Refugees' Stories: Empathy, Agency, and Solidarity

Story-telling is a significant practice for refugees. Stories of persecution are a crucial component of the evidence on which claims for asylum are based. They are also deployed by those who seek to foster greater solidarity with refugees – journalists, activists, refugees themselves. But what kind of solidarity is involved in ‘solidarity with refugees’? I answer this with reference to two models: political and expressional solidarity, and draw out the understudied relationships between stories and empathy, and empathy and solidarity. While there is evident value in stories, I argue that storytelling as a practice of solidarity faces both a practical and a normative tension. Furthermore, to the extent that these have the potential to undermine the agency of refugees, they raise important issues for solidarity movements.