Narrative

RELATED TERMS: Design, Narratives, Futures; Design, Narratives, Pasts; Design of Narrative Environments; Narratology

“The destruction of the story means the destruction of a basic instrument of human knowledge and self-knowledge.” (Vaclav Havel, 1988)

“narrative in its usual definition is a causal chain of events” (Chatman, 2016: 129)

Bruno Latour (1996: vii) poses the question: “can we turn a technological object into the central character of a narrative, restoring to literature the vast territories it should never have given up – namely, science and technology?” Rather than a ‘technological object’, however, what is of interest to us here is: can a ‘design’, which may perhaps be an object but may equally also be an experience or a system or ecology of techniques or technologies, be recognised as already being an actant in ongoing mediatised and dramatised social narratives?

In that case, it is not only science and technology that will be restored to ‘literature’, but also an enlarged ‘literature’, including drama and other media forms, will be restored to ‘design’. A study of this vast field of ‘literature’/’design’ will have to include an examination of its ontological, epistemological and axiological implications. ‘Design’, thereby, is no longer disregarded as part of the detritus of the everyday, the unworthy, inauthentic, alienated, ‘ontic’ existent beneath the dignity of a reflective thought that contemplates the ‘ontological’ import of the being of art, literature and science. ‘Design’, instead, becomes a cultural phenomenon deserving of engagement. Rather, the extent to which we are already engaged, and continue to engage, ontologically, epistemological and axiologically with ‘design’, ‘designs’ and ‘designing’ is openly acknowledged.

From a design practice perspective, the value of using narratives is manifold. For example, according to Louder and Wyborn (2020: 251), “narratives shape human understanding and underscore policy, practice and action”. They can be used to frame an issue, while defining which actants, human or otherwise, are included or excluded. Narrative may be constructed so as to assign culpability and prescribe action.

Rob Nixon (2014) concurs, arguing that, in a world drowning in data and measurements, stories matter immeasurably. Telling a story in one way rather than another can have profound imaginative, ethical and political consequences. Stories may also play a vital role in the making of publics and in the shaping of policy, for example, in the context of environmental concerns.

The reasons for adopting narrative, one of the three key nodes of the tripartite model guiding the design of narrative environments, the other two being people and environment, can be quickly grasped from Terry Eagleton’s review of Brian Boyd’s (2009) On the origin of stories: evolution, cognition, fiction. Eagleton outlines the perceived advantages of narrative storytelling, as suggested by Boyd. They include, for example:

• Making people more skilled in social situations;
• Speeding people’s capacity to process information;
• Allowing people to test alternative scenarios;
• Enabling people to think beyond the here and now (the present; the concrete);
• Consolidating and communicating social norms; and
• Providing models of co-operation.

Narrative storytelling, as a form of art, can enact a richly-patterned cognitive play that serves to:

• stimulate a flexible mind;
• modify key perceptual, cognitive and expressive systems;
• improve our attunement to one another;
• foster sociability within the group;
• develop habits of imaginative exploration;
• raise confidence, by enabling us to reshape the world on our own terms;
• offer general principles and social information, guiding behaviour and improving decision-making;
• increase our range of behavioural options;
• acquaint us with risks and opportunities; and
• supply the emotional resources needed to cope with inevitable setbacks.

Boyd adduces all these advantages in support of his evolutionary theory of narrative (as art) which he calls ‘evocriticism’. However, Eagleton points out that none of these functions of art or narrative, as listed above, is much illuminated by being re-described in evolutionary terms. There is no need, Eagleton (2009) maintains, to appeal to Darwin in order “to claim that art can refine our senses or yield us a sharper sense of other minds.” Nevertheless, there remains a need to understand art and narrative in terms that are less “doggedly utilitarian” than Boyd’s approach.

Bruner and narrative thinking

In an educational context, Jerome Bruner defines and defends the existence of two modes of thinking:

• paradigmatic or logical-scientific thinking; and
• narrative thinking.

These two modes operate with different means, ends and legitimacy criteria.

The narrative mode, as Monteagudo explains, taking his summary from Bruner (1985, 1987, 1991):

• is based on common knowledge and stories;
• is interested in the vicissitudes of human actions;
• develops practical and situated knowledge;
• has a temporal structure; and
• emphasises the consequential agency of social actors.

References

Boyd, B. (2009) On the origin of stories: evolution, cognition, and fiction. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. (1985). Narrative and paradigmatic modes of thought. In J. Bruner (2006). In Search of Pedagogy. The Selected Works of Jerome Bruner. New York: Routledge, vol. 2, pp. 116-128.

Bruner, J. (1987). Life as narrative. In J. Bruner (2006). In Search of Pedagogy. The Selected Works of Jerome Bruner. New York: Routledge, vol. 2, pp. 129-140.

Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative construal of reality. In J. Bruner (1996). The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 130-149.

Chatman, S. (2016) What novels can do that films can’t (and vice versa), Critical Inquiry, 7(1), pp. 121–140.

Eagleton, T. (2009). Darwin won’t help. London Review of Books, 31 (18), pp.20, 22.

Havel, V. (1988) Stories and totalitarianism, Index on Censorship, 17(3), pp. 14–21. doi: 10.1080/03064228808534381.

Latour, B. (1996) Aramis, or the love of technology. Translated by C. Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Louder, E. and Wyborn, C. (2020) Biodiversity narratives: stories of the evolving conservation landscape, Environmental Conservation, 47, pp. 251–259. doi: 10.1017/S0376892920000387.

Monteagudo, J. G. (2011) Jerome Bruner and the challenges of the narrative turn, Narrative Inquiry, 21(2), pp. 295–302. doi: 10.1075/ni.21.2.07gon

Nixon, R. (2014) The Great Acceleration and the Great Divergence: Vulnerability in the Anthropocene, Profession. Available at: https://profession.mla.org/the-great-acceleration-and-the-great-divergence-vulnerability-in-the-anthropocene/ (Accessed: 4 March 2024).