This paper aims to produce knowledge about so-called “qualified” migrations through a collective project entitled Géo-récits funded by the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM), at the intersection of several disciplines, namely anthropology, sociology, political science, history and geography. The qualification of highly qualified migrants is contextual and socially constructed and thus not straightforward to define. In this paper, it is defined as individuals with diverse forms of cultural capital: institutionalized culture capital (diplomas, employment…) or incorporated (knowledge of political and social context, through activism, militantism or art) (Bourdieu, 1979 and Matonti and Poupeau, 2004). This definition thus includes militant resources, and learnings imported from other environments or progressively acquired through engagement or experiences in militantism in the political field. Studies in the field of sociology of migration usually insist on the brain drain aspect, and qualified migrants in exile are usually rarely studied, as their skills are often considered as not much adapted to the labour market, or disqualified. The particular characteristics of forced exile on their trajectories after exile are not explored. The project produces knowledge on qualified migration by representing migration trajectories and narratives of exiled intellectuals and artists through deep maps. It aims to make these (maps) accessible on a user-friendly interface in order to disseminate the products of scientific research to society. They can be in the form of illustrated geographical trajectories that interweave with other biographical representations, memories, interview quotations as well as images, videos and sounds which are displayed chronologically. Deep maps are representations that go beyond the two-dimensional traditional map. This project elaborates an extensive collaborative tool, using these deep maps as a starting point, with the goal of collecting data by different research groups and individual researchers working on different geographical areas (Middle East, North Africa, East Europe, Balkan countries, Latin America) and historical periods through different methodologies (in-depth interviews, archive). The goal is to represent movement through these maps to be able to explore trajectories, identifications and strategies of inclusion into the labour market. The collective deep map representation tool will allow us to showcase these trajectories and filter them according to predetermined research variables such as gender, languages, passage points, pathways, year of exile, country of origin, among others. With the help of this tool, we can explore the data of several projects collectively to bring light to new emerging research questions relating to knowledge production in exile across different geographical and historical frames. The purpose is also to raise awareness within the general public on the questions of migration and particularly qualified migration. This is a novel datasource as deep maps allow the representation of stories, materials and their evolution through time while crossing it with the geographical movement. We approach life stories as databases to be analysed for a better understanding of places, their intimate and personal geographies, as well as the structure of the stories that refer to it. This collective deep map tool represents a different way of capturing migration for broader analysis. It also creates a sample for an open-source database to be used by all researchers who are interested in highly qualified migration, it also serves as a model which can be eventually replicated and adapted to other population and different research questions. This paper presents the deep mapping tool, which is currently under development, and engage with the audience about this innovative way of representing migration through data visualisation with the goal of engaging in a collaborative research project and answering different research questions. As part of this presentation, we engage in a reflection on the ethical and methodological considerations in terms of collection and representation of data about migration, namely looking at the difficulties faced in terms of linking individual and collective trajectories in representations. Indeed, the data collection through interviews can expose individuals to relive the trauma related to their forced migration experience, and representing these trajectories can put individuals at risk. As such, we reflect on the possibility of involving interviewees (highly qualified forced migrants) to actively take part in the research process through the co-creation of these deep maps to allow individuals to auto-narrate and represent their own trajectories especially taking into consideration possible reluctance among this population to being considered as ‘research objects’. The concern of putting the refugees in danger, a risk that is increased by visibilisation through our project, can be partly resolved through anonymization or the choice of a pseudonym. However, beyond hiding the name of the person, anonymization implies erasing all data related to personal characteristics which allow the direct or indirect identification of a physical person. Beyond a simple study of prosopographies, this process is not limited to following the traces of migrants and representing them on a map, but rather also revealing their emotions, such as fears and joys, perceived during their trajectories in different cities, countries or at different borders. At the end of their exile journey - an end that is often temporary - the undetermined wait for a legal status