A collaborative research project is investigating how Greek migrant young adults living in Melbourne use new media to navigate their identity in both their birthplace and adopted country, and the impact this has on their sense of self and belonging.

While a great deal of research has been conducted in the past, the rationale for the qualitative inquiry is to explore the intersection of migration, new media, and adolescent identity to enrich our understanding of Greek migrant young adults’ identities, from their perspective. The study is the first to explore Greek migrant youth identity in Melbourne through new media and documents the current period of Greek migration.

Athens-born Melina Mallos, a PhD candidate in the Graduate School at the University of Melbourne, was motivated to conduct the research from her own experiences since migrating from Greece to Australia in the 1980s. “My negotiation of identity between Greece and Australia has been a constant throughout my life across different sites of belonging,” she told Neos Kosmos.

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“Upon reflection, my hobbies, interest in travel and other cultures, career directions, including being an author of two bilingual children’s books (English/Greek), can be in part, attributed to my migration story. As an author, stories are a way of encouraging young people to connect with their Greek heritage.

She is currently looking for Greek-born participants who have lived in Australia for 10 years or less and are aged between 18 and 24 years. The participants should use new media (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Gaming, YouTube, Skype etc); and be available for three workshops to be held via zoom.
The workshops include interviews with peers, making a digital portrait or identity avatar; creating a video story and journalling.

Those who participate will get to meet other Greek migrant youth and expand on their friendships, learn more about participatory research methods, develop a personal video story to keep and share perspectives as well as influence the creation of new programmes for Greek migrant youth in Melbourne.
Those interested in participating should contact mmallos@student.unimelb.edu.au with their name, age, suburb, email address, mobile number and the year they arrived in Australia.