Cross Talk
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Cross Talk is an innovative methodology developed by the OPPORTUNITIES project that provides the framework for public cross-cultural encounters between migrants, citizens, and other stakeholders. It creates common ground between participants in order to ensure a fair dialogue between conversation partners, thus establishing a level telling field on a local level. Cross Talks consist of three consecutive steps: (1) Confidential storytelling – migrants tell their life stories to NGOs and citizens (either in oral or written form); (2) Non-public re-enactment – the NGOs and citizens re-tell the stories of the migrants, thus ‘re-living’ what has been told; (3) Public re-enactment – NGOs and citizens tell the migrants’ stories to other stakeholders to make them available to a broader public.
⇢ see also: Fair dialogue, Level Telling Field, Life story, Migrant narrative
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8
[CG]
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Empowerment
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Empowering refugees and migrants, thus fighting epistemic injustice, is a central objective of the OPPORTUNITIES project. Measures include strengthening migrants’ and refugees’ agency and supporting self-representation through storytelling with art-based methods and perspective changes in Cross Talks. These activities are framed by the level telling field approach which defines premises, principles, and procedures for fair play in migration discourses.
⇢ see also: Agency, Epistemic injustice, Migrant narrative, Perspective taking, Solidarity (with migrants)
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8
[CG / RS]
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Experiential storytelling
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Experiential storytelling is sharing individual experiences with others by telling stories about these experiences, for instance in interviews, informal conversations between migrants and activists, or organized events like Cross Talks. When it comes to analyzing the experientiality (Fludernik 1996; Caracciolo 2014) of such practices of storytelling, ethical problems often need to be considered: e.g., issues related to tellability, culture-specific taboos, legal constraints, the age of storytellers, and the safety of everyone involved.
⇢ see also: Cross Talk, Experience, Migrant narrative
References and further reading:
Caracciolo, Marco. 2014. The Experientiality of Narrative: An Enactivist Approach. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
Fludernik, Monika. 1996. Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Category: C
Work Package: 3, 6, 7
[CG / RS]
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Level Telling Field
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The Level Telling Field (LTF) is the key metaphor of OPPORTUNITIES, defining the way we seek to conceptualize and improve narrative dynamics in the public sphere. The concept is inspired by the sports metaphor of the “level playing field.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines this as “a state or condition of parity or impartiality; a situation offering equality of opportunity or in which fairness to all parties is observed.” In global trade, level playing fields ensure that “all countries and firms compete on an equal footing to offer consumers everywhere the widest possible choice and the best value for money” (OECD 2021, n. p.). In analogy to fair trade, level telling fields ensure fair competition between narratives, concepts, and ideas in the public sphere to prevent lies, distorted representations, toxic narratives, or xenophobic propaganda from shaping the public image of migrants and refugees and from influencing migration policies.
Level Telling Fields are playbooks and mechanisms for an open, constructive, and productive debate – the cornerstone of a democratic, pluralist, secular society. They are best viewed as commitments by all participants in a debate to adopt a shared set of premises, to agree on principles and rules, and to define processes and procedures for conducting debates and documenting results. LTF premises include: a) A commitment to a democratic worldview grounded in human rights and a human development paradigm (see Nussbaum 2010); b) Adhering to commonly accepted standards for evaluating claims, opinions, and arguments; and c) Sincerity, i.e. a serious commitment to debate as a democratic means of opinion-building and decision-making. LTF principles include vertical multiperspectivity, an ethics of listening, and perspective taking. LTF processes and procedures depend on contextual parameters such as participants and goals.
An LTF approach to migration insists that all participants in a debate subscribe to these premises and principles, and define a set of procedures designed to ensure a fair conversation, e.g. in the context of a Cross Talk event. The LTF approach requires that a wide range of perspectives (i.e. experiential stories of migration as well as policy narratives on migration) should be represented, and calls for a system of checks and balances to move beyond the toxic debates which have characterized European narratives on migration following the so-called refugee crisis in 2015. Level telling fields can be established locally, in Cross Talk events, but they also have an impact on national and European conversations on controversial issues.
