Glossary

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.

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Interdisciplinary narrative research conceives of narrative as a “travelling concept” (see Bal 2002) – that is, “a semiotic phenomenon that transcends disciplines and media” (Ryan 2008 [2005], 344; see also the contributions in Ryan 2004). According to Marie-Laure Ryan (2008 [2005], 345), inquiry into the nature of narrative can take two forms: descriptive and definitional. While the former describes what narrative can do for human beings (e.g., serving as a tool for thinking, sense-making, or constructing and understanding models of reality), the latter seeks to identify the distinctive features that are constitutive of a text’s or medium’s narrative quality, its narrativity (see Abbott 2014).

David Herman (2009) foregrounds the multidimensionality of the concept, acknowledging that narrative can be conceived differently in one or the other discipline, for example “as a cognitive structure or way of making sense of experience, as a type of text [or discourse mode], [or] as a resource for communicative interaction” (x). According to Herman, narrativity can be broken down into four “basic elements” or criteria that a text or medium needs to fulfill in order to be considered a narrative, a story. These are (i) situatedness, (ii) event sequencing, (iii) worldmaking or world disruption, and (iv) qualia or the sense of “what it’s like” (Herman 2009, 9). As an interdisciplinary project, OPPORTUNITIES seeks to broaden understanding of the forms, functions, and effects of narratives in migration discourses.

⇢ see also Fictions of migration, Migrant narrative, Narrative, Narrative analysis, Narrative common good, Narrative dilemma, Narrative dynamics, Narrative ecology, Narrative equity, Narrative goods, Narrative identity, Narrative integrity, Narrative market, Narrative technique, Narratives on migration, Representation of migration

References and further reading:

Abbott, H. Porter. 2014. “Narrativity.” 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/27/revisions/280/view.html.

Bal, Mieke. 2002. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. Toronto, ON et al.: University of Toronto Press.

Herman, David. 2009. Basic Elements of Narrative. Malden, MA et al.: Wiley-Blackwell.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2004. Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2008 [2005]. “Narrative.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative, edited by David Herman, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan, 344–348. London and New York, NY: Routledge.

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A subset of discourse analysis (although not typically framed as such), narrative analysis is the reasoned study of the way in which storytellers shape meaning by building on culturally circulating ideas and forms. Narrative analysis is not limited to a specific medium but examines narratives across the range of media in which stories can be told, from oral conversation to novels and video games. The framework of narrative analysis has been developed since the 1950s by literary scholars and semioticians and, in parallel, by sociolinguists working in the wake of William Labov (1972). Like discourse analysis, narrative analysis focuses on interactions between story and context, where context is defined broadly as the existing narrative forms and techniques adopted by the storyteller, as well as the ideological assumptions with which he or she is in dialogue. From this perspective, the specific genre (e.g., tragedy or horror fiction) in which a story is positioned reflects its larger context. The evaluations voiced or implied by the storyteller are also a part of the narrative’s embedding in a certain context. Although content and form go hand in hand in the narrative production of meaning, narrative analysis places particular emphasis on the how of story – that is, how embracing specific narrative techniques steers meaning in significant (if easily overlooked) ways.

⇢ see also Discourse analysis, Narrative, Narrative analysis, Narrative common good, Narrative dilemma, Narrative dynamics, Narrative ecology, Narrative equity, Narrative goods, Narrative identity, Narrative integrity, Narrative market, Narrative technique, Narratives on migration

References and further reading:

Herman, Luc, and Bart Vervaeck. 2005. Handbook of Narrative Analysis. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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 In a political context the common good is provided by members of a community to all members to satisfy interests everyone shares (Hussain 2018, n. p.). In philosophy, the common good serves as a reference for political reasoning that aims at the common interest – that is, a “shared standpoint for political deliberation” (Hussain 2018, n. p.).

Narratives can become such a common good, turning to a “narrative common good”: The “narrative common good” is the narrative good produced by all and for all. It is more than a collection of narratives; narratives are put into dialogue with one another recognizing that people have the right to their own story. In this sense, the narrative common good can be understood as the peaceful coming together of narratives, building on mutual recognition.

⇢ see also Life story, Stories of migration

References and further reading:

Hussain, Waheed. 2018. “The Common Good.” In The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Eward N. Zalta. URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/common-good/.

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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.

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The term narrative dynamics has its origins in literary theory (Richardson 2002, 2019), where it serves as a synonym for dramaturgy and is thus restricted to text-internal phenomena. The OPPORTUNITIES project has redefined the concept to analyze not the dynamics in narratives, but between narratives. Sommer (2023, 499) describes this extended notion of narrative dynamics, the systematic study of functions, roles, and effects of narratives, as “an emerging field of research that focuses on the connections and interdependencies between different kinds of stories, as well as old and new forms and practices of storytelling and storysharing.” Vital parameters include the relationships between emic and etic narratives, accumulative effects of repetition and resonance, and the role of digital technologies in amplifying and distributing narrative content. More specifically, analytical categories include narrative event modeling and management, narrative purpose and chaff, narrative aggregation and normalization, as well as narrative (re-)alignment and redirection (Sommer 2022, 499–503).

