News from WG1
By Tatjana Šarić (Croatian State Archives, Zagreb, Croatia) & Katelin Marit Parsons (Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, Reykjavík, Iceland)
Working Group 1 continues to work on its most important goals, building the catalogue of primary sources and the online map on WEMov’s website. By the end of February, the catalogue listed over 500 entries on primary sources from European archives, museums and libraries. Of these, over 120 representative collections are represented on the online map. These collections bear witness to women’s migration in the past. One of the essential objectives of WG1 this year is the online publication of the catalogue, and the members, in cooperation with IT experts, are working on preparing the catalogue. For this purpose, members are working on the typology of sources and selecting search terms to make the online catalogue accessible to users.
Working group 1 meets regularly at monthly meetings, and an online transcribathon was also held for all members of WEMov. The next primary sources transcribathon is planned for the beginning of May, and we look forward to working together again.
At the recent successful WEMov annual meeting in Lisbon in February 2023, Tatjana Šarić, WG1 leader, and Katelin Parsons, WG1 co-leader, led a 1.5-hour transcribathon. All present members of WEMov from all working groups participated in the transcribathon. They searched for and added new primary sources to our catalogue. This working method proved very useful, and many new entries were collected.
Working group 1 will meet again in Krakow, Poland, in March, where our member Mateusz Wyżga from the Institute of History and Archives of the Pedagogical University in Krakow will host us. We look forward to the upcoming meeting!
News from WG2
By Fiona Bakas (Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, Portugal), Heidi Martins (Centre de Documentation sur les Migrations Humaines, Dudelange, Luxembourg) & Livia Prosinger (Institute of Political History, Budapest, Hungary)
Working Group 2 has been very busy recently with collecting landmarks commemorating women migrants for the Map of Women Migrant’s Landmarks on WEMov’s website. Using the new two-stage process of GForms for Landmarks and Biocards, WG2 members engaged on a Xmas Biocard mission, whereby all members undertook the challenge to complete 30 Biocards by 15th January, 2023. This was a great success and after also the WG2 Transcribathon at the WEMov Annual meeting in Lisbon in February, we are pleased to announce that we have reached 1000 Landmarks with only a few without completed biocards. There are still a few countries underrepresented in the Landmark Map which will be focused on in future Transcribathons and WG2 missions.
In other news, the WG2 in-person meeting will be held in Luxembourg 24-25 March, and is very efficiently being organised by WG2 co-leader, Heidi Martins. This meeting will focus on working workshops to help progress publications and walking tours, which are also WG2 deliverables. Finally, in the last (online) WG2 meeting a location for the 2024 WG2 meeting was discussed and agreed on Skopje, North Macedonia.
News from WG3
By Selma Smajlović (University in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina) & Nina Drejerska (Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)
The last Working Group 3 meetings took place on December 16, 2022, January 27 and February 24, 2023. We worked mainly on datasets on women and migration, a project currently at our activities’ core. The main focus of our attention was on data gathering and its proper description, e.g., definitions of in- and out-migrant applied by data providers.
The group also started a register of statistical offices with information on, for example, contact data and website addresses, as national statistics are one of the main data sources on female migration.
The Datasets transcribathon took place during WEMov’s 3rd Annual Meeting (Lisbon, February 9, 2023) and resulted in a significant increase in data sources registered and data collected by all network members.
We look forward to gathering again in person in April 2023 for our next WG3 meeting, the first in-person dedicated only to WG3’s activities. We hope for further group integration and ideas on the next common activities.
The Datasets transcribathon is planned for March 17, 2023.
The next WG3 meetings are scheduled via Zoom on 31 March, 26 May and 23 June 2023.
News from WG4
By Jenny Bronstein (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Izrael)
Working Group 4 is currently working on two projects. The first and continuing endeavor is the construction of European Map of Migration stories.
Group members have interviewed a varied population of migrant women across Europe diverse migrant population. By presenting the essence of the women’s migration stories these capsules present the uniquenessof the experience of migration in Europe. The second project of the group is Object of Migration. In this project the group is collecting stories, pictures and videos about objects significant in the immigration stories of migrants. Up until now, we have collected stories about varied objects such as jewelry, food, newspapers and coffee mill. The objects will be presentedin online and interactive exposition.
We are excited about the next working group that will take place in Tel-Aviv on 4-5 May. In this meeting we will meet professionals working in the file of migration from different perspectives and we will have the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with work of different NGOs.