Migration and Identity through Creative Writing

Front matter

IMISCOE Research Series L

Alka Kumat Anna Triandafyllidou Fditors

Migration and Identity through Creative Writing

Preface

Although the back-story of the birthing of this edited collection has been told in some detail in the introductory chapter of this book, it is important to highlight a few important aspects in this Preface. The precursor to this book was the book-project, titled The StOries Project: Strangers to Ourselves, envisioned and born during a conversation between the lead editors, Alka Kumar and Anna Triandafyllidou. This happened during the first stages of our strange and unprecedented COVID-19 times; the book-project was subsequently developed and implemented at the CERC program at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto during the remaining months of 2021.

In terms of the how-to, a call to invite interdisciplinary graduate students at Canadian universities was announced; and following a competitive process of recruitment, a nine-month timeline was kick-started in July 2021 to March 2022; and the engagement process with the project participants — now authors of the chapters contained in this edited collection — was somewhat on the lines of a graduate seminar, but also different (see Chap. | for more details). Our objective was to explore the potential of personal storytelling, narrative inquiry and creative writing to examine the lived experience of Canadians to generate new insights into complex and multigenerational migration histories, and contested notions of diversity, race and identity in Canada today.

The group of twenty plus selected graduate students came together weekly in a shared (virtual) space of engagement and conversation during summer and fall 2021, and we brainstormed using structured discussions, based on academic and literary readings, and audio-visual resources. Co-creation and reflexive practices among peers were strategies that were encouraged greatly, and we shared our experiences and our stories; we collaborated to give form to our thoughts and our writings with the help of reflection prompts and by employing several other thinking and writing strategies. As a group, we aimed and managed to create a nonhierarchical as well as a brave space, and many of the stories in this book were seeded and born here, while other family stories, previously deeply buried, were excavated; and without the nine-month process of engagement that was at its core, there would be no book. Given this seminar space became our safe ‘online’ home vi Preface for a few months to be united with each other as a special community — while ironically, we also lived our ‘real’ COVID-lives isolating from family and friends — there were both abundant cathartic tears and experiences of bonding through solidarity as we found that our story-sharing resonated with our colleagues and our peers. This process also led to an in-person creative writing workshop with Canadian internationally acclaimed author MG Vassanji that took place at the CERC offices in November 2021.

In addition to the above, the scholarly and methodological imperative behind this story-telling initiative and book-project was to centre lived experience, narrative inquiry and personal voice to explore the potential of alternative methods of knowledge production in migration. Our intentions were not only to understand more deeply, and to mine, the potential of creative and non-academic writing forms-like creative non-fiction, memoir, reflective essays and autoethnography- to get close to authentic and layered life-experiences of individuals, as impacted by migratory movements in past or recent times; we also wanted to explore theoretical frameworks and methodological parameters that would help us shift Eurocentric paradigms, the objective being to use counter-narrative for the purpose of decolonising the production and mobilization of knowledge. As the stories you read will reveal, this project and the book that has emerged from it, also became about re-visioning and meaning-making in relation to identity construction through ‘workshopping’ our writing in collaborative settings.

Toronto Metropolitan University Alka Kumar

Toronto, ON, Canada Anna Triandafyllidou

Acknowledgements

The time to write a note of Acknowledgement is a special milestone in the journey that produces a book, and as editors, it is certainly a grateful place to be in. It is a significant landmark for a number of reasons. Not only does it signify completion, it also creates a space for reflection; to think about lessons learned, mistakes made; and a chance to look ahead, plan to do better next time, and to dream about the next steps in an ongoing journey.

Most importantly though, and especially in the case of an edited collection, it is an opportunity to offer thanks to all the contributors whose commitment and hard work made it possible for us all to arrive at our destination together. In fact, in the case of this edited hybrid collection, Migration and Identity Through Creative Writing: StOries: Strangers to Ourselves, as the core at its heart is personal storytelling, we are especially grateful to all the contributing authors (let’s call them story-owners too) for allowing themselves to be vulnerable and open in the sharing of their hidden and untold ‘migration’ stories. As editors, we appreciate the sharing of authentic experiences that came from each author, now presented in the stories collected in this volume. These stories are often of buried (or silent) inter-generational trauma, stemming from experiences of individuals leaving old homes with their families during childhood or youth, and being compelled to create new ones elsewhere; or having to continuously respond to oft-asked questions like ‘where are you really from’; or seeking answers for oneself, to the “who am I’ question. The stories told also celebrate the fact that these writers own the fact that they come equally from many places, and that it’s not about being either from ‘there’ or being ‘here’ but rather they choose their own happy place as one that’s from everywhere and anywhere, simultaneously and at once.

