ABSTRACT

This chapter concludes this volume of work by summarising the main themes and drawing conclusions about further areas for contemplation that have arisen from Sorgente. The chapter begins with a discussion of the importance of brave spaces, alongside the need for safe spaces in the context of trauma-informed practices. After a reiteration of the research themes, a data poem is revealed. ‘Shades of belonging’ is structured as three stanzas, each corresponding to a research question of the study, created using a range of techniques drawn from art-based research methods. Each writer’s contribution to the data poem is discussed, as is the context from which each contribution was derived. The importance of time and space is explored through the medium of an art exhibition, which leads to references to an artwork which had a bearing on the analysis and representation of themes. Finally, this chapter concludes with reflections on seven key assertions, Painting the shades between safety and bravery in trauma-informed performative language practice with refugees and migrants and the ways that arts practice as research was conducive to a sense of belonging, as it lay the foundations for a translanguaging space, a safe place for exploring languages, sound and movement.