This article conceptually draws on Bourdieu’s field theory and Goffman’s stigma theory to explain the evolution of Polish government’s official narrative on European integration. Narrative production by Polish authorities reveals a marked shift in strategy adopted to deal with the stigma (real or imagined) that structures Poland’s position in the EU field of power: from adaptive (corrective) to contesting strategy where stigma is embraced and transformed into a virtue. Empirically, this shift is illustrated with 3 examples of narrative production under crisis: 1) euro-zone crisis (Poland adapts to the dominant EU narrative and promotes its own austerity experience, while allying itself with the northern “saints” against the southern “sinner...