Narrative dynamics can unfold centripetal and centrifugal forces. This metaphorical distinction, which has found its way from physics into many fields of research, including political science and migration studies, allows us to gauge the effects of narrative dynamics, whether intended or unintended (Sommer 2023). This is best demonstrated by using the ethnographic concept of social drama (Turner 1980) which divides crises into four “acts”: a “breach” interrupts the status quo, to be followed by a “crisis,” “redress,” and a form of closure, which can either be “reintegration” (i.e., a return to the status quo ante) or the recognition of “schism” (149). Though originally focused on small-scale conflicts, the notion of social drama can be developed into a scalable model to account for crises involving multiple agents or interests on national and transnational levels. The metaphors of centripetal or centrifugal forces indicate opposing forces that move toward a center, or away from it. With respect to national conversations or international relations, these terms signify unification or disintegration: centripetal narratives seek to manage and contain a crisis; centrifugal narratives, in contrast, seek escalation and disruption. Brexit is an example of how social drama, fueled by toxic narratives, can lead to schism.

Narrative dynamics research is an umbrella term for an emerging interdisciplinary field which includes framing theory and linguistics (Lueg and Lundholt 2021), narrative studies and psychology (Meretoja and Freeman 2023), international relations and communication studies (Miskimmon et al. 2018), and theories of deliberative democracy and the public sphere (Habermas 2022). Important impulses also come from research on conspiracy theories (Butter and Knight 2020) and social media studies (Page 2018) as well as political economy (Fernandes 2017). Analyses focus on the roles and changing functions of narratives in specific historical and cultural contexts, political scenarios and media environments (see, e.g., Gebauer 2023; Sommer and Fábián 2023).

⇢ see also Counter-(master-)narrative dynamics, Crisis narration, Event modeling, Narrative, Narrative ecology, Narratives on migration, Stories of migration, Toxic narrative

References and further reading:

Butter, Michael, and Peter Knight, eds. 2020. Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. London and New York, NY: Routledge.

Fernandes, Sujatha. 2017. Curated Stories. The Uses and Misuses of Storytelling. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gebauer, Carolin. 2023. “German Welcome Culture Then and Now: How Crisis Narration Can Foster (Contested) Solidarity with Refugees.” University of Wuppertal. [Working paper of the OPPORTUNITIES project 101004945 – H2020.]

Habermas, Jürgen. 2022. Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

Lueg, Klarissa, and Marianne Wolff Lundholt, eds. 2021. Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives. London and New York, NY: Routledge.

Meretoja, Hanna, and Mark Freeman. 2023. The Use and Abuse of Stories: New Directions in Narrative Hermeneutics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Miskimmon, Alister, Ben O’Loughlin, and Laura Roselle, eds. 2018. Forging the World: Strategic Narratives and International Relations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Page, Ruth. 2018. Narratives Online: Shared Stories in Social Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richardson, Brian, ed. 2002. Narrative Dynamics: Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frame. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.

Sommer, Roy. 2023. “Migration and Narrative Dynamics.” In The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory, edited by Paul Dawson and Maria Mäkelä, 498–511. New York, NY and London: Routledge.

Sommer, Roy, and Ida Fábián. 2023. “Hungary’s ‘Rebalanced’ Media Ecology: Toxic Narratives on Migration, Gender, and Europe.” University of Wuppertal. [Working paper of the OPPORTUNITIES project 101004945 – H2020.]

Turner, Victor. 1980. “Social Dramas and Stories About Them.” Critical Inquiry 7 (1): 141–168.

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Narrative ecology is the study of narrative environments or ecosystems, i.e., the complex relationships between narratives, media, and audiences. It is inspired by Neil Postman’s (1970) notion of a media ecology and more recent work on strategic narratives (Miskimmon et al. 2013), counter-narratives (Lueg and Lundholt 2021), and narrative dynamics (Sommer 2023), as well as the role of narrative in educational research (Turvey 2013), psychology (McLean 2016, McLean and Breen 2015), and the social sciences (Gabriel 2017). The OPPORTUNITIES project conceptualizes the narrative ecology of migration as a complex discursive system with different levels that interact with each other in bidirectional ways (Caracciolo et al. 2023).

The most abstract level of the narrative ecology of migration is made up of what mobility scholar Tim Cresswell (2006, 55) would refer to as “metanarratives of mobility” – that is, ideas about migration that, while not stories in themselves, function as attractors or catalysts for storytelling (e.g., the notion of economic growth through transnational mobility). We then have cultural narratives on migration, which circulate widely and reach most members of a society or group. These are full-fledged stories with individuated protagonists and a clear progression, but they typically build on more schematic story “templates” such as the ‘rags-to-riches’ theme or notions of the ‘good migrant.’ Some of these cultural narratives express mainstream or dominant ideologies, others – known as counter-narratives (see the entry on “counter-(master-)narrative dynamics”) – challenge such views. Finally, we have stories told by individuals “on the ground.” Such narratives qualify as what researchers in qualitative psychology call “small stories” (Bamberg 2004; Georgakopoulou 2006): they are stories of migration that reflect personal experiences but also typically speak to metanarratives or culturally circulating narratives on migration.

