Academic Migrant Scrapbook
How can academic migratory experiences be collected, preserved, and commemorated?
Keywords:
arts-based methods, reflective practice , visual essay, autoethnography, living archiveAbstract
This visual essay presents a scrapbook kept during a research stay at Aarhus University as both an everyday, domestic craft and an arts-based research method for documenting academic migration. Combining photographs, cut-outs, and handwritten diary entries, the scrapbook is presented as a haptic, multisensory approach to knowing that eased one visiting scholar’s adjustment to a foreign environment and offered comfort on difficult days. Drawing on sensory and visual ethnography, autobiographical memory research, and art therapy, the piece reflects on documenting experiences without screens. When opened to colleagues on the author’s final day, the private object became a living archive (Sabiescu 2020): a model for how collecting, preserving, and sharing the ephemeral experiences of visiting scholars can build community, solidarity, and a sense of belonging across institutions.
References
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Copyright (c) 2026 Theresa Kohlbeck Jakobsen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
