Embodied stories : African-Dutch women narrate (in)visibility and agency in the city of The Hague

The article explores African-Dutch women’s embodied stories of agency. It builds on participatory research carried out in the city of The Hague in the Netherlands, in which African-Dutch women were engaged in the process of making visual and material objects, that elicited storytelling. Discussing how agency is embodied, the article demonstrates how a focus on the body and materiality opens up perspectives on women’s agency and empowerment that often remains invisible. It also argues that such embodied stories offer counter- narratives to the more visible stories that are present in dominant discourses and interventions to empower women with migration backgrounds.