Narratives and Social Change: Social Reality in Contemporary Society (Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action) 3030945642, 9783030945640

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Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action

Emiliana Mangone

Narratives and Social Change

Social Reality in Contemporary Society

Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action Series Editors Sergio Salvatore, Department of Dynamic Psychology, La Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy Terri Mannarini, Department of History, Society and Human Studies, Università del Salento, Lecce, Lecce, Italy Jaan Valsiner, Psychologie, Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark Giuseppe A. Veltri, Department of Sociology, Università di Trento, Trento, Trento, Italy

The book series develops and consolidates the innovative approach to policy-making and politics based on the recognition of the central role played by cultural dynamics, intended as on-going processes of sense making channelled by symbolic resources the cultural environment makes available and through which people make sense to the experience, therefore feel, think, act. It pursues both a theoretical and practical purpose: the development of the conceptual approach to policy and politics based on the view of human being as homo semioticus, as a subject engaged constantly with the need to make meaningful ordinary daily experiences, as well as participation in society.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15961

Emiliana Mangone

Narratives and Social Change Social Reality in Contemporary Society

Emiliana Mangone Department of Political and Communication Sciences University of Salerno Fisciano, Italy

ISSN 2523-7306 ISSN 2523-7314 (electronic) Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action ISBN 978-3-030-94564-0 ISBN 978-3-030-94565-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Introduction: Narratives as Everyday Events

To be able to explain and understand socio-cultural phenomena, it is necessary to look for their foundation in the relationship between knowledge and everyday life. The search for this foundation entails some critical knots, also because narratives construct them thus. Therefore, knowing the processes and dynamics connected to narratives is fundamental to explain and understand the dynamics of society and the associated problems. As Mannheim (1954/1929) stated, some aspects of thinking cannot be adequately interpreted if their social origins remain obscure. Nevertheless, one should not infer that an individual’s ideas and feelings originate only in himself and can be conveniently explained only based on his experience. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the dominant system of ideas (I prefer this term to “ideology” because the latter is all too often used in a sense not corresponding to its socio-historical meaning) focused on emancipation: the affirmation of individual rights and freedoms and/or the groups to which they belonged (diversified in western countries and scarcely present in other geographical areas). Today, the system of ideas seems to claim back those rights and freedoms acquired with emancipation but not fully recognised. How this system of thought is expressed has surely changed, if only because of the widespread use of the mass media. Furthermore, in the last century, we could speak of “activism”—meaning that the moment of action overrode all other activities (political, religious, trade union, research, etc.). Today, activism and the role of the researcher (intellectual) are blended. And yet, according to Weber (1946/1919), the latter should entail impersonality. If one does want to avoid the term impersonality, deeming it too extreme, one can use speak of “neutrality”. This often leads to the diffusion of theoretical models that become mainstream but are not truly objective. It is certainly difficult to be “aseptic” towards the object of study, but Bourdieu claimed, particularly for sociologists, that the role and, therefore, the main function of researchers was the critical unhinging of the manoeuvring and manipulation of citizens and consumers that rely on perverse usages of science (Bourdieu, 2013). The question then is: How are narratives used?

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Although narratives are inherently highly rhetoric (Phelan, 1996)—a feature undoubtedly accentuated by the forms of communication adopted—they promote debate. However, such a debate does not interest all the issues affecting society, nor does it occur in all the places of society. Narratives are, inescapably, part of social life. They do not merely produce accounts of events but are events themselves. They are also inherently conceptually ambiguous, which often leads to “perverse effects” (Boudon, 1982/1977): there is conflict in them. Narratives can mobilise on the global level, but this mobilisation still has a local appropriation (Thompson, 1995)—the symbolic axis, globalised diffusion vs. localised appropriation. The fil rouge threaded through this book is the idea that narratives come in two forms (Czarniawska, 2004): they are both a mode of knowledge and a mode of communication (see Part II, Chap. 4). The former enables the development of systems of ideas and the latter their dissemination. It is, therefore, easy to understand how narratives are paramount in promoting social change because they orient individuals’ paths based on the subject’s (individual or collective) use of narrative as a tool through which to perceive society, social reality, and the future. Thompson’s symbolic axis—globalised diffusion vs. localised appropriation— means that information, images, knowledge, and other artefacts are acquired in ways typical of the globalised society but are, then, interpreted and processed where individuals carry on with their everyday lives. Furthermore, they are usually employed to consolidate values and beliefs. Consequently, the analysis of narratives (production, dissemination, appropriation) cannot overlook the dimensions of space and time (Ricœur, 1984/1983, 1985/1984, 1988/1985; Schütz, 1967/1932): the world of narrative is temporal and situated. If one applies the above to narratives in contemporary society, a true juxtaposition ideology vs. utopia, as defined by Mannheim (1954/1929), is probably uncommon; rather, they might blend, or an ideology may emerge from a “utopian” attempt. Both these circumstances will raise the distortions highlighted by the author. Mannheim bases the overcoming of relativism on knowledge, arriving at “relationalism”. He considers it impossible to directly relate thought and social strata and, therefore, associates the former with the worldview of the strata in which it develops. Merton (1949), instead, researched the social origins of thought on the conviction that it was socially conditioned. But while for Europe he pondered mainly the conditioning of intellectual thought, in the United States he focused more on the general conditioning of public opinion by the mass media. To these two conditionings, Merton applies, with just a few adjustments, the “mottos” employed for the two opposing currents of sociological theory (great theorisations, on the one hand, and driven empiricism, on the other): “We do not know whether what we say is true, but it is at least significant”, and “This is demonstrably so, but we cannot indicate its significance” (Merton, 1949, p. 140). Many narratives, as they are configured, are close to both of Merton’s “mottos”. With all their implications, narratives rely precisely on this—and in them, quite often, those who construct the story are the same as those who tell it. The question, then, is: What is narrated? Who constructs the story? And above all, who tells it and how does s/he tell it?

