Gendering migration narratives

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to explore gendered construction of agency in and through personal narratives in the context of migration with a group of young Turks in the UK. Narratives relating the initial phase of migration were analysed via a systematic comparison regarding the construction of themes, the structure of narratives and performance in male and female migration stories. In men’s narratives, protagonists’ personal agency -their capacity to act on resources to adapt- appears to centre on their ability to distance themselves from vulnerabilities. However, preserving the protagonist from vulnerabilities to assign him an agentic position restricts the narrator’s ability to tell varied stories. In young women’s narratives, vulnerabilities are constructed as the main basis for their present identities and capabilities. Although this construction provides young women with a flexible position as a narrator and a protagonist, personal agency is constructed in a split manner.

Discursive navigation of employable identities in the narratives of former refugees

“…Co-constructing an enactment of employability with interlocutors, recruitment gatekeepers, interviewers, employers, and colleagues requires skilful navigation of more and less agentive roles within discourse. The narrative taking up, ceding, and otherassignment (or -denial) of agentivity, both as narrator and storyworld protagonist, allow speakers to locate themselves within the social world, relative to social structure and wider Discourses, thus orienting to dynamic and various identity positions (Duranti, 2004;Schiffrin, 1996b;Tanyas, 2016). This is true of any jobseeker, interviewee, or employee.…”

“…These interviews have also been used to explore reported experiences of resettlement and othering in the narratives of migrants and former refugees (e.g. Colic-Peisker, 2009;Collie et al, 2010;De Fina, 2003;Eastmond, 2007;Hatoss, 2012;Paoletti & Johnson, 2007;Revis, 2015;Tanyas, 2016). The flexibility that this approach to interviewing affords is well-suited to research with vulnerable communities such as former refugees, as it allows for responsivity to the dynamic situated context of the interview and the coconstruction of meaning.…”

“…Challenges involved in negotiating agency for migrants and refugees has been explored, both in the telling of migration stories and in the practicalities of integration. Tanyas (2016) explored the stories told by young Turkish migrants to the UK, and, despite similar migration experiences, found gendered differences in the ways that the young women and men construct personal agency, and position themselves with regards to vulnerabilities. The young men's narratives appeared to distance their protagonists from vulnerabilities and allowed them to claim personal agency in overcoming their migration challenges.…”

“…Agency becomes relevant in my participants' narratives in two ways: in their role as narrator (the way they claim or reject agency through the process of telling) and in their role as character (the way they present themselves as characters within their own narratives or storyworlds) (McKendy, 2006;Schiffrin, 1996b;Tanyas, 2016). Narrators have the ability to guide the vantage points from which the narrated events can be viewed: "that of the omniscient narrator, that of the witnessing narrator, and that of the character" (De Fina, 2003, p. 95) Each of these vantage points can be dynamically taken up by narrators to negotiate agentive or non-agentive identity positions, as well as simultaneously contradictory ones (e.g.…”

“…In telling stories, speakers frame and reframe events and characters, creating meaning and shaping interpretation of the storyworld. That is, the narrator (consciously or unconsciously) arranges, selects, and neglects information to guide inference, and in doing so can claim or cede agency through both the role of a character within the narrative, and through the act of narrating itself (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005;Schiffrin, 1996b;Tanyas, 2016).…”