Narrating Crisis, Imagining Solidarity: The Narrative Politics of Migration

This article develops a conceptual framework that synthesises post-structuralist discourse theory, affect theory, and narrative political theory to analyse how political actors deploy crisis narratives to shape political imaginaries and moral boundaries by structuring discourses of solidarity and exclusion. This framework proposes three interrelated narrative mechanisms as heuristics for understanding how solidarity is narratively mediated, contested, and reimagined. It focuses on forced migration as a significant arena of contestation, showing that political narratives do more than describe events—they delineate individuals’ belonging to specific groups, identify those entitled to assistance, and categorise others as threats. The article conceptualises crises as affectively charged and discursively produced, reshaping imaginaries and political subjectivities. Through a critical reading of political, philosophical, and literary texts that address forced displacement—one of the most politically charged and morally contested issues of our time—the article identifies three interrelated narrative mechanisms through which solidarity is constructed or foreclosed: (a) security scripting, which frames migrants as threats and legitimates sovereign control; (b) affective national belonging, which ties moral responsibility to cultural or territorial identity; and (c) transnational vulnerability framing, which invokes shared precarity and interdependence to sustain post-national solidarities. The framework contrasts dominant, state-centric narratives—mobilised by sovereigntist actors to reinforce exclusionary identities—with counter-narratives emerging from grassroots solidarities, humanitarian imaginaries, and critical transnational discourse. By situating these dynamics within broader debates in international political theory and critical international relations, the article contributes to understanding how solidarity is narratively produced, contested, and reimagined in an age of displacement and fractured belonging.