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I will try to answer these questions by analysing the evolution of the system of ideas through the possible segments of analysis, starting from the key concept of narrative. I will further articulate it into “Knowledge” and “Communication”, with explicit reference to Touraine’s tripartition (1995/1992) of actor, individual, and subject, and Lasswell’s (1948) 5Ws with the addition of the question “How” in Kipling’s model (5W1H). The book aims to discuss narratives and the social and cultural phenomena connected to them. I relate the theme to the changes in society and proceed by reference areas and dimensions. For this reason, I will consider the concept of narrative from a broad sociological perspective to provide an overall view of how all the actors involved in narrative processes are interconnected. There will be no lack of “incursions” into other disciplines, with not so much an interdisciplinary approach as a transdisciplinary one (Piaget, 1972)—a method that I will strongly advocate at the end of the book. However, to proceed thus, it will be first necessary to offer some general reflections on how society has been changing in recent decades, particularly in some conceptual structures (knowledge, communication, etc.), and how these changes have engendered transformations in the relationship between individual and society. It is a question of outlining the state of the art and predicting possible future scenarios in the field of research on narratives. The three parts of which the book is composed are conceived in such a way as to be almost autonomous, although they have an inherent logical structure. Part I (Narratives, Sociology, and Research Perspectives) is a sort of prelude to what will be discussed in the following pages. It focuses on the concept of narrative as a constitutive element of the everyday life of human beings both as a single subject and when considered collectively. It also analyses the perspectives that most influenced what will be defined as the “narrative turn” in recent decades. Specifically, Chap. 1 will attempt to answer the question “What are narratives?”, as well as to clarify the terms used (“narrative”, “storytelling”, or “account”). Narratives have always accompanied the development of mankind and perhaps for this very reason the concept—over the last few decades—has undergone ups and downs, until it reached the phase known as the “narrative turn” (Berger & Quinney, 2004; Raine, 2013). This book will mainly use sociology—the writer’s very own discipline—as a compass, without, however, neglecting other disciplines that have directly or indirectly studied narratives. This chapter will also draw attention to two very important issues for narrative studies in sociology, the quantitative/qualitative querelle and the role of the sociology of knowledge. The final part, by describing their dimensions and characteristics, will show how narratives—as a cultural product—play a role in reshaping the social world of individuals. The actualisation of a concept to contemporary times can be neither tried nor achieved without knowing its theoretical foundations. This is done in Chaps. 2 and 3, which discuss, respectively, the theoretical background and framework and some of the contemporary paradigms most referenced in this book. With modernity, men and their actions are placed at the centre of thought; once the attention is turned towards the associated life of individuals, it inevitably turns towards politics as well. Hence, the need to understand how different theories have come to this and how they have

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attempted to understand (meaning and significance) the reasons why, in certain situations, individuals link their actions to narratives (Chap. 2). While not all theories have actually used the very term narrative, they nevertheless have dealt with aspects of individuals’ everyday lives that directly or indirectly can be traced back to narrative processes. To name but a few, without any claim to temporal or theoretical exhaustiveness, phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, social constructionism, and hermeneutics. Chapter 3 presents an in-depth study of some of the authors (Erving Goffman, Jerome Bruner, Paul Ricœur, Hannah Arendt) who contributed the most to enriching our knowledge of narratives, touching on different disciplines ranging from sociology, to philosophy, to psychology. I described their ideas and constructs without proffering any speculations and, again, without claiming to be exhaustive. My exclusive aim was offering those elements that are directly or indirectly connected to narratives. Again, not all these authors used the term “narrative” but each of them discussed or outlined the main elements that characterise the object of study of narratives. Their thought is an intellectual legacy whence to expand our knowledge about the concept of narrative. Each of them can be traced back to one or more of the founding theories of narrative studies (addressed in Chap. 2), with the possible exception of Arendt, who closes the chapter and opens the second part of the book. She represents, in a way, a sort of link between all the theories and allows for the passage from theory to praxis (theory of action). Narrative and Social Change is the title of the second part of the book and constitutes its “beating heart”. It presents the model of narrative that I believe should be considered for the contemporary society. Inevitably, narratives, due to their characteristics, interconnect all the actors and elements involved in the various transformation processes of the conceptual structures of society and these transformations, in turn, permeate the individual–society relationship. Chapter 4 illustrates the idea of narrative, which takes two distinct forms (a way of communicating and a way of knowing). The chapter first presents some general reflections: (a) how the concepts of communication and knowledge, which are unequivocal elements of narrative processes, have been transformed in recent decades; (b) the effects of these transformations on the interactions between individuals. The book continues (Chap. 5) by combining the idea of narrative with time (an essential element for the analysis of narratives) and its future perspective. The idea of the future is, however, influenced by the uncertainties inherent in global society. Therefore, the idea of social time distinguished into Chronós (the measurable chronological time) and Kairós (the time of action) becomes essential. The conjugation of these two forms of time makes it possible, with a view to the future, to redefine the “cultural goals” and the “legitimate means” of the individual or group. And it is based on Merton’s (1949) adaptations to cultural values, crossed with Touraine’s (1995) tripartition—individual, subject, and actor—that the chapter outlines the possible functions of narrative and its effects on social change. The chapter closing the second part (Chap. 6) addresses another condition that seems to dominate contemporary society: risk. The latter, also due to the spread of mass media, is intertwined with the transformations of the forms of communication and, therefore, with the

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modes and forms of narration. This chapter will provide an in-depth study of this concept, which will constitute the premise to address the same concept according to the two forms of narratives (as a mode of knowledge and as a mode of communication). Part III, Social Reality, Narratives, and Future Research Perspectives, closes the book and attempts to condense what expressed in the previous chapters (social and narrative change also based on the new communication systems). Above all, it tries to reconstruct the links between all the problematic aspects identified (future, uncertainty, everyday life, etc.). Chapter 7 explores the dynamics connected to communicative events starting from the idea that the processes of construction of reality and the Self are influenced by knowledge in its first form (social representations) and realised through communication. Communication is one of the modes of narration (see Chap. 4) and has changed with the dissemination of the new mass media in a dimension between the global and the local. The viewpoint offered by this process made it possible to highlight how communication, which conveys narrative, is nothing more than the construction of social reality. The chapter will also emphasise that much of the social knowledge and representations (Moscovici, 2000, 2008/1961) that individuals share originate precisely from communicative events and media-type narratives—even that knowledge which seems personal. The next chapter (Chap. 8) summarises and connects the many variables and problematic objects involved in narratives, basing the analysis also on the transformations of the forms and means of communication. Narratives become the means to push both the individual and the group to action because they are often configured according to Merton’s two “mottos”. I will make a fresh attempt at answering the questions posed above (What is narrated? Who constructs the story? And, above all, who tells it and how does s/he tell it?) with the support of two case studies on the narrative of sociocultural phenomena (the COVID-19 pandemic and the migration phenomenon in the Mediterranean). Chapter 9 closes the book, but its content clearly shows that it is not intended to “enclose” or “pen” anything within boundaries. No discourse on narratives (neither theoretical nor empirical) is being brought to an end; no theorisation is closed or about to reach its final point, far from it. I wish to reiterate the need for an “openness” with and among different disciplines that, through dialogue, can prompt the integration of knowledge systems for narrative analysis—from the less complex to the more complex, and vice versa. Narrative analysis requires an integrated interweaving of factors, disciplines, and methodologies, because it opens up new horizons for the study of identity construction processes, social reality, and, consequently, the motives behind the actions of individuals or groups. It allows us to understand how individuals use different ways of narrating to attribute meaning and sense to events and experience. Therefore, even if its status amongst the social sciences has been slow growing, it is to be hoped that the future developments in narrative analysis will concern not only the private but also the public sphere of the individual. Back when this book was just a publishing project, the general aim I had set myself was to provide an insight into the dynamics and challenges posed by the peculiarities of narratives as they evolve in a repetitive cycle due to the constant