The LTF approach is not limited to migration. It seeks to overcome toxic debates, with a particular focus on institutional and endemic racism, and addresses wide-spread feelings of anger, frustration, and anxiety (see Mishra 2017, Shafak 2020) which are indicative of the closing of public space in a “post-democracy” (Crouch 2004). LTF playbooks and mechanisms continue examining the shifting boundaries of public and private spheres (see Habermas 1992) as well as other consequences of digital communication. They also serve as diagnostic tools for evaluating narrative dynamics in the public sphere and detecting threats to democratic systems of checks and balances across the globe (see Ziblatt and Levitsky 2018).
⇢ see also Cross Talk, Ethics of listening, Multiperspectivity, Narrative dynamics, Stories of migration, Narratives on migration, Perspective taking, Scale
References and further reading:
Crouch, Colin. 2004. Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1992. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mishra, Pankaj. 2018. Age of Anger: A History of the Present. London: Penguin.
Nussbaum, Martha. 2010. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Shafak, Elif. 2020. How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division. London: Profile Books.
OECD. 2021. “Levelling the Playing Field.” OECD. URL: https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/levelling-the-playing-field/.
Ziblatt, Daniel, and Steven Levitsky. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York, NY: Crown.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
[RS]
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Migrant narrative
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Migrant narratives, or migrant stories, are life stories of migrants or refugees which focus on experiences of migration and transit. They come in various shapes (e.g., conversational storytelling, life writing, or narrative fiction) and can be told either by migrants and refugees themselves (see also the entry “stories of migration”) or by vicarious storytellers who speak on behalf of migrants or refugees. Carolin Gebauer and Roy Sommer (2023) have identified four types of vicarious storytelling: case stories, documentary storytelling, ambassadorial storytelling, and allied storytelling (see also the entry on “vicarious storytelling”). While instances of the first three types tend to silence migrants’ own voice in the act of storytelling and hence diminish their narrative authority, cases of allied storytelling seek to actively engage migrants by constructing narratives which are shared by vicarious storyteller and migrant alike. Dominant themes of migrant narratives include displacement, diaspora, victimhood, resilience, integration, liberation, and opportunity.
⇢ see also Experience, Experiential storytelling, Life story, Narrative, Positioning, Vicarious storytelling
References and further reading:
Gebauer, Carolin, and Roy Sommer. 2023. “Beyond Vicarious Storytelling: How Level Telling Fields Help Create a Fair Narrative on Migration.” Open Research Europe 3.10: 3–14. URL: https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/3-10#FN3. Accessed July 30, 2023.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
[CG]
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Mobility
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Mobility is an umbrella term for a wide range of phenomena (e.g., migration, globalization, tourism, and transport), as well as other processes more remotely related to movement and fluctuation such as social mobility or social resistance. Mobility requires motility, “the capacity of a person to be mobile” (Kaufmann 2016, 37). Yet the potential to be mobile depends on an individual’s personal circumstances (see the distinction between migrants and expats) and “the way in which [one] appropriates what is possible in the domain of mobility and puts this potential to use for his or her activities” (Kaufmann 2016, 37).
Public discourses tend to use the terms mobility and migration as synonyms, to refer to the movement of groups of people from one country to another. However, the concept of mobility usually has positive connotations such as chance, opportunity, aspiration, and ambition, whereas that of migration correlates with notions of insecurity, danger, risk, or crisis.
