Beyond Crisis Discourse: Consolidating Narratives of Trust in Immigrant Societies?

This paper examines how immigration becomes politicized through crisis discourse and how alternative narratives of trust can be developed in immigrant societies. It argues that crises are not only moments of systemic disruption, but also discursive opportunities through which migration becomes more salient, polarized, and contested. The paper situates contemporary European debates on immigration within a longer historical trajectory, from post-war labor migration and integration policies to the securitization and identity-based framing of migration since the 1990s. Drawing on a constructionist approach, it proposes a framework for analyzing migration narratives across four dimensions: time, space, the coexistence of competing narratives and counter-narratives, and moments of crisis. The paper also presents a media-based comparative analysis covering several European countries, showing how instrumental, identity-based, and moral or human-rights frames vary across national contexts and historical periods. It concludes that crisis narratives can reinforce exclusion and polarization, but they can also be challenged through more inclusive, transparent, and solidarity-based approaches. The paper calls for renewed narratives that strengthen social cohesion, broaden national identity, and frame migration as part of long-term democratic resilience.