Freedom of movement at play: EU citizens' identity and transnational discourses

The project aimed to achieve three main goals. First, we wanted to offer a discursive-driven picture of how EU freedom of movement works for ordinary citizens. Public debate often includes claims ...

The project aimed to achieve three main goals. First, we wanted to offer a discursive-driven picture of how EU freedom of movement works for ordinary citizens. Public debate often includes claims that are not supported by accounts of mobile citizens, so a central aim was to document real mobility paths through first-hand accounts and make them accessible through robust analysis. The FOM@PLAY corpus is the body of testimonies that can help us Paint this picture. Second, we sought to counter hostile speech about mobile EU citizens and non-EU migrants by showing how everyday mobility relates to work, study, family life and long-term integration. By creating open resources grounded in testomonies, FOM@PLAY aimed to support HE staff, students, journalists and community groups who need reliable material when discussing these topics. Finally, we wanted to produce sustainable tools such as corpora, guidelines, digital outputs and public events that partners can keep using after the project ends. The aim was to strengthen awareness of EU rights and support more informed cross-border engagement. Overall, FOM@PLAY set out to support ERASMUS+ priorities on shared values, civic engagement and new teaching approaches.

We successfully implemented a total of 27 activities. All of them can be found on the activities site on https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=1281 Across the work packages, the activities form a clear sequence that links research, innovative pedagogy and public engagement. WP2 focused on activities that gathered mobility stories. Partners collected interviews, prepared transcription protocols, and created a multilingual corpus that reflects diverse experiences of mobile EU citizens. This work fed directly into WP3, where these materials were used for educational purposes. Schools and universities in Spain, Italy, France can benefit from the learning tasks, classroom debates, and digital activities that help students understand EU rights, everyday mobility & hostile speech. WP4 created the project website, multimedia content & digital tools that present stories through accessible formats. Workshops with staff, journalists, and students ensured that online resources matched the project's goals. WP5 spread the outcomes through national events, social media campaigns & a final presentation at the Euro-Parliament. Together, these activities form a coherent path: collecting and analysing real voices to drive innovative pedagogy.

It is difficult to choose only a few concrete outputs from the 27 activities carried out. Here’s a selection: (1) The first major output is the multilingual FOM@PLAY corpus, containing 100 transcribed mobility stories from EU citizens living in France, Italy & Spain. The FOM@PLAY corpus can be reached on https://fomatplay.eu (Free registration is compulsory to access the corpus). The corpus has also been distributed in other fomats to facilitate researchers’ engagment. (2) Pedagogic materials in 4 languages. The materials have been designed so that they may be fully implemented as a micro-credential, or used separately, as any lecturer may see fit. URLs: https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=6261 https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=6291 (3) EU summer school and EU webinar on freedom of movement and EU citizens’ rights. URLs: https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=6421 https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=6351 (4) EXHIBITION Vies en transit: Citoyens de L’UE à Travers L’Europe. URLs: https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=6381 https://g-tek.fr/vies-en-transit/ (5) Implementation of social media campaign to raise awareness on FOM in 4 languages and contents bank from the FOM@PLAY corpus URL: https://www.um.es/fomatplay/?page_id=6521