in locations far from where they were born or raised.
People move for innumerable reasons and each experience is utterly unique – moving from the UK to the USA can be as dislocating as moving from Cameroon to France or from China to Ethiopia. Moving to work, or to study, or for love can each be expected to lead to very different outcomes and experiences – as can moving for safety or protection.
Similarly, being away from loved ones, or the places and things that anchor you in a place can be intimidating: the apparent strangeness of a new city or town can make you profoundly aware of sounds that more settled residents might completely screen out.
So what are the sounds that capture your own experience of living in a new country? What are the sounds that tell you when you have found a new place that is “home”?
Accents, sirens, birdsong, train doors closing, cicadas, the sounds of calls to prayer, market traders, people in bars or the night-time barking of stray dogs can all capture a sense of place – but what are the sounds that speak of your own experience of moving between countries and places?
Migration Sounds features 120 sounds and stories of migration across 51 countries from Argentina to Australia, with personal stories from diaspora communities and people who have migrated all over the world, as well as sounds from migration camps or dramatic sea rescues.
The project is packed with remarkable sound recordings, and – crucially – each is accompanied by the story behind the sound and what it means to the person who recorded it.
Taking the sounds of migration to an entirely different place, each recording has also been reshaped and reimagined as a creative composition by more than 100 musicians and sound artists from all over the world.
Many of these artists are from migrant backgrounds themselves, and the compositions reflect new and highly personal perspectives on migration, settlement, home and exile, all conveyed through sound.
Artistic approaches used to reimagine the sounds of migration include the creation of entire lyric songs from the source material, electronica pieces, poetry, ambient music, sound art, neoclassical, spoken word and many more.
The digital sound collection is available via Cities and Memory here: https://citiesandmemory.com/migration/
World's First Collection of the Sounds of Human Migration to Launch in September
News| Delphine Boagey | 16 September 2024
Audio project to capture the sounds of global migration
BBC Oxford| 23 February 2024
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News| Delphine Boagey | 20 February 2024
Migration Sounds: A Unique Global Project
News| Delphine Boagey and Rob McNeil | 12 September 2023