In recent years, migration has become one of the central battlegrounds of political debate across Europe and the United Kingdom. The rise of far-right movements, fuelled by nationalist rhetoric and anti-immigrant sentiment, has reshaped public discourse on belonging, identity, and citizenship. Migrants are too often cast as threats — whether to economic stability, social cohesion, or a narrowly defined national identity — rather than recognised as individuals and communities with complex histories, stories, and contributions. The narratives most commonly circulated in mainstream media tend to reproduce and reinforce stereotypes, reducing people to the binary of the “good” or the “bad” migrant.
In this hostile climate, creative initiatives that provide spaces for young migrants to express themselves take on particular significance. They generate counter-narratives that emphasise resilience, agency, and community over exclusion and fear. In my experience working with people of diverse cultural heritages in the UK, I have seen how artistic expression fosters collective creativity through which young migrants resist the homogenising impulses of far-right ideologies that insist on rigid categories of identity and belonging.
These initiatives remind us that migration is not only about crossing borders but also about renegotiating identity within environments that often deny recognition and perpetuate racism and xenophobia. Language, culture, and creativity become tools for resisting marginalisation and for reimagining the self outside the narrow frameworks imposed by political rhetoric. In post-Brexit Britain — where the very notion of who belongs is increasingly contested — these spaces of expression allow young people to craft alternative forms of belonging. Yet, the recognition they produce is often partial and fragile, limited in its visibility and reach.
I have been working on participatory arts-based projects for nearly a decade. The first artist book workshop I co-facilitated with young Latin Americans in London coincided with the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. At the time, we sought to create spaces where young migrants could inscribe their voices, helping them navigate an increasingly hostile environment. The workshops led to the creation of artist books, handmade from recycled materials, that became symbolic artefacts within this context. These books were both personal and collective, weaving together individual stories with wider social and political realities.
Different narratives emerged from these objects. Some participants resisted the label of “migrant” altogether — refusing associations with poverty, passivity, or victimhood. Instead, they positioned themselves as travellers, explorers, or simply young people in search of adventure and opportunity. In doing so, they challenged imposed stereotypes and refused to let ethnicity or legal status define their identities.
This refusal directly confronts what Paul Gilroy has called “ethnic absolutism” — the notion that identity is fixed and immutable. For many of these young people, who did not choose to migrate, ethnicity was not the sole marker of selfhood. Other aspects — gender, music taste, friendships, creative styles — were just as important, if not more so. By refusing to conform to reductive categories, they exposed the limitations of political narratives that collapse migrants into singular identities.
Improvisation and experimentation were central to the workshops. Participants used pastiche, collage, and multilingual writing, moving fluidly between Spanish, English, and other linguistic registers. Their books often contained grammar “mistakes,” yet these were not failures but creative gestures — signs of linguistic hybridity and defiance of standardisation. In this way, they disrupted conventions, challenged hierarchies of language, and carved out a space where they could experiment with who they were becoming. They resisted far-right narratives not through direct political confrontation, but by building alternative imaginaries rooted in play, laughter, and collaboration.
At one workshop, a participant whose legal status barred him from school or work described his artist book as mi mundo — his world. In the absence of a nation willing to welcome him, the small, noisy room of the charity building became a refuge where he could exist, create, and be heard. For others, the most valued aspect of the workshops was working en equipo — as a team. While the making of a book was deeply individual, the emphasis on compañerismo reflected a longing for belonging that exceeded the limits of the South London classroom.
Over the years, I have continued to run similar workshops with migrant communities, and the outcomes have been strikingly consistent. Once people are given the chance to express themselves beyond the narrow frame of migration, they reveal themselves in their full human complexity.
At a time when nationalist movements define belonging through exclusion, young migrants assert inclusion and the right to self-definition. Their voices show that the politics of migration is fought not only in parliaments but in classrooms, and community centres — and these spaces deserve recognition and support. Yet for such interventions to matter, society must listen. Inclusion cannot rest solely on migrants’ willingness to speak; it requires broader societies to hear, respond, and make space — and such avenues remain all too scarce.
https://medium.com/@mariasmontanez/welcome-to-this-trip-young-latin-americans-rewrite-migration-narratives-b02c4dc68a91
Dr María Soledad Montañez 