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changes in society and especially communication forms. The idea was, therefore, to construct a reflection on narratives that, beyond the individual declinations of this concept, would allow for the exploration of the processes that take place on different levels (individual, social, and cultural) whenever individuals interact with other subjects or with structures of society. I also wished to highlight how narratives can orient the actions of individuals based on the use that is made of them. It is not up to me, as the author, to say whether this goal has been achieved. My hope is that I have at least succeeded in unhinging some common-sense ideas on certain aspects and elements related to narratives and their social phenomenology. References Berger, R. J., & Quinney, R. (2004). The narrative turn in social inquiry. In R. J. Berger & R. Quinney (Eds.), Storytelling sociology: Narrative as social inquiry (pp. 1–11). Lynne Rienner. Boudon, R. (1982/1977). The unintended consequences of social action. Palgrave Macmillan (Original work published 1977). Bourdieu, P. (2013). In praise of sociology: Acceptance speech for the gold medal of the CNRS. Sociology, 47(1), 7–14. Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. Sage. Lasswell, H. B. (1948). The structure and function of communication and society. In L. Bryson (Ed.), The communication of ideas (pp. 32–51). Harper. Mannheim, K. (1954/1929). Ideology and utopia. An introduction to sociology of knowledge (L. Wirth & E. Shils, Trans.). Hartcourt Blace (Original work published 1929). Merton, R. K. (1949). Social theory and social structure. Free Press. Moscovici, S. (2000). Social representations. Explorations in social psychology. Polity. Moscovici, S. (2008/1961). Psychoanalysis: Its image and its public. Wiley (Original work published 1961). Piaget, J. (1972). L’épistémologie des relations interdisciplinaires [The Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Relations]. In OCDE (Ed.), L’interdisciplinarité : problèmes d’enseignement et de recherche dans les universités [Interdisciplinarity: Teaching and research issues in universities]. OCDE. Retrieved June 20, 2015, from http://www.fondationjeanpiaget.ch/fjp/site/textes/VE/jp72_ epist_relat_interdis.pdf. Phelan, J. (1996). Narrative as rhetoric. technique, audiences, ethics, ideology. Ohio State University Press. Raine, S. (2013). The narrative turn: Interdisciplinary methods and perspectives. Student Anthropologist, 3(3), 64–80. Ricœur, P. (1984/1983). Time and narrative (Vol. I) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1983). Ricœur, P. (1985/1984). Time and narrative (Vol. II) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1984).

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Ricœur, P. (1988/1985). Time and narrative (Vol. III) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1985). Schütz, A. (1967/1932). The phenomenology of the social world (G. Walsh, & F. Lehnert, Trans.). Northwestern University Press (Original work published 1932). Thompson, J. B. (1995). The media and modernity. A social theory of the media. Polity. Touraine, A. (1995/1992). Critique of modernity (D. Macey, Trans.). Basil Blackwell (Original work published 1992). Weber, M. (1946/1919). Science as a vocation. In H. H. Gerth & C. W. Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (pp. 129–156). Oxford University Press (Original work published 1919).

Contents

Part I

Narratives, Sociology, and Research Perspectives

1

Narratives and Sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 What Are Narratives? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Towards a New Sociological Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Narratives as Cultural Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

3 3 8 12 16

2

Background and Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Phenomenology and the Life-World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Symbolic Interactionism and Everyday Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Ethnomethodology and Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Social Constructionism and Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Hermeneutics and Interpretive Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

19 19 26 33 37 46 52

3

Contemporary Perspectives in the Study of Narratives . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Erving Goffman and Dramaturgical Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Jerome Bruner and the “Narrative Thought” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Paul Ricœur and the Narrative Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Hannah Arendt and the Theory of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . .

57 57 64 70 75 82

. . .

87 87 90

.

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Part II 4

Narratives and Social Change

Narratives Between Knowledge and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 An Ever-Changing Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Communication and Knowledge: An Inseparable Dyad . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Communication Between the Cultural and the Digital Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.2.2

Knowledge in the Face of the Challenges Posed by Globalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 Communication and Knowledge in Space and Time . . . . . 4.3 Narratives Between Knowledge and Communication . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

6

. 94 . 96 . 100 . 106

Future, Narratives, and Social Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Global Society and Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Future, Imaginary, and Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Social Change and the Balance Between “Cultural Goals” and “Legitimate Means” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 109 . 109 . 111

Risk, Social Change and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Risk as a Cultural Product and a Social Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Risk and the Problem of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Risk Communication and Credibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

121 121 126 131 136

. . . . .

141 141 145 148 151

Part III

. 114 . 118

Social Reality, Narratives, and Future Research Perspectives

7

Social Reality Between Global and Local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Representations and the Construction of Social Reality . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Effects of the Media on the Construction of Social Reality . . 7.3 Media, Narratives and the Construction of the Self . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8

Social Reality and Narratives Between Interpretations and Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Social Reality and Narratives: Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Narratives in Contemporary Society: Two Case Studies . . . . . . . 8.2.1 The Narratives of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Metaphors of War and the Enemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 The Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean Sea and the Role of Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Narratives as a “Deforming Mirror” of Social Reality . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 161 . 167 . 169

Narrative Analysis and Future Research Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Models of Narrative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Towards an “Integral Method” for Narrative Analysis . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Future Research Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

9

. 153 . 153 . 156 . 157

173 173 178 181 183

About the Author

Emiliana Mangone is an Associate Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Salerno (Italy), Department of Political and Communication Sciences. She is a Director of “Narratives and Social ChangesInternational Research Group” and she was a Director of the International Centre for Studies and Research “Mediterranean Knowledge” (2015–2020). Her main investigative interests are in the field of cultural and institutional systems, with particular attention to the social representations, relational and narrative processes, and knowledge as key elements to the human act, in migration studies, and as well as the study of the thought of Pitirim A. Sorokin. She recently published: Beyond the Dichotomy between Altruism and Egoism. Society, Relationship, and Responsibility, Information Age Publishing, 2020; Social and Cultural Dynamics. Revisiting the Work of Pitirim A. Sorokin, Springer, 2018; (with G. Masullo & M. Gallego, Eds.), Gender and Sexuality in the Migration Trajectories. Studies between the Northern and Southern Mediterranean Shores, Information Age Publishing, 2018. For further information, see the personal page: https://emilianamangone.com/