We thank all the wonderful authors who took this leap of faith with us to participate in an innovative and dynamic project and helped co-create its unique journey and its story. All authors come from an academic standpoint, being graduate students — current or recent — and many of them were first-time dabblers in creative writing; given that, the stories are really well written, moving and powerful, but the reader must ascertain that for themselves by engaging with them. It speaks to the power of personal writing and the sense of agency it brought to us all, individually,

Vii viii Acknowledgements and as a group; certainly, it was a liberating experience for us all who live mostly in a research space and undertake writing tasks in academic and scholarly modes, and everyone appreciated the legitimacy and space the StOries Project provided — to write ‘differently.’ All these 20 story-chapters run from Parts II to VII in the Table of Contents.

As indicated earlier, in our imagination, this book-project was experimental, dynamic, and iterative; and there was a core of fluidity integral to our method, based on its exploratory nature. The plan was for the collection to contain both academic and scholarly chapters grounded in migration themes that emerge from the stories, and explicate them through situating them in relevant literature; and there are story-chapters contributed by each author who participated in the project. In line with this objective, Chaps. 1 and 2 are an exploration of relevant migration literature that exemplifies aligned migration tropes and trends, as well as thematic, theoretical, and methodological frameworks that help ground this edited collection.

Special thanks and our appreciation must go to the editors of the two chapters that comprise Part VIII: ‘Reflections, Conclusions, and New Beginnings, Ozlem Atar, Esra Ari, and Natasha Damiano — also project participants and authors of their own story-chapters. Having its inception at an unprecedented time in history, with new unknowns unfolding on an everyday basis, COVID-19 became an important protagonist and shaping influence for us all; and we felt that this book needed to tell the story of how it was impacting project participants, i.e., the authors of this collection. As indicated above, this book was always envisioned as a hybrid collectioncarrying academic and non-academic writing forms (in creative and literary styles); it made sense then, to include an academic chapter on the pandemic.

With true generosity and courage, in Chap. 23, titled ‘Pandemic Thoughts: Life in the Times of COVID-19,’ Ozlem and Esra collaboratively stepped up to this tall task of collaborating on writing this scholarly chapter on the experiential aspects of the pandemic. In addition to taking on full editorial responsibilities — of conceptualizing, writing, and editing this chapter — they also took on coordinating roles by reaching out to all project participants to gather their pandemic stories. We have no doubt that our readers will appreciate the contextual nature of this chapter, and its experiential flavour, as well as the methodological framework of collaborative autoethnography the editors employ to connect the dots between the personal, the social, and the political.

Chapter 24, ‘Becoming Through Story: The Relational Processes of Writing and Creating the StOries Project, the second scholarly chapter in Part VIII (and the last of the four academic chapters we have in total), written by Natasha Damiano, is an insightful and complex articulation of the process and the behind-the-scenes journey we went on together as a way to arrive at this edited collection. In line with the exploratory and iterative stance that this book represents, Natasha accepted to take on the writing of this concluding chapter; and her philosophical ruminations take her in several important directions; some of the questions she raises relate to knowledge paradigms in migration being entrenched in colonization; the need to centre story as method; and the role of language in making sense of sensory experience. Being an anthropologist, through her reflections, she makes sense of the

Acknowledgements ix

‘field-notes’ maintained by project participants to document the unique ways in which each individual recorded their ‘experiencing’ of different life-stages of the project; while also being analytical about the activities that writers engaged in that were instrumental in processing their lived experiences, and tell their story. We thank Natasha not only for her thoughtful reflections on so many topics that are central to the arguments developed in this book, but also for the extensive tasks needing much coordination that she performed single-handedly.

In their roles as editors of these two academic chapters in Part VIII, Esra Ari, Ozlem Atar, and Natasha Damiano are an integral part of the editorial team, and we thank them for their valuable contributions. We also thank especially Jenny Osorio; and Arunkumar Rajavel for providing support, editorial as well as compilationrelated. We appreciate the diligence and hard work Karen Young put in, to document and record on a regular basis, the proceedings of our workshop sessions during the first phase of the STOries Project.

