Place Academic Bio
Facilitation Workshop Opportunities Media
Publications Worn Words Project Hostile Environments UBC Centre for Migration Studies From Humanitarian to Human
 
 
“If we continue to censor our most vital dialogues our world can only grow smaller....[A]ll art, if willing, can create the space for our most necessary communications.”
— Ocean Vuong
 

If you’re interested in community-based research and creative approaches to refugee storytelling, you’re in the right place. Worn Words produces creative educational media to support better dialogue on forced migration. Our methodology is about learning through making in community. Our motivation is curiosity about how we create and shift cultures through narrative. Browse the site for event recordings, educational media, publications, and more.

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“Welcomestory,” a new community education resource

 

Welcomestory Trailer

What does welcome look like? Hospitality? A helping hand? Good programs? What other practices create a mutually-dignifying refugee welcome?

A film in 3 parts for sponsorship groups, the settlement sector, and anyone interested in exploring “refugee welcome.”

 
 

Upcoming events

  • Becoming Neighbours Workshop Series

    Scroll down for more info. Community dialogues in partnership with Kinbrace Community Society. RSVP here. Join us!

  • Book launch for The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives | UBC | 14 April 2023, 12-1:30pm

    Public event on UBC campus and virtual. RSVP needed.

  • Book talk for The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives | UCLA | 16 March 2023, 12:30-2pm

    6-7 minute lightning talks from 8 of the authors in the book. Zoom webinar.

  • Community-Engaged Futures, UBC, 7 March, 2023, 2-3pm

    Norm Leech (Aboriginal Community Policing), Joelle LaPointe (Suzuki Foundation), and Sam Fenn (Crackdown Podcast) in conversation about working toward a future our communities can thrive in.

  • Refugee Cultures in Vancouver, UBC, 7 Feb, 2023, 2-3pm

    Nathalie Lozano-Reina (LEVEL), Randall Cohn (Edelmann & Co), Loren Balisky (Kinbrace), and Wilfred Thariki (Kinbrace) in conversation about the humanitarian sector in Vancouver.

  • Black Cultures in Vancouver, UBC, 17 Jan 2023, 2-3pm

    Krystal Paraboo (Strathcona Resurgence Project) and Maya Preshyon (Vancouver Black Library) in conversation with Gankal Sally Ka (University of British Columbia) about initiatives in Black culture-making in Vancouver.

  • refugee reconnaissance: a panel conversation, UBC, 17 Jan 2023, 2-3pm

    A panel conversation that traces parallels and intersections in the trajectories of artist Francisco-Fernando Granados and facilitator, organizer and researcher Nathalie Lozano Neira.

  • refugee reconnaissance: a performance workshop, UBC, 20 Jan 2023, 3:30-5pm

    The workshop picks up on strategies drawn from artist Francisco-Fernando Granados' practice to explore the role of form in the formation of cultural perspectives on force migration and diaspora. Working through conceptual exercises, performance scores, and drawing, the workshop leads participants from practices identification towards the incalculability of abstraction

 

Erin
Goheen
Glanville

Illustration by Andrea Armstrong

 

I am currently a community organizer, storyteller, and spiritual caregiver at Artisan Church in the DTES. This work brings together four life-long pursuits: community, imagination, justice, and spirituality.

I also serve on the Board of Kinbrace Community Society, coordinate the Becoming Neighbours workshops, and am an affiliate of the Centre for Migration Studies at UBC.

This website archives the educational resources I’ve created through community-engaged research at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. That work continues as Worn Words, a public-facing educational resource development project.

Check out the Community page to see where I’ve given public talks and organisations I’ve been involved with. Check out the Research page to find published articles.

 
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Community Workshops

 
 
 

When we have the courage to be both welcomer and welcomed in the liminal space of forced displacement, what can happen?

You're invited to join us for Becoming Neighbours: Mutual Transformation, an interactive community dialogue, to explore the inner and relational work of mutual transformation. You'll hear honest stories from people formerly in sponsorship relationships, participate in roundtable conversations, and get a sneak preview of Worn Words' new film Welcomestory.

 
 
 

Recent Events

 

Academic Conferences

“Articulating a Cultural Refugee Studies Pedagogy”

International Association of Forced Migration Studies conference, August 4, 2022

Guest Lectures

Community-engaged Migration Research

Peace and Conflict Studies Lecture Series, Langara College, Oct 19, 2022

The Making of Borderstory

Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Oct 13, 2022

Community Events

Becoming Neighbours: Trust

a community dialogue co-sponsored by Kinbrace, Muslim Food Bank, World Renew, and UBC Office of Community Engagement, May 7, 2022

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May 2022 pilot event

Becoming Neighbours, a community dialogue series for 2023

Join an ongoing conversation on refreshing the culture of refugee welcome in British Columbia.

This five-dialogue series builds on the success of our May 2022 event at Robson Square. Each dialogue focuses on a time-tested value that undergirds refugee-citizen community at Kinbrace Community Society.

Events are free and include refreshments and roundtable discussions. Everyone warmly welcomed!

This series is hosted by Kinbrace Community Society in partnership with Dr. Erin Goheen Glanville.

Funded by Vancity, The Vancouver Foundation, and UBC Centre for Migration Studies.