Untangling Invasive Narratives: Boundaries, Belonging, and Narrative Agency

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the ways that stories about boundaries and belonging are bound up with cultural narrative frames that set the stage for the interpretation of new, or often recreated, accounts. I use the term “invasive narrative,” to refer to the force with which these narratives can invade and shape interpretations of unfolding situations. These disputes are entangled with broader narratives that provoke ambivalence toward open borders, migration, as well as cultural and biological fluidity. Narratives can be “invasive” in another sense when they dwell on the apparent unnatural, intrusive, and unwelcome elements of a species’ presence – a label that can also be used to target native species that have reemerged after a long absence. To explore these concepts, I examine the blurring, substitutions, and differentiations between wild species and human migrant/foreigner/other categories with regard to public debates on conservation, migration, and identity in Poland. These accounts are significant because they promote fear and radically exclusionary concepts of belonging and are linked to acts of violence. Here I examine conflicts between fishermen and conservationists, including the inflammatory comments of an extreme nationalist politician and the illegal killings of protected Baltic grey seals.