Obafemi is a Nigerian man, in his early 30s, living in Direct Provision in an asylum-seeker accommodation centre close to Cork city. At the time of the research, he was studying in a college of further education in Cork, taking a course in social care. As an asylum-seeker he did not have the right to access Higher Education but he volunteered to participate in the digital story telling workshops and later in the cross disciplinary group, along with Claire, Andy, Finuala and other students. I had met Obafemi at a public event I had organised about the refugee lives, he was very engaged and vocal and I felt he might be interested in participating. He was interested in attending third level education if he was granted refugee status and the idea of attending this course attracted him, so that he could ‘get to know’ UCC. He said he enjoyed coming to events at UCC where he found students and staff open and welcoming. His Muslim religion was important to him, he said, as was his relationship with his family of origin. His father, a strict Muslim, had a strong influence on how he lived his life.
My method of data gathering with Obafemi as participant was: field notes taken after each of the six cross-disciplinary group workshops (all recorded); field notes taken at the digital story-telling workshop; narrative analysis of his digital story; a semi-structured interview at the end of the digital story-telling workshop.