Narratives: a review of concepts, determinants, effects, and uses in migration research

Abstract

Narratives are increasingly cited by scholars, international organisations, NGOs, and governments as one of the most powerful factors in migration politics and policymaking today. However, narratives are typically conceptually underspecified, with relatively little known about why some narratives become publicly popular or the nature of their effects. This article reviews recent scholarly advances to specify what narratives are and to offer a novel theoretical framework to better explain variation in their public popularity and effects. It is argued that the popularity of a narrative, defined as a generalisable, constructed and selective depiction of reality across time, is determined by a combination of contextual factors, such as issue complexity and salience, the plausibility of the narrative and the traits of the recipient of the narrative. These findings are relevant for policymakers and, particularly, communicators. However, although significant work has gone into explaining how narratives affect migration policymaking, the often-assumed effects of narratives on attitudes to immigration and migration behaviour have rarely been robustly tested.