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Narratives, Sociology, and Research Perspectives

Chapter 1

Narratives and Sociology

Abstract What are narratives? I will try to answer this tricky question in the following pages, explaining why I will prefer the term “narrative” over “storytelling” or “account”, and its proper form of the act of narrating (narration). Since the concept of narrative is not a novel idea for the social sciences, I will also outline the history of this object of study over the last few decades, with its ups and downs, up to the phase known as the “narrative turn”. I will employ sociology—my very discipline of reference—as a guiding light but I will neither overlook nor neglect other disciplines that have directly or indirectly studied narratives. I will take particular care to bring two key sociological aspects to the reader’s attention: the quantitative/qualitative querelle and the role of the sociology of knowledge. In the final section, by describing their dimensions and characteristics, I will highlight how narratives—as a cultural product—play a role in reshaping the social world. Keywords Narratives · Sociology · Narrativity · Accounts · Culture

1.1

What Are Narratives?

The history of mankind has shown that certain human actions have always been crucial, although they have differed as human beings have evolved through different eras. It is certainly true of the activity at the core of this book: narratives. As we shall see in the following pages, narratives are paramount in the social life of individuals. When dealing with narratives, either directly or indirectly, one cannot help coming across a well-known passage by Roland Barthes: “There are countless forms of narrative in the world. First of all, there is a prodigious variety of genres, each of which branches out into a variety of media, as if all substances could be relied upon to accommodate man’s stories. Among the vehicles of narrative are articulated language, whether oral or written, pictures, still or moving, gestures, and an ordered mixture of all those substances; [...] Moreover, in this infinite variety of forms, it is present at all times, in all places, in all societies; indeed narrative starts with the very history of mankind; there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative; all classes, all human groups, have their stories, and very often those stories are enjoyed by men of different and even opposite cultural background” © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_1

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(Barthes, 1975/1966, p. 237). The universality (Abbott, 2002) highlighted by Barthes might lead readers to think that narratives—being so pervasive—might be insignificant and bereft of any specificity. However, the French scholar himself clarifies shortly afterward that “Like life itself, it is there, international, transhistorical, transcultural” (Barthes, 1975/1966, p. 237). Before addressing any topic for study or investigation, it is essential to define it and delimit its ontological, epistemological, and theoretical-methodological limits. Otherwise, one would run the risk of being trivial or superficial when dealing with extremely complex topics, especially as they involve multiple factors that can be traced back to society, culture and individual personality. In general, words and the concepts associated with them have their own specific history, often decisive for the evolution of their meanings and connotations. For example, “culture” is perhaps the term with the most interpretations in the social sciences. Since its birth as a scientific concept (between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century), it has known many definitions, depending on its declination in the singular or plural form (Kluckhohn & Kroeber, 1952). There is no single definition of culture, nor a single, unambiguous approach to its analysis (Spencer-Oatey, 2012). The history of thought of the various human and social disciplines has produced different explanations and interpretations based on the epistemological framework of each field of study. Yet the numerous definitions coined over the decades have not made the concept any clearer. It remains obscure due to its high dependence on some key aspects, including the processes and forms of human sociability and their typically constant and repeated functional correlations in social space-time. A similar dynamic also applies to the concept of “narrative”, so much so that Riessman states that “There is considerable disagreement about the precise definition of narrative” (1993, p. 17). Being one of the few objects of study pertaining to multiple disciplines, which differ among themselves (from literature to art history, from psychology to sociology, from history to political science, etc.) means that the search for an inclusive and unique definition is all but impossible. For my part, I agree that “there is [not] a single, best definition of narrative. Rather, any definition, because it implies a particular orientation, brings with it a particular set of emphases and serves a particular set of interests. That is, any definition highlights certain characteristics of individual narratives while obscuring or even effacing others” (Herman et al., 2012, p. 5). Therefore, I will not provide a new definition of “narrative” but instead sketch, in the following sections, an idea of the concept that will be the fil rouge threaded through this whole essay. Narratives have known renewed attention since the early 1980s when this concept burst into the social sciences, originating what is known as the “narrative turn” in both them (Berger & Quinney, 2004; Raine, 2013) and the humanities (Kreiswirth, 2005). In this re-conceptualisation, some new approaches define narratives and narrativity as concepts of social epistemology and social ontology. These concepts “posit that it is through narrativity that we come to know, understand, and make sense of the social world, and it is through narratives and narrativity that we constitute our social identities” (Somers, 1994, p. 606).

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In light of this, the difference between the term “narrative” and its proper form of the act of narrating (narration), which I will use in this essay, and “storytelling” is blatant. While the two are commonly considered synonyms (Ryan, 2007) they are, in fact, very much not so. For now, I will highlight this difference using the definitions provided by the OED-Oxford English Dictionary (2021): narratives are defined as “An account of a series of events, facts, etc., given in order and with the establishing of connections between them; a narration, a story, an account”,1 while storytelling is “The action or activity of telling stories, or a particular story; an instance of this”.2 As the pages unfold, this difference will become much clearer. I now need to clarify some more of the terms used, since the concept of “accounts” (Orbuch, 1997; Scott & Lyman, 1968) has also become widespread, especially in sociology. “An account is a linguistic device employed whenever an action is subjected to valuative inquiry. Such devices are a crucial element in the social order since they prevent conflicts from arising by verbally bridging the gap between action and expectation. Moreover, accounts are ‘situated’ according to the statuses of the interactants, and are standardized within cultures so that certain accounts are terminologically stabilized and routinely expected when activity falls outside the domain of expectations” (Scott & Lyman, 1968, p. 46). This definition implicitly refers to “motives” in the Weberian sense of the term, i.e., the subjective meanings (valid for both actor and observer) that motivate and even justify specific behaviours. Mills (1940) was the first to adopt this interpretation when he tried to outline an analytical model for explaining the motivations based on a sociological theory of language. At the end of the last century, Orbuch takes up the concept and defines it as “as story-like constructions that contain individuals’ recollections of events, including plot, story line, affect, and attributions. Individuals continually update and reflect on these accounts, on the basis of feedback from others and the collective stories within which individuals reside. [...] Current theoretical viewpoints also emphasize that accounts are not merely social constructions to protect the self; they also (a) give individuals a greater sense of control and understanding of their environment, (b) allow individuals to cope with emotionally charged and stressful events, (c) produce some degree of closure, (d ) provide a greater sense of hope and will for the future, and (e) establish order in daily relational experiences” (1997, p. 459). Orbuch’s definition outlines why this term is not considered appropriate for the present reflections and will not be used in the essay. The “individuals’ recollections” and their functions refer mainly to the psychological dimension rather than a social dimension, so much so that Mills, many years earlier, spoke of “sociological psychology” as the study of motivations from language. I will not, of course, burden the readers with the whole history of this concept or the debate surrounding it. Rather, I will present selectively and certainly not exhaustively (the bare minimum, one might say) the stages that led to the so-called “narrative turn” in the social sciences, which translates quite simply as greater 1 2

OED Third Edition, June 2003; latest version published online December 2020. OED Third Edition, June 2015; latest version published online June 2019.

