This paper aims to display how spatial regimes such as the nation-state provide a fertile soil for the creation of politicized narratives in support of nationalist agendas and how a feminist approach could provide an entry point for creating a counter-narrative.
Narratives are constructed through the interpretation of facts that reflect certain perceptions and are translated into a subjective reality that reflects the perception of the situation rather than representing a neutral understanding of the facts. Perceptions are heavily dependent on the historical, cultural and societal context of its territorial and ideological space, such as the nation-state. Narratives within that space are often politicized to produce political action. This is especially visible in the context of nationalism, which uses the nation-state as a reference point for (homogenous) identity claims. This can be uncovered by processes that are perceived as change within the imaginary and ideological space that created the narrative, such as the influx of refugees in Europe.
The rise of nationalist tendencies in response to the migration influx in Europe is one example of the politicization of national narratives. More specifically, what we can observe with the influx of refugees in the European Union and the resulting narrative is a politicization of a perception that becomes heavily connected to issues over national security and portrayed as a threat to the “homogenous” population and especially women. The public perception of refugees focuses on the influx of men and disregards the actual statistics that contradicts this very perception. While the national male population already existing within a spatial regime, and patriarchal structures, issues connected with sexism and inequality are not part of the narrative, the influx in men through refugee migration is perceived as an issue for security, and often connected to the female population.
By analyzing the creation of narratives within the national border, this paper aims to identify an entry point for feminist theory for disrupting the perception of refugees entering the European Union and thus its potential for creating a counter-narrative to oppose the rise in nationalism.

Franziska Fischer currently pursues her Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Victoria in the faculty of Political Science under the supervision of Dr. Oliver Schmidtke and in collaboration with the Centre for Global Studies. She successfully balances her academic career and the arrival of her first child in January 2019. Her research focuses on hegemonic discourse creation within spatial regimes and physical and imaginary border disputes on the example of refugee migration since 2015 in a European and Canadian context. Franziska holds a MA joint degree in Erasmus Mundus Global Studies from the University of Leipzig and the University of Wroclaw with an additional research semester at Dalhousie University in Halifax Canada, and a BA in North American Politics and International Law from the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and Bishops University in Quebec, Canada.

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