After the tremendous success of its first traveling exhibition, website, and publications on RACE: Are We So Different?, the American Anthropological Association now brings the same lens of science, history, and lived experience to another timely yet timeless topic: migration and displacement. World on the Move: 250,000 Years of Human Migration recently debuted at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in Washington, D.C., the first stop on a tour of U.S. libraries through 2025, after which it will go on a broader international tour.
This exhibition was developed in partnership with the American Library Association, the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and Smithsonian Exhibits.
World on the Move reframes how we think – and talk – about migration and challenges people to consider the scale, composition, and time-depth of human population movements, the variety of reasons that lead people to leave their homes, the range of ways in which migration affects both those who move and those who stay, and the future of human mobility in our changing world.
The accompanying website offers resources for libraries, educators, families and kids to keep the conversation going.
Drawing on a wealth of case studies from across human history and the breadth of cultures, the exhibit encompasses stories, images, and objects that will help people appreciate migration histories—their own and others— and emphasize how migration is a shared human experience that connects us all.
*AAA will coordinate with the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office to select fifteen libraries to host the exhibit. Selected libraries will also receive a programming stipend. Applications open in October 2022. Learn more at UnderstandingMigration.org.