Leaving and Belonging: Making an Impact on Immigration and Displacement through Arts, Culture, and Storytelling

Two-day working symposium

April 17, 2026, 10:00 AM to April 18, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT

Art, culture, and storytelling are at the forefront of migration. Across contexts of mobility and displacement, people rely on creative practices to communicate and express emotion to cope, entertain, and generate livelihoods; sustain language and memory; navigate identity; build community; advocate and effect change; and share experiences across cultural difference. Arts and storytelling can also be used to create boundaries, reinforce hierarchies, emphasize differences, and galvanize exclusionary discourses, policies, and laws. Despite their profound influence, these creative dimensions of migration remain largely undervalued, under-resourced, and underrepresented within immigration-related scholarship, social services, and policymaking.

This symposium is hosted by the Institute for Immigration Research (IIR), a multidisciplinary research institute at George Mason University. The IIR is committed to advancing collaborative and publicly engaged approaches to immigration research and practice. This symposium seeks to further that mission by centering arts-based, cultural, and narrative interventions as important sites of knowledge production, advocacy, and policy engagement.

Symposium Structure

The two-day working symposium will take place on the George Mason University, Fairfax, VA campus and will feature workshops along with a series of individual presentations, panels and discussion forums. The symposium will focus on immigration, displacement, and belonging, with a particular focus on how arts, culture, and storytelling can be effectively used to build community, shift public attitudes, and inform immigration-related policy in the United States.

The goal of the symposium is to think together, share best practices, identify challenges and gaps, and develop strategies for impactful work at the intersection of immigration and arts. The symposium will conclude with a dedicated discussion to explore shared priorities, the possible formation of a special interest group, publications, and future collaborations.

The symposium is free and open to the public. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, click here.