The conference “From So Far to So Close. Addressing the Refugee Phenomenon: History, Sociology, Technology” (15-16th June) tackles the issue of refugees through three different perspectives: history, sociology and technology, which form the core of SO-CLOSE. The conference will be divided in three different sessions. The first one will delve into the history of forced displacement in 20th century Europe from three different case studies: the experience of female forced displacement during the Greek Civil War; the phenomenon of forced displacement in communist countries; and forced displacement during the 90’s in former Yugoslavia.
The second roundtable will develop a sociological perspective about the phenomenon of refugees, gathering approaches coming from research, from NGOs and from the very experience of refugee communities. Finally, the third roundtable will discuss the connection between cultural heritage and technology, with the presentation of some European projects (TRACTION, SPICE and SO-CLOSE) that propose the use of technologies for enhancing social cohesion.
All three sessions will be live streamed through the YouTube channel of the project, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjgzAh96n7k0D7LzZ1pLVA?view_as=subscriber. Also, the sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the channel in the following days after the conference.
