Narrating Migration and Belonging: From Books to Digital Media

This thesis aims to examine how migration and belonging are narrated across migrant memoir and digital storytelling. Focusing on selected contemporary migrant memoirs, including Funny in Farsi, The Ungrateful Refugee, and No friend but the Mountains, the study explores how migrants’ experiences of identity, memory, displacement and belonging are constructed through narrative. At first, the thesis establishes a theoretical framework drawing on diaspora studies, theories of belonging, affect theory, life writing and digital storytelling. Then it analyzes how migrants represent migration not only as a physical movement, but also as an emotional, cultural and political experience. The final chapter considers migrant stories on social media, Particularly blogs, YouTube, Instagram and podcasts, to compare how migration is narrated across literary and digital forms. In doing so, the thesis aims to show how migrant narratives become spaces for negotiating identity, emotion and belonging.