Most significantly, this book could not have become a reality without the labour of love that each and every author in this book committed to with excitement and with passion when they embraced the challenge and the opportunity of sharing their unique story of migration, and for this, we will always be grateful.

Finally, this edited collection, Migration and Identity Through Creative Writing: StOries: Strangers to Ourselves and the ‘workshopping’ the StOries Project that preceded it, came to life as a result of generous financial support received from CERC in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University which in turn is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Envisioned and initiated by the Chair of CERC, Anna Triandafyllidou, it received administrative support from the CERC team, and for all these blessings we are truly appreciative. The project also created for us all a unique and stellar opportunity for an all-day Writing Workshop with internationally acclaimed Canadian writer, MG Vassanji, and we thank CERC for this too.

Contents

PartI Setting the Stage

Between Critical Inquiry and Creative Writing Anna Triandafyllidou and Alka Kumar

Experiments and Interventions: Re-envisioning Qualitative Research Methods in Migration ...

Alka Kumar

Part II Identity Negotiations, Othering the Self Esra Ari

Ozlem Atar

Bibi Baksh

Part II Am I a Work in Progress?

Jenny Osorio

Chelsea Nyomi Richards

Owen Guo xi xii Contents

PartIV An Ode to Our Loved Ones Far Away, Some Messages in a Bottle

Galina Liou

10 Dear BaAWapan..2 66 224.644555 ebb Go ee ede ahead Reeds bees Sadaf Khajeh

IE WCRI i 2o.6-sbcbbckd op he hb ES Bare ee a EERO DA Melanie Zuzarte

Christian Hui (he/they; Undetectable)

Part V Border Trespassing, Citizenship as Process

Arunkumar Rajavel

Nabila Kazmi

Part VI Longings and Belongings, and the Idea of Home...

Sarah Ostapchuck

17 Making a Place for Our Selves: A Story About Longing, Natasha Damiano

18 Things Lost, Things Not Lost, and the Ones That Were Found onthe WAY 64.25 h let ohaceee need seen we aeber eee Heedeawe Negin Saheb Javaher

Part VII Histories, Stories, and Complicated Lives

Brianna Jennings

Thabata da Costa

21 My PhD Life, and Connecting the Dots Between Here AU VUERE ck oes Chae e shed a Geeks edt A T ETT Alka Kumar

Contents xiii

22 The Research Memoir of an Intra-EU Migrant Who Anna Triandafyllidou

Part VIII Reflections, Conclusions, and New Beginnings

Esra Ari and Ozlem Atar

24 Becoming Through Story: The Relational Processes Natasha Damiano

Part I Setting the Stage

Chapter 1 A Between Critical Inquiry and Creative gree Writing Anna Triandafyllidou and Alka Kumar

1.1 An Introduction

Migration is rich with stories-of ongoing journeys, destinations and returns, of wanderlust and the co-existence of multiple identity narratives. It often is about individuals and families seeking fresh opportunities, second chances for building new lives away from their original home, in an elsewhere far away. These migratory movements, often transnational, are also about paradoxical realities of living continuously in in-between spaces, experiencing at once loss, belonging, and the birth of new possibilities. Memories and exclusions are other popular migration tropes; the point then, the experience of migration, as unique or universal as it might be, is always rooted in everyday stories of lived experience, of real people striving to create new beginnings and tell stories that are both precarious and exciting, real and imagined. The book Migration and Identity through Creative Writing: StOries: Strangers to Ourselves, is a hybrid edited collection that emerges from an interdisciplinary migration-themed project that began in July 2021, at the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) Program in Migration and Integration, at Toronto Metropolitan University, in Canada. Initiated with the objective of giving voice to the multiplicities and layers, nuances and contrarieties that co-exist at the heart of migration narratives, it was created as a virtual project against the backdrop of COVID-19. Further, this book-project is also inspired by the fractious environment initiated by pandemic inequities, as well as the racism and the social isolation it gave rise to. The first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic became a time when paradoxical narratives began to emerge-of communities being impacted differently based on the privilege they had or lacked; and diverse population groups being

A. Triandafyllidou - A. Kumar (>) Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON, Canada

e-mail: alka.kumar@torontomu.ca

© The Author(s) 2024 3 A. Kumar, A. Triandafyllidou (eds.), Migration and Identity through Creative inexorably connected through participating in a unique human experience. ‘We’re all in this together’ became an oft-cited war cry while the need to build solidarities and support networks with each other rather than being separated by differences was emphasised.