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attention on the processes and dynamics linked to narratives. The debate around this concept is well summed up by Mitchell in the preface to Critical Inquiry’s special issue On Narrative, published in 1980: “One thing that should make the present issue of Critical Inquiry of value to students of narrative in all disciplines is that it dramatizes (and, we hope, clarifies) the most fundamental debates about the value and nature of narrative as a means by which human represent and structure the world. It is a commonplace of modern relativism, of course, that there are multiple versions of events stories about them and that there is something suspect about having the ‘true’ or ‘authorized’ or ‘basic’ version. The real problem, however, is not the telling of true stories (this seems to be a practical rather than a theoretical problem) very value of narrativity as a mode of making sense of reality the factual reality of actual events, or the moral, symbolic fictions)” (Mitchell, 1980, pp. 1–2). These few lines allow us to go beyond the literary idea of narrative—the one linked to Aristotle (1968), who defined a good tragedy (narration) as having a beginning, middle and end. Instead, narratives get closer to the social sciences which should reflect on the nature of narration. In doing so, the social sciences pay attention to culture and the very nature of humankind: “So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report of the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent—absent or, as in some domains of contemporary Western intellectual and artistic culture, programmatically refused” (White, 1980, p. 5). It can be argued that reflecting on the nature of narrative means reflecting on the nature of human beings, because reflection is twofold. It aims, first, at providing a description, asking what narrative does for human beings; second, at supplying a definition seeking to identify the distinctive features of narratives. With the emancipation of narratives from literature and all kinds of textual support, they are recognised as a semiotic phenomenon that transcends disciplines and media (Ryan, 2005). The main references in this essay will descend from the social sciences, particularly sociology, but I will also touch upon other disciplinary fields that addressed issues and problems related to narratives. Individuals narrate many times a day, every day of their lives, and they begin to do so from the moment they decide to put words together creating a good probability of being engaged in narrative discourse (Bruner, 1991). The outcome is that form of narrative that Lyotard defined as “the quintessential form of customary knowledge” (1984, p. 19) or, quoting another French scholar, “ordinary knowledge” (Maffesoli, 1996/1985). In other words, the presence of an event is fundamental for a narrative. Polkinghorne clearly and concisely summarises the concept thus: “narrative is a meaning structure that organizes events and human actions into a whole, thereby attributing significance to individual actions and events according to their effect on the whole. Thus, narratives are to be differentiated from chronicles, which simply list events according to their place on a time line. Narrative provides a symbolized account of actions that includes a temporal dimension” (1988, p. 18). “Event” becomes thus the keyword, although in this essay we will often prefer the term “action” because without it “you may have a ‘description’, an ‘exposition,’ an ‘argument,’ a ‘lyric,’ some combination of these or something else altogether, but

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you won’t have a narrative” (Abbott, 2002, p. 13). The focus on events (actions) and especially on their representation brings out the—crucial—difference between story and narrative and, thus, that between narrative and storytelling. In introducing the keyword “event”, Abbott (2002) made a further distinction between narrative, which is the representation of events (story + narrative discourse), story (event or sequence of events) and narrative discourse (how events are represented). However, decades earlier, Chatman had already proposed a distinction between the “what” and the “how” of a narrative: “Each narrative has two parts: a story (histoire), consisting of the content, the chain of events (actions and happenings), and what may be called the existents (characters and settings), the objects and persons performing, undergoing, or acting as a background for them; and a discourse (discours), that is, the expression, the means by which the content is communicated, the set of actual narrative ‘statements.’ The theory then is dualistic: story is the what that is depicted: discourse is the how” (Chatman, 1975, p. 295). “What” refers to the formal content elements of the narrative, while “how” refers to the formal expression elements of the narrative (how it is rendered verbally, textually or by image). Not everything that is said or written is a narrative. To better make this explicit, scholars have introduced the concept of “narrativity”, which has two meanings (Abbott, 2002; Prince, 2005). The first outlines the quality of “being of narrative”, i.e., the set of properties that characterise narratives and distinguish them from non-narratives; the second, instead, outlines the set of optional features that make narratives more typically narrative than others, so as to be immediately identifiable, processable and interpretable as narratives. Somers (1994) further supported this by identifying four dimensions of narratives: ontological, public, conceptual and metanarrativities. Ontological narratives are the stories that individuals use to make sense of their lives. Consequently, they act in and on them—the narratives define who individuals are. Defining “what to do” (acting) produces new narratives and, therefore, new actions. The relationship between narratives and ontology is a reflexive cycle of the identities of temporally and spatially situated individuals. Public narratives are linked not to the individual but larger social organisations (from the family to international institutions). Conceptual narratives are the concepts and explanations that social researchers build through a vocabulary that can be used to reconstruct and trace in time and space the ontological narratives and relationships of individuals, as well as the public and cultural narratives that involve their lives. According to Somers, “The conceptual challenge that narrativity poses is to develop a social analytic vocabulary that can accommodate the contention that social life, social organizations, social action, and social identities are narratively, that is, temporally and relationally, constructed through both ontological and public narratives” (Somers, 1994, p. 620). Finally, metanarrativities are all those “masternarratives” in which social individuals are embedded as contemporary actors within history and, for some, as social researchers. Many sociological theories and concepts are encoded, often beyond the researcher’s awareness, with aspects of these narratives (progress, industrialisation, enlightenment, secularisation, etc.) that may well be a sort of mainstream zeitgeist. Narratives, with their dimensions, can be traced back to

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aspects that are closely related to narrative identity (social construction of identity through narrative) and relational setting (relations between institutions, public narratives and social practices). These are just some of the elements introducing the reflections that will follow. The so-called “narrative turn” in the social sciences has engendered a paradigm shift in how to think about the human condition and how best to analyse it, but at the same time, it has raised concerns and perhaps even reluctance to believe it is possible to change the dominant model. Narrative enquiry is greatly extending its reach, thus losing some of its specificity and value as a paradigm (Freeman, 2015). What is perhaps most worrying is the idea that this may represent just an intellectual fad that, after the initial enthusiasm, is destined to disappear or, worse, is simply ill-conceived and, therefore, detracts from the efforts made to shift the standard on the human condition.