in their host country, an improvement of the political situation in their country of origin, not only elongates time, but also thickens the space. As such, life stories give access to intimate and personal geographies of migrants, without compromising their identity. As such, some of these trajectories cannot be published, as they would be impossible to anonymize without deleting all significant information. In many cases, the situation is rather blurred, whereby the risk of putting the refugee in danger does not seem too significant, yet there is always an unknown factor. Research groups have experimented with deep maps (Baussant, 2018), whereby life stories are decompartmentalized from the territorial anchoring of the migratory studies and the temporalities in which witnesses and researchers are inscribed (Galloro, Pascutto et Serré 2010). The Géo-Récits project goes further by introducing a collaborative dimension to the deep map representations. It takes into account the diachrony of trajectories, through the superposition of spaces and multiple moments of exile. It associates the map to an interactive chronological strip that allows researchers to visualise different periods in the lives of persons, or institutions. Researchers are faced with the difficulty of localising on the map territories (such as cities or empires) that no longer exist within their actual borders, such as East-Berlin or the Soviet Ukraine. We thus reflect on developing an instrument of diachronic geographical localization that would allow us to add semiological layers, or superpose historical surfaces to the contemporary surface. Diachrony also implies considering the lived space, beyond an itinerary that would be a series of movements. Indeed, if the deep map that we wish to construct is to allow us to shed light on the dynamic of movements, we intend to put forth sedentary moments, places where migrants “stayed”. The question of temporality complexifies even further when we take into account the fact that the experience of exile can create confusion between temporal and spatial entities that become fixed. In other words, the departure place is sometimes essentialized as past, as something that is left behind or that exists in memories only, whereas the host country represents the future, all the more so that it is often the place in which children of exiles are born and raised. At other times, the country of origin is essentialized as a future, a space to which we wish to go back to. As time flows, the space also becomes vaguer: exiles no longer remember street names or exact addresses of places, which implies differentiating different levels of precision of a place. Researchers are thus confronted with the challenge of creating maps that account for the complexity and multiplicity of the spatio-temporal dimensions inherent to each life story. By representing the time associated with each location, we must reflect on whether this location represents the country as it was left, the country as it is remembered or the country as it is now. We also think of different types of links that can exist between locations. Whether departure, arrival, birth, passage, marriage, divorce, naturalisation, work, life and death, all of these places do not have the same importance. They can thus be represented with different colours or intensities. The determination of the level of importance of a location is left to the interpretation - thus the subjectivity - of the researcher, but this is inevitable as the map itself cannot but be subjective (« there is not such a thing as an innocent map”, Zwer & Rekacewicz, 2021). Indeed, even if a historical image embodies a historical way of seeing, our seeing of it depends upon “our own way of seeing.” (Berger, 2008). The language (languages) of exiles constitutes one of the different filters through which we can access the interactive maps. It would be possible, for instance, to only see the trajectory of intellectuals who speak Arabic. But the question of language presents several pitfalls. A list of ‘spoken’ languages of the exile would occult languages that are only understood, read, or even loved. The affective value of a language is not necessarily related to the level of mastery of that language. A language can be employed by integration syntax elements that are foreign to it (“broken language”, Baussant 2015). These questions bring us to consider a filtering system that would account for this malleability and complexity of usages. In the context of the project Géo-récits, what interests us particularly is the language of work, and namely the changes induced by exile at this level: in which language did the scientific exiles write and publish in their country of origin and upon their arrival. In other words, we would need to account not only of the temporality of language but its spatiality. This approach also contributes by allowing us to think beyond the linearity of migration studies from one point to another, to seeing it as a multi-linear process, which is often missed in migration studies. In detailing the multiple steps that constitute the trajectory of a qualified migrant, the Géo-récits project puts forward South-South mobilities (from Uruguay to Argentina, from Syria to Turkey) or North-South migration, especially with regards to return migration, which are more common than expected. This represents an opportunity to shift our glance away from focusing on solely South-North mobilities. This project thus offers a fertile ground for interdisciplinary research, to think differently of contemporary mobilities and their dynamism, as well as the social links and intersubjectivity between North and South.