Migration and Narrative Ecologies: Public and Media Discourse in the EU

Abstract

This survey article paves the way for a new exchange between migration studies in the social sciences and narrative research on migration in the humanities by introducing the concept of a narrative ecology of migration. Taking our cue from previous research on cultural, media, and narrative ecologies, we argue that narratives on migration travel through different cultural and discursive contexts where they encounter other stories which either sustain or challenge their significance. Our argument unfolds in two steps: After providing a survey of previous research on narrative ecologies, which we see as a subset of media ecologies, we describe the levels of the narrative ecology of migration by discussing the ways in which different narratives on migration, as well as stories of migration, interact with each other on local, national, and European scales.