1.2

Towards a New Sociological Imagination

Taking up the last concern mentioned above, this section will address the essential features of the relationship between narratives and sociology and how the latter has approached the study of the former. There are two orders of questions (both theoretical and methodological) that relate narratives to sociology considering a temporal dimension that marks the “before” and “after” the so-called “narrative turn”. On the one hand, the eternal quantitative/qualitative querelle and, on the other hand, the impossibility of separating this relationship from the sociology of knowledge. From its earliest stages, sociology has experienced the controversy between quantitative and qualitative methods. If, with Durkheim’s essay Le Suicide (2005/ 1897) this discipline is at the peak of its positivistic phase (quantitative method), with The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1958/1918– 1920) the focus shifts to qualitative aspects. It can be argued that the latter represents the inception of narrative studies in sociology (Hyvärinen, 2016), opening the door to later analyses—which developed especially from phenomenology with its two pragmatic branches of symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology (Polletta et al., 2011). However, as Stanley argued, Thomas and Znaniecki were interested in narratives in a particular way: “They are not interested in narrative in the sense of the telling of stories about a life and a self. Instead their analysis is concerned with stories, [...], because they are (part of) social life, not a proxy for or a commentary about it” (Stanley, 2010, p. 148). Nevertheless, this research represents the first example of a study based on the qualitative aspects of human life starting from the stories of Polish peasants. Qualitative studies will be disregarded by the majority of scholars from the Second World War onwards—with the partial exception of those from the Chicago School. Studies using qualitative methods were almost completely forgotten until the second half of the twentieth century, despite strong criticism from several eminent scholars, including—to make an illustrious example—Pitrim

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A. Sorokin, the first head of the Harvard Sociology Department. Sorokin opposed a way of doing sociology that sought to reduce it to a pure research technique, thereby foreclosing the depths of human values and meanings. He firmly protested against what he called the “quantophrenia” and “testomania” (Sorokin, 1955) of the social sciences (primarily sociology) and all other reductivist conceptions. Such a position was based on his precise and unequivocal conception of sociology “as the science of the phenomena of human interaction, their factors and results. The term ‘interaction’ [. . .] includes the mutual interaction of two or more individuals, as well as the action of one individual upon another. Neither the phenomena of the interaction of inorganic or their constituent parts, nor those of living organism (exclusive of man) are included in the sphere of sociology. Sociology is a science dealing with human interaction only; it is essentially a study of men in their interactions—a homosociology” (Sorokin, n.d., Chap. I, pp. 1–2). In other words, “The task of sociology and social science begins where the physical and biological study of man and his world ends” (Sorokin, 1962/1947, p. 3) and in this sense, sociology studies men and the socio-cultural universe as they are in all their multiplicity. If one examines Polkinghorne’s definition of narratives in light of the above, “[a]s a meaning structure that organizes events and human actions into a whole, thereby attributing significance to individual actions and events according to their effect on the whole” (1988, p. 18), it jumps to the eyes that qualitative methods are necessary to study the lives of human beings and the narratives as essential elements of both individual and collective life. The experience of a sociologically constructed category of individuals in a context of larger socio-cultural and historical forces makes the collective—collective story—sociologically crucial (Richardson, 1988). Narratives are a “powerful tool” for understanding the individual and society (Erol Işik, 2015), a tool that is related to the way sociological methodology is understood. Eminently qualitative methods (observation, interviews, content analysis, to name but a few) attempt to bring together sociological knowledge and that of the other social sciences in a single integrated system of knowledge that focuses on all the aspects of change within a society (society, culture and personality) without neglecting the reflexivity on the activities of the researcher himself (Gergen & Gergen, 2008)—as researchers are also a part of the society. The knowledge of the social sciences has a mostly empirical content, which does not solve the problem of its practical translatability, nor does it clarify the ambivalent role of the researcher— actor and observer of the investigated phenomenon. These aspects lead researchers to wonder about the most suitable methodology that relates theory and action to the intersection of several variables. Research is a tool to expand the capacity to describe phenomena, through the increase of knowledge leading to their explanation (erklären) and understanding (verstehen), and then to their prediction. These levels are neither sequential nor separate (Homans, 1967) but rather a unified whole that results in the amalgamation of theory, empirics and operability, as well as the integration between the various social sciences. Sociological knowledge is, therefore, the instrument that allows for analysing the complexity of the problems linked to social phenomenology. When associated with action, it can point to possible paths for improving the issues under consideration. As

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the object of study of sociology is phenomenal reality (individual and collective) in relation to society, sociological research cannot address only macro-social phenomena (regarding social systems and their forms of organisation) while excluding micro-social (individual/society relations and social actions) or meso-social ones (relations between the social system and the world of life with its set of meanings and representations). On the contrary, the ultimate aim is to keep these dimensions together (Collins, 1988). When dealing with sociology, then, the question posed by Berger and Luckmann comes in handy: “How is it possible that subjective meanings become objective facticities?” (1966, p. 30). In other words, to arrive at an adequate understanding of the reality of society, it is necessary to investigate how this reality is constructed. This is the task of the sociology of knowledge (Wissenssoziologie), which, by studying the connections between categories of thought, forms of knowledge and social structures, enables a continuous comparison between different spatially and temporally situated ideas of the world. Anna Borisenkova, recalling Tilly’s work (1984), points out that there is a close connection between narrative and sociological research as the latter “may display narrative features when it deals both with microanalysis and macro-level comparisons. The paper opens with a sketch of narrative explanatory potentials and narratology’s major contributions to social theory” (Borisenkova, 2009). Sociological knowledge has a narrative basis that involves several points: narrative as a means of shaping the sociological view of one’s private history; narrative as a representation of social phenomena; and, finally, narrative as a kind of logic, embedded in the process of sociological explanation. The work of the social scientist and the resulting knowledge is, therefore, a dimension of the individual’s reflexivity that is neither subjective nor structural but is related to the order of reality of social relations. To make another illustrious example, Bourdieu bases his unitary model precisely on relationships. Aiming at conjugating the “theory of action” with the “structuralist theory”, his model focuses the analysis not on single phenomena but systems of relations between objects and events. As Wacquant points out, “Against all forms of methodological monism that purport to assert the ontological priority of structure or agent, system or actor, the collective or the individual, Bourdieu-affirms the primacy of relations. In his view, such dualistic alternatives reflect a commonsensical perception of social reality of which sociology must rid itself [...] Social science need not choose between these poles, for the/stuff of social reality—of action no less than structure, and their intersection as history—lies in relations” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 15). In short, for Bourdieu, “thinking relationally” is the foundation of social science, and it is precisely this thinking that must lead sociology to be reflexive—in the sense that it must recognise the limits of the scientific status of the discipline starting from the distinction between common sense knowledge and scientific knowledge. This introduces the idea of the “epistemological rupture”, that is, the precise definition of the boundaries of social science with respect to common sense without denying the persistence of the “spontaneous sociology” of common sense rooted in society. Sociological knowledge, or rather sociology itself, is suspected of “compromising with politics” (Bourdieu, 2013), since it results from the work of a subject (the

