World on the Move, A Traveling Exhibit About Migration Available for Libraries

The ALA Public Programs Office will be seeking libraries to host a traveling exhibition about migration and displacement beginning in January 2023. The exhibition, developed by the American Anthropological Association and the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage with the guidance of an international advisory group, presents a global overview of human population movements in history and contemporary times, as well as snapshots of the lived experiences of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Its central idea is that nearly everyone has a migration story somewhere in their family history, and this commonality is an essential element of the human condition.

World on the Move: 250,000 Years of Human Migration brings together the current state of knowledge about migration and displacement to reframe the ways in which we think—and talk—about migration. World on the Move will challenge people to consider the scale, composition, and time-depth of human population movements, the ways in which research on migration and displacement have been used to support public policy, and the lived experiences of individuals, families, and communities on the move.

We believe that today, humanity is at a crossroads. Today, roughly one in seven people on earth, or more than one billion people, are estimated to have migrated at least once in their lives. 763 million people are internal migrants who have moved within the country where they were born. 272 million people are international migrants, who have moved from one country to another. Many of the forces driving migration today are the same as what have mobilized our ancestors, including poverty, conflict and violence, persecution, political instability, labor shortages, competition for resources, natural disasters and more gradual environmental changes. By 2050, there may be as many as 405 million international migrants around the world, and as many as one billion climate migrants. The spread of COVID-19 over the past two years shows us how interconnected places are to one another, regardless of how distant and disconnected they might have seemed. The inevitability of people on the move in such an interconnected world means greater numbers of people coming in contact with more people of diverse backgrounds, heightening the need to make the world safe for cultural difference. The decisions we make about migration and displacement now will affect the future of millions of people. Will we adapt to the changes migration brings and find ways to live together? Or will we resist change and allow our differences to divide us?

The exhibition has a flexible design, and needs about 1000 sq feet for display space. Join this session to hear from the curatorial team and Public Programs Office, who will present the exhibition’s content and discuss opportunities for community partnerships, possibilities for public programming events and activities, and educational resources available to host libraries.