“The Story’s in the Telling” Using Narrative Genre as a Lens to Explore the Well-Being and Life Projects of Unaccompanied Young Migrants and Refugees

This article develops the narratological approach to well-being research through the novel use of literary theory. It is the first article to explore the role of narrative genre in how unaccompanied refugee and migrant youth expressed their life projects and experiences of confronting the challenges and opportunities of the migration and asylum regime. It argues that narrative is important to understanding their life projects and well-being needs, as well as to how they understand themselves in relation to society and how likely they are to interact (or not) with support structures. Five main narrative genres are discussed that were encountered in mixed-methods ethnographic fieldwork with over 100 individuals in England and Italy: (1) tragedy, (2) comedy, (3) epic, (4) confession, and (5) fantasy. Th e article interrogates the value of “truth” in these narratives and concludes that storytelling is fundamentally linked to the sense of ontological security, which is vital to the youths’ subjective well-being.