Narrative
An Avatar.Global Resource
Narrative
A Narrative is “coherent system of interrelated...stories."[1] Narratives typically consist of characters, plot-lines, ideas, and archetypes.[2][3] Most narratives are Functional Narratives designed to influence thought and action.
Narrative Types
Narrative > Elite Narrative, Existential Narrative, Functional Narrative, Master Narrative, Mundane Narrative, Sacred Narrative
Syncretic Terms
Related LP Terms
Non-LP Related Terms
Notes
Humans are a species of story tellers. Storytelling is a human universal[4] Storytelling emerges spontaneously in childhood and continues throughout one’s entire life.[5]
Story telling is generally functional for humanity, evolving as a way to ensure facilitate human adaptation and survival by providing several key functions, including mechanisms for internal communication,[6] mechanisms to convey information and expectations on social behaviours, norms and values and taboos, mechanisms for healing rifts and understanding others,[7] and mechanisms to ensure human cooperation.
We can call stories used as mechanism to convey information, expectations, or to heal rifts and encourage understanding and cooperation Functional Narratives. Functional narratives are narratives that perform useful functions, like conveying information, reinforcing norms and values, healing social rifts, etc.
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Footnotes
- ↑ Halverson, Jeffry R., H. L. Goodall, and Steven R. Corman. Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
- ↑ Mike Sosteric, “A Short Sociology of Archetypes,” 2020, https://www.academia.edu/44254363
- ↑ Sosteric, Mike. “A Short Sociology of Archetypes,” 2020. https://www.academia.edu/44254363/
- ↑ D.E. Brown, Human Universals (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991).
- ↑ Daniel Smith et al., “Cooperation and the Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Storytelling,” Nature Communications 8, no. 1 (December 5, 2017): 1853, doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02036-8.
- ↑ Megan Biesele, “How Hunter-Gatherers’ Stories ‘Make Sense’: Semantics and Adaptation,” Cultural Anthropology 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1986): 157–70, doi:10.1525/can.1986.1.2.02a00030
- ↑ Polly W. Wiessner, “Embers of Society: Firelight Talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 39 (September 30, 2014): 14027–35, doi:10.1073/pnas.1404212111.