Success in Alternative Migration Narratives in Spain: The Role of the Organised Civil Society

Political discourses of exclusion are in the public and political agendas across all Europe. Spain is no exception, especially since the rise of the extreme right-wing parties like VOX or Se Acabó la Fiesta in the last few years. Against such discourses, several actors of the civil society have organised to claim changes in the narratives and in the policy and legal frameworks to guarantee migrants’ rights. In Spain, there are two recent initiatives that stand out for their innovative strategies and their success in spreading inclusive narratives. Stop Mare Mortum (SMM) is a citizens’ platform which was born in 2015 to advocate for the arrival of migrants and refugees to Europe through legal and safe pathways, and RegularizaciónYa (RY) is a movement born in 2020 to claim an extraordinary regularisation of undocumented migrants through a state level campaign.

Drawing on a qualitative methodological approach as part of the BRIDGES project, this communication presents the conditions of success of both initiatives, based on the concept of ‘migration narrative success’ (Garcés-Mascareñas and Pastore 2022). Both have achieved to be influential in terms of transformativity for inducing actions like different forms of advocacy and mobilisation, and in terms of pervasiveness for being able to permeate their messages in the media, political and policy arenas. While differences exist between the social position of activists of SMM and RY, the broad alliances with institutional actors and wide communication strategies have been fundamental to achieve success in both cases.