⇢ see also Expatriate, Migration, Mobility studies
References and further reading:
Adey, Peter. 2017. Mobility. 2nd ed. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Kaufmann, Vincent. 2016. Re-Thinking Mobility: Contemporary Sociology. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Urry, John. 2007. Mobilities. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
[CG]
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Narrandum
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The term narrandum (Latin for “what needs to be told”), first proposed by Banzer, Quaderer and Sommer (2017), refers to the individual’s need and urge to share personal experience with others and a community’s desire to learn about otherwise inaccessible experiences through such testimonials and life stories. In practice, however, individuals can rarely share their stories freely for a variety of reasons (violation of taboos, cultural or social constraints, fear of putting others in danger, personal trauma, etc.)
⇢ see also Experience, Life story, Narrative identity, Representation of migration, Tellability
References and further reading:
Banzer, Roman, Hansjörg Quaderer, and Roy Sommer. 2017. Liechtenstein erzählen I: Demokratische Momente. Zurich: Limmat Verlag.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
[RS]
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Narrative dilemma
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We speak of a narrative dilemma when narrandum (Banzer et al. 2017) and tellability (Baroni 2014) are not in sync. For instance, some experience may be too traumatic to be told, or sharing the experience may put storytellers and their families in danger. On the other hand, the public relies on testimonials and reports, often first published by investigative jonalists or human rights groups, to learn about human rights violations.
⇢ see also Frames of migration, Narrandum, Tellability, Vicarious storytelling
References and further reading:
Banzer, Roman, Hansjörg Quaderer, and Roy Sommer. 2017. Liechtenstein erzählen I: Demokratische Momente. Zurich: Limmat Verlag.
Baroni, Raphaël. 2014. “Tellability.” In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn, Jan Christoph Meister, John Pier, and Wolf Schmid. URL: https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/30/revisions/338/view.html. Accessed August 17, 2023.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
[RS]
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Narrative integrity
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The focus of narrative integrity “is on the inherent unity of living and narrating a life” (Freeman and Brockmeier 2001, 82). Hence, narrative integrity “emerges in line with specific social, historical and discursive conditions regarding the importance of the individual as well as the importance of accounting for the life one has led in line with an overarching cultural system of ethical and moral values” (Freeman and Brockmeier 2002, 83). Furthermore, narrative integrity is the right of a contributor to his or her own story without distortion, meaning that a third person cannot change the story in a manner deviating from its original meaning or the original intent of the contributor behind the story without the contributor’s consent.
⇢ see also Life story, Stories of migration
References and further reading:
Freeman, Mark, and Jens Brockmeier. 2001. “Autobiographical Identity and the Meaning of the ‘Good Life.’” In Narrative and Identity: Studies in Autobiography, Self and Culture, edited by Jens Brockmeier and Donal Carbaugh, 75–99. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
[BBK / CS / FK]
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Narratives on migration
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Narratives on migration emerge through the strategic framing of migration, usually in terms of humanitarian principles, moral obligations, crises, security threats or, from a right-wing perspective, assaults on national sovereignty and cultural identity. Such top-down narratives adopt an outside (“etic”) perspective on migration, focusing on political, economic, legal, social and cultural issues rather than lived experience. They compete to win broad support, influence public opinion or to gain votes in elections. Digital media facilitate the emergence of new forms of hate speech, the rise of conspiracy theories and the circulation of fake news. They challenge the hegemony of established practices and procedures by providing users with new channels to frame and disseminate information. The concepts of narrative dynamics and the narrative market acknowledge the complex relationships and interdependencies between bottom-up and top-down narratives in the public sphere, while the metaphor of narrative ecologies focuses on how recipients process and negotiate competing narratives.
⇢ see also Crisis, Frames of migration, Narrative dynamics, Narrative ecology, Narrative market, Politics of mobility, Positioning, Solidarity (with migrants), Vicarious storytelling
References and further reading:
Gebauer, Carolin, and Roy Sommer. 2023. “Beyond Vicarious Storytelling: How Level Telling Fields Help Create a Fair Narrative on Migration.” Open Research Europe 3.10: 3–14. URL: https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/3-10#FN3. Date of access: July 30, 2023.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 5, 8
[RS]
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