Migration Stories: Connecting Activism, Policy, and Scholarship Edited by Benjamin Gatling

Migrants’ and refugees’ stories have become an essential part of the public debate around immigration. In Migration Stories (University of Illinois Press, 2025), Benjamin Gatling edits interdisciplinary essays that bring together the distinct perspectives of researchers, activists, and policymakers to emphasize how these often-siloed communities can use stories as social science data and advocacy tools.

Ranging from oral history projects to the asylum process to calls for decolonial justice, the contributors’ analyses illuminate how migrants’ and refugees’ personal narratives influence both perceptions and policies. Their merger of perspectives provides a nuanced understanding of migration and emphasizes the importance of how storytelling can foster empathy, challenge stereotypes, and drive social change. At the same time, the essays center migrants’ and refugees’ voices within public debates and in work done to humanize the reality they face.

This volume is edited by Benjamin Gatling, associate professor of English at George Mason University, with contributions by Kiran Singh Sirah, William Westerman, Kate Parker Horigan, Sabina M. Perrino, Wendy Feliz, Sheri Klein, Amy Shuman, Carol Bohmer, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Jaime Scott, Amy E. Skillman, and Gaisu Yari.