From Research to Comic: Drawing the Hidden Injuries of Social Mobility

How can a research-based comic book help us better understand the emotional complexities of social mobility in marginalised urban areas? And how can visual storytelling reveal the tensions and challenges of upward mobility? This paper reflects on the process of creating a research-based comic, developed from over 80 interviews with upwardly mobile individuals, family members and long-term residents from stigmatised neighbourhoods in Germany. In particular, it explores how translating social mobility research into a visual medium encourages intersectional perspectives, challenges conventional understandings and offers a more accessible way of engaging with the hidden injuries of social mobility.