This project lives at the intersection of the ‘experiential’ and the ‘narrative’ in Migration Studies; and contributors are Canadian researchers and emerging academics and practitioners in migration and other disciplines (with intersecting interests in migration). Although the stories are produced in Canada-several situated here too-they span geographical locations, personal memory mindscapes, and complex political and social issues rooted in countries as varied as Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad, India, Iran, Italy, Taiwan, China, Turkey. This duality makes the collection relevant for Canadian researchers, academics, and general readers; and also beyond-to an international readership interested in migration, both from a scholarly perspective and from a popular culture standpoint.

1.2 The Canadian Context

Given the collection’s grounding in dominant articulations of ‘Canadian’ multiculturalism and immigration policy, and in specific notions around diversity and integration that shape the lived experience stories told by story owners, a few specific contextual considerations are highlighted below.’ Some of the explication that follows in this section may be particularly helpful for readers-international and otherswho have a cursory understanding of the Canadian context, and would like to learn more. This may be helpful as the following conceptualizations of migration and integration trajectories; and of intergenerational dilemmas they often lead to, serve as the backdrop to several stories included in this collection.

1.2.1 Multiculturalism as Official Policy in Canada

For instance, it may be helpful to note that multiculturalism-oftentimes the contextual backdrop in the stories and personal essays collected in this volume, and at other times situated centre-stage- has long been enshrined as official policy in Canada; it came into effect through the Canadian Multiculturalism Act in the 1970s, and became law in 1988. Several studies have teased out dilemmas and complexities inherent in this framework as well as ways in which lives of immigrants and nonimmigrants in Canada are impacted as a result of this policy (Berry, 2011; Ghosh, 1994; Halder, 2012; Imbert, 2017; Joppke, 2017; Kymlicka, 1995, 2010; Moodley & Adam, 2012; Naidu, 1995). Contrary to its conceptualization and implications in other societies globally, multiculturalism in Canada is intentioned towards equality for all; and the provision of rights and freedoms to minority communities to protect and preserve their differences, their heritage and cultures, religion and languages, while celebrating their diversities and facilitating their meaningful integration into Canadian society, including in the labour market- through Canada’s employment equity policies. Further, not in the manner of the American “melting pot,’ Canada’s integration framework (and model) encourages ethnic and cultural communities to preserve and promote their cultural practices, their heritage, and their differentiated identities, just as individualized pieces stand out in a “mosaic.” It is a big topic-and has immense potential to impact the everyday lives of individuals and groups- and is made sense of by people, based on their specific situated-ness.

Clarifying this notion further, a scholar’s disciplinary orientation shapes their views about multiculturalism, and as a policy framework, a newcomer to Canada may see it as full of promise with potential to reassure them of their human rights. Scholars and academics have defined it variously, discussing if it is a single doctrine, or if it has been slowly dying (Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). Over the last few decades, and based on the climate of the times, scholars from multiple disciplinary standpoints have argued about its role in shaping (and being shaped by) discourses around cultural differences and Canadian identity, immigration, diversity and democracy, citizenship and human rights, and other big narratives that shape the world we inhabit. Critics have discussed its relevance, and the backlash to it, including observing that despite its liberal connotations it has little power to enforce equity or to assure migrants of anything substantive, like, economic rights, which is what they most need (Bannerji, 1996). On the other hand, any rights framework is perhaps a good thing, as within it, an institutional or legal structure exists that individuals can access when the redressal of wrongdoing, or legal recourse, is needed. To understand discourses, and everyday realities, concerning integration and belonging, racism and discrimination, or even the key considerations in Canada’s immigration policy and governance, multiculturalism is not only a useful theoretical tool for analysis but also has practical applicability in the every-day, as well as implications for policy and practice on the ground.

