Narrative and ethical (in)action: creating spaces of resistance with refugee-storytellers in the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp

This paper explores how a multimodal narrative methodology can open a creative, relational and safe space, in which refugee-storytellers negotiate their positioning within racialised power imbalances. Personal narratives that facilitate storytellers’ agency have a potential to empower and elicit social change. When refugees are denied their right to claim/speak/act, the act of narrating becomes a vehicle for social change. Creative workshops delivered in the Calais ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in 2016–17 enabled us to co-construct a relational space with refugee participants, based on the principle of ethical hesitancy. In this paper we argue that the relational space offered possibilities for refugee storytellers to resist and challenge the representation of refugee stories, whilst giving rise to ethically important moments. These moments provide important perspectives on how practitioners and researchers can use narrative processes in creating spaces of resistance and social change with refugee participants.