The narrative ecology of migration is influenced by a number of agents, which include people but also political, legal, or cultural institutions. It is, moreover, structured in a relatively hierarchical way, reflecting the popularity and social or political prestige of meta- and cultural narratives on migration. These represent the top level of the ecology, while stories of the individual experience of migration are at the bottom; narratives in media or artistic practices occupy an intermediate position. Interactions are possible both within each level and across levels: If widespread narratives on migration influence a more local instance of storytelling, for example, they produce a top-down effect. In other cases, the influence goes in the opposite direction, with a bottom-up effect: individual stories leave a mark on the cultural level, shifting or complicating the understanding of a metanarrative. This is certainly less common than the top-down scenario, but far from impossible, for the narrative ecology is constantly evolving in response to both external events and interactions within the system.

⇢ see also Attitudes, beliefs, and values, Counter-(master-)narrative dynamics, Crisis narration, Narrative dynamics, Narratives on migration, Scale, Stories of migration

References and further reading:

Bamberg, Michael. 2004. “Talk, Small Stories, and Adolescent Identities.” Human Development 47: 366–69.

Caracciolo, Marco, Carolin Gebauer, and Roy Sommer. 2023. “Migration and Narrative Ecologies: Public and Media Discourse in the EU.” Ghent University and University of Wuppertal. [Working paper of the OPPORTUNITIES project 101004945 – H2020].

Cresswell, Tim. 2006. On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World. New York: Routledge.

Gabriel, Yannis. 2017. “Narrative Ecologies and the Role of Counter-Narratives: The Case of Nostalgic Stories and Conspiracy Theories.” In Counter-Narratives and Organization, edited by Sanne Frandsen, Timothy Kuhn, and Marianne Wolff Lundholt, 208–229. New York, NY and London: Routledge.

Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2006. Small Stories, Interaction and Identities. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

McLean, Kate C. 2016. The Co-Authored Self: Family Stories and the Construction of Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McLean, Kate C., and Andrea V. Breen. 2015. “Selves in a World of Stories During Emerging Adulthood.” In The Oxford Handbook of Emerging Adulthood, edited by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, 385–400. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Miskimmon, Alister, Ben O’Loughlin, and Laura Roselle. 2013. Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order. New York, NY and London: Routledge.

Postman, Neil. 1970. “The Reformed English Curriculum.” In High School 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Secondary Education, edited by Alvin C. Eurich, 160-168. New York, NY et al.: Pitman Publishing Corporation.

Sommer, Roy. 2023. “Migration and Narrative Dynamics.” In The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory, edited by Paul Dawson and Maria Mäkelä, 498–511. New York, NY and London: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003100157-46.

Turvey, Keith. 2013. Narrative Ecologies: Teachers as Pedagogical Toolmakers. London and New York, NY: Routledge.

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Narrative identity is shorthand for narrative’s contribution to processes of identity formation. Increasingly, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists are recognizing that storytelling plays a crucial role in the construction of personal and collective identity. Not only do we tell stories to convey information or entertain one another, but the narratives we share help define who we are by positioning the storyteller vis-à-vis existing cultural frameworks. At the individual level, the self is bound up with stories that mirror our past experiences and projections into the future. In social contexts, we perform an identity by telling stories in ways that suggest, more or less deliberately, our political beliefs and ethical values. In discussions on narrative and identity in sociolinguistics and psychology, it is customary to distinguish between “big” and “small” stories. Big stories are elaborate narratives, such as one may find in an autobiography or life story interview, that claim to paint a comprehensive picture of one’s identity. Small stories, by contrast, are fleeting narratives that emerge in everyday conversation and that also contain important information as to the storyteller’s identity. In different ways, both kinds of narrative are involved in the formation and performance of identity.

⇢ see also Life story, Narrative analysis, Migration and identity, Attitudes, beliefs, and values

References and further reading:

Bruner, Jerome. 1986. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bamberg, Michael. 2007. “Stories: Big or Small. Why Do We Care?” In Narrative: State of the Art, edited by Michael Bamberg, 165–74. Philadelphia, PA and Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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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.

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The economic metaphor of the narrative market focuses on the competition between top-down narratives in the public sphere. It pays attention to the emergence of new competitors, i.e., new narratives on migration and integration. It explores national narrative dynamics in different EU member states and relates them to transnational debates. The metaphor of the narrative market is the conceptual foundation for the analogy between the level playing field (economics) and the level telling field (discourse).

⇢ see also Level Telling Field, Narrative ecology

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