1.2.2 Visible Minority: Names and Labels and Their Impact on Identity-Making

Views and perceptions about immigrants that fit them into neat one-dimensional economic (and social) paradigms often construct individuals and communities in a monolithic, either/or representation. For example, it became quite clear during the StOries Project discussions, that legal citizenship on paper does not always grant the right to be recognised as “Canadian,” particularly if an individual belongs to a visible minority group. There are other ‘signs’ of belonging including phenotype, name (foreign sounding or not), accent, only to name a few. Generally, in conversation when a reference is made to “Canadians,” the (default) implication is not to citizenship but rather to an Anglo-saxon or French ancestry. Naturally ‘Canadians’ is a malleable category as it may simultaneous include those of European ancestry in general but exclude some Europeans (e.g. from southern or eastern Europe) compared to others (from northern or western Europe or from Australia and New Zealand.) There are multiple layers of identity and recognition as is common in most major immigrant receiving countries, which include not just the legal form of citizenship but also the phenotypical appearance, name and accent of people. As Ager and Strang (2008) have argued in their work on integration, there are different layers and aspects of belonging and of becoming integrated and these are recognised in interaction with other members of the community. In countries like Canada however, where the path to citizenship is relatively straightforward (three years of residence with permanent resident status are required to apply for citizenship and the state makes it a priority for new immigrants to become citizens when the time comes (see for instance Hou & Picot, 2021), the dominant narrative of welcome and inclusion often stands out in sharp contrast with experiences of discrimination that individuals face in the every-day. Our work in this volume seeks to elaborate on the complex intertwining of these different layers of identity and belonging and of feeling ‘integrated.’

Dismantling and interrogating the subtle forms of exclusion or discrimination can help us navigate and critique hidden assumptions and biases widely prevalent in popular culture. This can also be potentially useful in deconstructing the impact such labeling and terms of representation have upon newcomers’ constructions of self, as well as their self-esteem. For example, terms like “visible minority,” “immigrant,” “migrant,” or “newcomer” — used to describe or address this cohort- shapes not only their self-perceptions, but also others’ assumptions, and negative stereotyping of them; and this often creates homogenizing and totalizing mainstream narratives in relation to immigrants and immigration. These play a role in further enhancing migrant individuals’ sense of a marginalised outsider-status (Maxim, 1992; Ogbuagu, 2012).

Although such forms of identity-making are most powerfully experienced by individuals who are new entrants in the host culture, oftentimes, as years roll on and they become legal citizens, and are meaningfully employed, such labels stick, confirming their minority status; such labels-carrying negative biases- become further normalised due to the color of people’s skin, their accents, or their need to sustain their bi-cultural identity (Haiying, 2005; Tafarodi et al., 2002) through continuing to maintain their cultural practices, and their religious traditions, like celebrating their festivals or going regularly to their places of worship.

Canadian multiculturalism may be seen to lie at the heart of these tensions and gaps because it promises inclusion with space for diversity at the individual and collective level (for example, through aspiring for an integration model, like a ‘mosaic, not a ‘melting pot’) but then it does not fully deliver on the promise, particularly for those who belong to a ‘visible minority’. As Will Kymlicka notes, multiculturalism has offered in Canada an incomplete process of ‘citizenization’ as minorities have often suffered a stigma of not belonging, whether because not contributing hard enough to society or because they are ‘citizens of convenience’ (Kymlicka, 2022: 25.)

The vocabulary used in Canada is telling of contradictions that reflect both a proactive migration policy and the history of an immigrant nation and a settler colonial state. Thus immigrants are understood as different from migrants — where immigrants are those who come with a perspective to stay and usually have entered the country as permanent residents, while migrants are those who entered with a temporary status and are expected to leave. It is though now clear that this distinction largely no longer holds as even in Canada many people arrive with a temporary status and then transition to permanent (Akbar, 2022). Citizens and permanent residents of a non-European or non-white background are labelled as visible or racialized minorities. The term is preferred to ethnic minorities (used in Britain) or immigrants, guest workers (Germany), people of immigrant origin (France) people from outside the EU (extracomunitari) (Italy) or alocthones (the Netherlands) as used in different European countries for instance. Visible or racialized minorities signal non-whiteness as a common feature and the experience of being perceived as non-fully Canadian, this regardless of their legal status. The term is truly more flexible and accommodates how different communities may define their identity at the intersection of ethnicity, race, religion or other attributes.

The notion of visible or racialized minority and the overall approach of multiculturalism, while in principle positive and laudable, may turn into a double edged sword. Through its official mandate to encourage (even promote) cultural diversity, multicultural policy often ends up congealing migrant identities in specifically ethnic moulds, precluding possibilities of fully embracing a Canadian identity, especially for migrants who might choose to do so. In other words, ethnic minority status is often thrust upon migrant individuals and groups even when they themselves do not own up to occupying such a space on the periphery, and have moved beyond such a personal subjectivity. For the 1.5 generation (those who migrated to Canada with their parents as children or youth), as well as for second and later generations, the impacts of assumptive and racist behaviours they experience can be more intense and deeply negative when compared with their parents’ generation. Being born or raised in Canada, (or both), their situated-ness and status in Canada defines their sense of self; and their claims to a Canadian identity, as well as their attachment and belonging to this country and their home, is very different from that of their parents as Canada is the only home they have had. Experiencing racism, discrimination, even an outsider status in such a context has enhanced potential for personal and social conflict.

