Migrants' and refugees' stories have become an essential part of the public debate around immigration. Benjamin Gatling edits interdisciplinary essays that bring together the distinct perspectives of researchers, activists, and policymakers to emphasize how these often-siloed communities can use stories as social science data and advocacy tools.

Ranging from oral history projects to the asylum process to calls for decolonial justice, the contributors' analyses illuminate how migrants' and refugees' personal narratives influence both perceptions and policies. Their merger of perspectives provides a nuanced understanding of migration and emphasizes the importance of how storytelling can foster empathy, challenge stereotypes, and drive social change. At the same time, the essays center migrants' and refugees' voices within public debates and in work done to humanize the reality they face.

Original and multifaceted, Migration Stories provides a vital addition to how we study and frame immigration.

| Back Cover Cover Half title Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction by Benjamin Gatling Part I. The Politics of Migrants and Refugees' Stories 1 The Transformative Power of Storytelling: A Social Force for Social Change by Kiran Singh Sirah 2 Challenging Colonial Paradigms in the Ethnographic Study of Immigrant Stories by William Westerman Part II. Representing Migrants and Refugees through Stories 3 The "Good Refugee" and the Contexts and Constraints of Storytelling by Kate Parker Horigan 4 Narrating Racialized Ideologies in Northern Italy by Sabina M. Perrino 5 Belonging Begins with Us: A Storytelling Intervention by Wendy Feliz and Sheri Klein Part III. Migrants and Refugees' Stories in Institutional and Legal Contexts 6 Political Asylum Stories of Emergency, Delay, Waiting, and Other Temporalities by Amy Shuman and Carol Bohmer 7 A Story of a Perilous Journey from Cuba to the United States by Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Jaime Scott with notes from David Riedel Part IV. Who Gets to Tell Migrants and Refugees' Stories? 8 Changing Horses Midstream: Reframing Public Interest Folklore by Amy E. Skillman 9 Afghan Voices of Hope: Stories of Escaping the Taliban to Unknown Destinations by Gaisu Yari Afterword by Benjamin Gatling Contributors Index | "A joy to read. Gatling creates a dialogue between scholarship on migrants' stories and examples of stories used in advocacy while taking seriously often-overlooked aspects of migrant narratives"
—Ida Tolgensbakk, Norwegian Museum of Cultural History
|Benjamin Gatling is an associate professor of English at George Mason University. He is the author of Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan.