Rolling Blackouts: voicing the other micro-narratives

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, a dense graphic non-fiction by Sarah Glidden, chronicles the predicament of the refugees and the socio-political circumstances of the Middle East after the devastating Iraq War. The use of graphic journalism to recount Glidden and The Globalist’s journalistic journey raises question about the objectivity of this graphic reportage. However, the subjective stance of the first-person narrator does not provide guiding commentary on the unheard micro-narratives of the refugees. The juxtaposition of these unpublished narratives alongside the humanitarian metanarrative structure of the UN, reveals the homogenisation and dehistoricisation of the narratives of the displaced. Focusing on these micro-narratives provided in the book, this article argues that Rolling Blackouts challenges the Western universal narrative structure, which subsumes the refugees’ micro-narratives by erasing their historical, cultural, and political specificities and creates a space to examine the Western media’s role in strengthening the over-arching metanarrative. This analysis will thus help to assess Glidden’s position as a Western journalist reporting about the Middle East and her aim to lend voice to the unheard stories of the refugees of the Middle East.