1.2.3 The (Problematic) Politics of Representation

Deconstructing this politics of representation further, one established view perceives migrants as a monolithic group that takes jobs away from more deserving and entitled Canadians while the other perception sees in them a necessary resource that can make a useful contribution to the Canadian economy. Such dualities in perceptions relating to newcomers create a binary wherein individuals are often situated on two opposite ends of a spectrum (van de Ven & Voitchovsky, 2015). Besides, such a binary is problematic also because these two views become separated and compartmentalized spaces into which individuals and groups are often forced to fit in, with no real options of being situated in the more nuanced spaces that lie in between.

As a result of these broad strokes, the specificity of a life and singularity of the story replete with everyday lived experience of success and failure, is lost (Ogbuagu, 2012; Hébert et al., 2010; Wilkinson, 2013). Further, such grand narratives lead to simplifications, generalizations, and patterns that create rigid and homogenous categories that get locked in popular imagination and culture. As well, they lead to stereotypical representations and assumptions that are often fixed and one-dimensional (Krishnamurti, 2013; Mogadime et al., 2012). These two mindsets co-exist, both indicative of racial biases, namely, immigrants viewed as resource that will perform jobs “Canadians” don’t want to work at, and when they get good jobs being seen as outsiders who steal good opportunities from more deserving Canadians (Berry, 2011; Palmer, 1996).

Many migrants, new to the Canadian context, are offended by this turn of events because they know well their own expertise. They are well aware too that such bluecollar minimum wage jobs in call centres or flipping burgers, or working as security guards and health care aides, are not the jobs they came to Canada to work at (Danso, 2007). Even when viewed as respectable here when compared with perceptions of people back home, these forms of employment often make them feel humiliated, underutilised and unable to contribute in ways they believe themselves capable of or qualified for (Chatterjee, 2015). Immigrant professionals encounter other significant challenges apart from unemployment, for example, underemployment, and over-qualification (Bluestein et al., 2013; Ng & Shan, 2010; Reitz, 2001; Thompson et al., 2013), deskilling, and devaluation (Guo & Shan, 2013). Their lack of job search experience in this new cultural context is a major barrier in and of itself, and certain prescriptive methods and behaviors are recommended by settlement organizations in order to help them achieve success (Akkaymak, 2017; Guerrero & Rothstein, 2012).

1.3 Narrative Braiding of the Experiential and the Scholarly Through Creative Writing

This edited collection brings together storytelling and self-narrative, creative writing and narrative enquiry to explore a variety of topics in migration from an experiential lens. The volume is both hybrid and multi-genre as it contains both scholarly chapters grounded in academic migration literature, as well as personal essays and creative non-fiction. The objective was for contributors- trained as researchers and academics, being current or recently graduated students- to employ creative writing formats and techniques to tell their personal migration stories. These 20 narratives, written primarily in a creative non-fiction and personal essay mode, were initiated and seeded through using a collective process of ‘workshopping.’

Being both personal and sociological, political and intergenerational, many of these stories are also loosely informed by autoethnographic perspectives and principles. However, given they are not academic essays, or research studies, they cannot be characterised as autoethnographic texts per se; nor did the authors set out to produce them using precepts that underpin analytic or evocative autoethnographic approaches. That being said, several stories straddle the liminal and blurry boundaries existent between autobiography and autoethnography. In addition to the 20, what we may call story-chapters, there are four academic chapters too- this introductory one, a chapter on methodology, a chapter on the COVID-19 Pandemic, and a last chapter on ‘notes from the field’ that wraps up our thinking on (alternative) ontological and epistemological pathways for studying migration ‘differently.’ These academic chapters examine and discuss the related concepts of migration, like, identity and diversity, integration and agency, transnationalism and return, providing critical reflections on these concepts. Further, together these chapters propose a particular methodology for ‘workshopping’ migration narratives, and writing about (personal) lived experiences through iterations of scientific reflection, narrative enquiry, and creative imagination.