Decolonising Narratives: Refugee Agency in Storytelling and Data Sovereignty
Original framing: “Life beyond the stats: The refugees reclaiming their stories” — openDemocracy
The article does not delve into the structural barriers that prevent refugees from accessing storytelling platforms, such as language barriers, lack of resources, and restrictive immigration policies. It also does not explore the role of technology in both facilitating and complicating narrative sovereignty.
Low structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
Produced by openDemocracy, a platform committed to investigative journalism and advocacy. The piece challenges the dominant humanitarian industrial complex, which often reduces refugees to statistics for funding and policy purposes. The unthinkable here is the radical idea that refugees could be co-authors of their own narratives, not just subjects of them.
Indigenous data sovereignty movements, such as those articulated by Māori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, emphasise the importance of self-representation. Refugees, like Indigenous peoples, face erasure when their stories are appropriated by external actors. Traditional oral storytelling practices in many cultures serve as a model for reclaiming narrative agency.
The struggle for narrative sovereignty among refugees is a microcosm of broader battles for epistemic justice.