Public Discourses and Migrant Stories of Integration and Inequality: Language and Power in Biographical Narratives

Abstract

This article considers the role of public discourses in biographical narratives by focusing on discourses of integration and migrant narratives in a contemporary Swedish context. In particular, it explores how public discourses that emphasise migrants’ agency and responsibility to ‘integrate’ help frame the ways in which migrants present themselves. While recognising the importance of biographical research for exploring migrants’ experiences and bringing their voices to the fore, the article argues that we need to pay more attention to how public discourses constrain narratives. It proposes that migrant narratives studied in their social and political context can be used to understand inequalities not only by gaining knowledge of lived experiences of inequalities, but also by considering how dominant discourses help to normalise some of those experiences, and as such may contribute to the reproduction of inequalities.