Methodology - testimonies
We collect testimonies of people on the move who have experienced at least one pushback. They form a living archive for advocacy, media purposes and serve as evidence in strategic litigation. Interviews are conducted online. An interpreter of the respondent’s native language is always present, except when the person has chosen the interview to be conducted in English.
Before the interview begins, the conditions and objectives under which it is to take place are established. We use a questionnaire developed by the Border Violence Monitoring Network. It allows us to collect both so-called hard data, such as, just to name a few: dates, border post numbers or photos of injuries, and qualitative data of a narrative nature. Respondents’ personal data is anonymized.
Despite using the same method for conducting each interview, some of the testimonies we have compiled vary considerably in length. We understand pushback as an event that in many cases can have a traumatizing dimension. Such events have a strong impact on memory and can influence the accuracy of the memories that respondents go back to during interviews. Therefore, we try to conduct interviews as soon as possible after the pushback took place.
In 2023, we have collected 71 testimonies.
