ABSTRACT
With a focus on migrant narratives, or the storytelling about migration, this volume considers the ways in which migration is and has been shaped by individual and collective experiences of agency, belonging and community.
Driven by an agenda of deep listening, each chapter presents a narrative directly derived from qualitative research, an outline of the methodological framing as well as narrative analysis. Through close attention to the narrative, its performative aspects and its ruptures and silences, authors identify patterns and material in the fabric of such telling and retelling of stories that open up new perspectives on the migrant experience. This book develops a methodology of "dwelling with stories" that allows for sustained and slow interrogation of the migrant experience and the accompanying decisions that shape narratives around mobility across borders. Its structure is innovative by emphasising the migrant voice and reflecting on the scholars’ positionality, while also offering new theoretical contributions that will advance the field of narrative analysis.
The book will appeal to academics, students and practitioners in a wide range of subject areas within the humanities and social sciences, including anthropology, sociology, human geography, migration/refugee/diaspora studies and oral history.
Chapter 5, 6, 7 and 8 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at https://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 1|14 pages
Analysing migrant narratives as an ethnographic project
part I|40 pages
Scripted narratives
chapter 2|12 pages
Narratives of absence
chapter 3|12 pages
Home at last
part II|48 pages
Agency
chapter 6|14 pages
“When you win, you are a German, when you lose, you are a foreigner”
chapter 7|17 pages
“None of these are jokes, it's just my life…”
part III|46 pages
Silences and voids in gendered narratives
part IV|56 pages
Collective narratives