Body Mapping is a creative, participatory method that invites people to trace and illustrate their own bodies to express emotions, memories, and experiences related to a specific topic. Using colours, symbols, and words, participants create life-sized visual representations — “maps” that make visible how they experience the world through and within their bodies.
Overview
Originating from art therapy, Body Mapping has been widely used in research with marginalized groups — such as homeless individuals, women activists, survivors of gendered violence, and migrants — because it centers participants’ voices and empowers them to shape their own narratives. The most prominent research adaptation of this method was developed by Gastaldo et al. (2012), who used body map storytelling to explore how legal status affects the health and wellbeing of undocumented migrants.
Rooted in feminist and decolonial approaches, Body Mapping challenges the idea of the body as a passive object of study. Instead, it sees the body as an active site of knowledge, inseparable from place, community, and social context. This perspective opens up new ways of understanding how identities, power relations, and environments are experienced and negotiated.
Body Mapping in IMBRACE
In the IMBRACE project, Body Mapping is used to explore how climate and environmental changes affect health and wellbeing among migrant communities. The method allows participants to take ownership of their stories and express experiences that may be difficult to convey through words alone, especially across different languages and cultures.
Beyond being a research tool, Body Mapping fosters dialogue, trust, and collective reflection. By bringing individual stories together, it reveals shared challenges and resilience strategies, offering powerful visual narratives of vulnerability, adaptation, and hope.
Beyond being a research tool, Body Mapping fosters dialogue, trust, and collective reflection. By bringing individual stories together, it reveals shared challenges and resilience strategies, offering powerful visual narratives of vulnerability, adaptation, and hope.