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researcher) who is himself part of society and therefore risks endorsing assumptions and prejudices. The main defence from this danger is precisely the critical interpretation of socio-cultural phenomena. Bourdieu himself points out that “for the sociologist, familiarity with his social universe, is the epistemological obstacle par excellence, because it continuously produces fictitious conceptions or systematizations and, at the same time, the conditions of their credibility. The sociologist’s struggle with spontaneous sociology is never finally won, and he must conduct unending polemics against the blinding self-evidences which all too easily provide the illusion of immediate knowledge and his insuperable health” (Bourdieu et al., 1991/1968, p. 13). Sociologists are strongly involved in this sort of dual role (analyst and object of analysis at the same time). They do not try to understand problems aseptically, but, as part of society, consider themselves to be a party to such problems. Therefore, they tend not to defend themselves from society but to give it a more “human scale” through critical reflection. The debate on the usefulness of sociology or sociological knowledge has never died down. For example, Charles Wright Millsʼ essay The Sociological Imagination (1959) claimed that one cannot understand the life of individuals without understanding society and vice versa. Causing a major brouhaha, it also argued that individuals need a quality of mind that helps them use the information to develop a reason that allows the achievement of a lucid synthesis of what happens and what can happen to the individual and the world. This quality, called “sociological imagination”, allows for a reading of biographies and history in reciprocal relation to society. In other words, the sociological imagination allows scholars to shift from one perspective to another, grasping what is happening in the world and at the same time understanding what is happening to himself and individuals as points of intersection of biography and the history of society—i.e., what Bourdieu will recognise as relationships. According to some scholars, the challenge posed by the continuous changes in society, which is moving more and more towards globalisation, brings about two orders of questions for sociology (Ossewaarde, 2007): on the one hand, globalisation is seen as a threat to both citizenship and new sociology; on the other hand, some glimpse the possibility of returning sociology to the “public”, calling for a “reinvention” of sociology, in the form of a “new sociological imagination” (Fuller, 2006; Solis-Gadea, 2005). It is, therefore, necessary to consider an integrated interweaving of factors and methodologies of investigation for the study of socio-cultural phenomena, given that a new attitude is required to produce sociological knowledge. This new attitude “will have to be sensitive to the increasing narrativity of lived life brought about by the increasing textualization of personal realities” (Erasga, 2010, p. 25). This new way of producing sociological knowledge, in contemporary society, becomes important for the new sociological theorisations made necessary by continuous changes. And it is precisely in the wake of the need to produce new forms of sociological knowledge that, starting from the approaches that developed in the second half of the twentieth century, qualitative studies and methods regained vitality, stimulating the study of narratives by sociology and sociologists (Franzosi, 1998).

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The 1980s marked the turning point for sociology and the revitalisation of narrative studies (the so-called narrative turn of social sciences). Hyvärinen (2016) identifies Bertaux’s (1981) essay Biography and Society and Mitchell’s (1980) edited collection On Narratives as the two focal moments of this turning point. Due to the peculiarity of this essay, I will not delve into these two works but rather outline the very beginnings of narrative studies in sociology. To sum up, several factors have promoted the increasing interest in narratives, especially in the UK and US. Among these, the need for a new attitude towards the production of sociological knowledge and the consequent reappraisal of qualitative research methods, the interest in language, and, last but not least, the development of new communication technologies (Riessman, 1993). These circumstances, taken together, allowed for what Maines (1993) called the “narrative’s moment”, i.e., that moment in which a set of conditions has allowed the development of narrative sociology. He summarises these conditions as (a) a new post-positivist era of sociology (see Sulkunen, 2008); (b) a series of speeches by the chairs of various American sociology associations in favour of qualitative methods and narrative, and finally, (c) the methodological fetishism of sociologists. To these, we can add the “sociologists’ turgid and still myopic recognition that they have nothing to study and theorize about unless people in some way communicate with one another” (Maines, 1993, p. 18). The development of narrative sociology from these conditions follows two separate paths that will later converge. On the one hand, many of the phenomena investigated by sociologists (socialisation processes, organisational structure and functioning, power and authority relations, migrations, to name but a few) are made up of stories, allowing scholars to approach their study through a narrative ontology. This ontology does not imply an exclusive micro analysis—even though it might seem so at first glance—because narratives are intrinsically collective acts and exist at any level of analysis (micro, macro and meso). On the other hand, narrative sociology draws attention to the fact that sociologists are “narrators” (Merton, 1980). It follows that society relies on communication processes, that communication itself is social, and that the work of the sociologist is also communicative—obvious aspects that are, however, neglected by sociology. Narrative sociology can promote new sociological knowledge which would result both from new questions (and search for answers) and the revitalisation of old ones. This challenge to mainstream sociology can forge a dialogue—even an interdisciplinary one—promoting greater research breadth in which narrative and non-narrative sociology can not only coexist but contribute more incisively to providing answers to social changes.

1.3

Narratives as Cultural Products

The above are, in short, the questions that narrative-related studies engendered in the sociological field. I need to point out from the outset that, while not all communicative acts are narratives, narratives are a cultural product. While it is difficult to

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outline an inclusive and unique definition of narrative, following the conclusions of the previous section we can embrace Ewick and Silbey’s general statement: “Synthesizing these various definitions, it appears that to qualify as narrative, a particular communication must minimally have three elements or features” (1995, p. 200). In this section, I will provide the basic elements and features for those communicative acts that can be considered narratives for the social sciences (especially sociology). Ewick and Silbey (1995) seem to agree with Maines (1993), who identifies three necessary elements for a communicative act to be identified as a narrative, “The first element is that events must be selected from the past for purposes of focus and commentary. Second, those events must be transformed into story elements. This is done through the use of plot, setting, and characterization that confer structure, meaning, and context on the events selected. Third, a temporal ordering of events must be created so that questions of how and why events happened can be established and the narrative elements can acquire features of tempo, duration, and pace. These three elements designate narratives as empirical objects which at their core are representations of unobservable in a time/space configuration” (Maines, 1993, p. 21). Although using different terms, Ewick and Silbey confirm what Maines previously argued: “First, a narrative relies on some form of selective appropriation of past events and characters. Second, within a narrative the events must be temporally ordered. This quality of narrative re-quires that the selected events be presented with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Third, the events and characters must be related to one another and to some overarching structure, often in the context of an opposition or struggle” (Ewick & Silbey 1995, p. 200). All these authors point to two dimensions that can never be overlooked when discussing narratives: space and time. While the temporal dimension is all too explicit with its reference to the actualised past, the space dimension must be understood as the social context, (a) within which the events that are the subject of the narration took place, and (b) in which the narration is made explicit. I agree with Ewick and Silbey when they argue that narrative analysis in sociology is essentially developed between two domains: the epistemological and the political one. According to the former, narratives can reveal truths about the social world that are often reduced or overlooked due to the use of more traditional methods in social research. Social identities and actions are narrated; they are not a mere form of social life imposed on individuals through language (Somers, 1994) but a representation of it. For the latter, narratives have a potentially subversive or transformative significance on social life (some kind of “liberation”) as they “give a voice” to those who often do not have one. These two areas are not complementary, divided or in a hierarchy but are closely interrelated. Furthermore, they are particularly significant for the social sciences because they highlight that “the political commitment to giving voice and bearing witness through narrative is underwritten by the epistemological conviction that there is no single, objectively apprehended truth. Conversely, the epistemological claim that there are multiple truths is based on the recognition that knowledge is socially and politically produced. Together, the two claims regarding narrative scholarship argue that the multiple stories which have been buried, silenced, or obscured by the logico-deductive methods of social science

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have the capacity to undermine the illusion of an objective, naturalized world which so often sustains inequality and powerlessness” (Ewick & Silbey, 1995, p. 199). Before going any further, it is necessary to clarify several conceptual knots, the first of which is that narrative can enter sociological research in different ways: as an object, as a method and, finally, as a product (Ewick & Silbey, 1995; Orbuch, 1997). About the first mode (object of study), it should be noted that this is one of the problems of sociology as a discipline since the end of the last century. Beyond the research method adopted, some classic objects of study have been abandoned (suicide, altruism, solidarity, etc.) and it is, therefore, necessary to revise the theoretical foundations of sociology as well as its research methods to incorporate narratives as one of its objects. When narratives are the object of investigation, researchers examine how stories are produced through social action and act as mediators of the action itself and contribute to the construction of identity. In this case, the “narrative is used as a fundamental sociological concept, analogous to role or status, to denote processes by which people construct and communicate their understandings of the world” (Ewick & Silbey, 1995, p. 202). The study of narratives as an object of investigation also allows sociologists to observe how individuals impose order and subjective meaning on the experiences around them in an attempt to find a balance in their interactions with others. When narratives are used as a method or means, they allow sociologists to study social life as it unfolds. In other words, the study of narratives allows us to reveal some aspects of the social world that cannot be accessed in any other way. They are a kind of “lens” through which to observe social life, which makes it even superfluous to analyse their construction. To be clearer, one can say that the social world brought into focus by the “lens” of narratives is not necessarily related to what constitutes narratives or how they are produced and function in the social world of everyday life. The sociology of narrative, in this case, can be understood as the tool that draws the role and meaning of narration as social action: it is a point of observation and listening to the social world. Finally, when a narrative is used as a product, it means that researchers themselves take on the function of narrators in the production of accounts of social life. Indeed, the latter does not come to scholars already narrated, but it is they who construct representations of social action that can itself be an act of narrative— sociology as narrative. The ways proposed by Ewick and Silbey (1995) of considering narratives in sociological studies are obviously to be understood as provisional and partial. However, they emphasise that most social situations are in a way governed by narratives, which in turn leads us to consider them (the narratives) as tools for constructing and sustaining the socio-cultural models of a given society. Indeed, they are social acts performed within specific contexts that organise both their meanings and their consequences. Narratives are socially organised through some elements akin to Lasswell’s (1948) “5W rule”. Narratives do not occur randomly or uniformly in social interactions. Their social organisation defines, among other things, “when” they are expected, required or permitted. We often offer narrative explanations in the hope of excusing or justifying

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untoward behaviour and thus preventing a change in our social status—even if justifying it means affirming the positive value of an act in the face of claims to the contrary (Scott & Lyman, 1968). A good example of this is giving evidence in court (Bennett & Feldman, 1981). The content of narratives is also governed by social norms and conventions that, while differing according to social or institutional context, define “what” constitutes an appropriate or successful narrative (in particular, relevance and credibility). The specific social organisation of narration, which, as mentioned above, depends on the type of social and/or institutional context, regulates not only the “when” and the “what” but also the “narrative transactions”, i.e., “how” stories are told to fulfil one or more functions. “Commonly, a narrator will design his tale so as to lead his audience to make certain more or less specific and stable inferences appropriate to the nature of his own interests in the narrative transaction” (Herrnstein Smith, 1980, p. 231). Narratives are interactive productions rather than individual ones; social norms specify the rules of participation by assigning the roles of narrator and audience and even defining who can intervene in the narrative. Narratives are, therefore, strategic (the narrator wants to achieve some goal or advance some interest) and to understand such strategies one must ask “why” stories are told. When individuals engage in narration, they have clear ideas in their minds, they consciously construct their stories without ever forgetting the social rules that govern that social or institutional context in which the narrative takes place. “These dimensions of the social organization of narrative— the when, what, how, and why of narrative—operate simultaneously to structure and produce different outcomes” (Ewick & Silbey, 1995, p. 210). However, narratives are not only realised within social contexts but are also their constitutive elements and are, therefore, affected by dominant cultural models and power relations as with any other socio-cultural phenomenon. They are cultural products generated through the interactions of individuals; even those that appear to be personal are based on collective ones and as such are also affected by ideology or power. Therefore, narratives can produce hegemonic models that influence social life or, conversely, they can subvert the hegemonic power. The double potential of narratives (hegemonic/subversive) is unquestionable: it is confirmed in many quarters that narratives can contribute both to the reproduction of existing structures of meaning and power and their transformation. In this dynamic, the task of sociology is to analyse the role of narratives in various social and institutional contexts, assuming that society is in perpetual construction. Individuals, with their particular and personal narratives, participate in and reproduce collective narratives, providing both “closures” (social control) and “openings” for innovation in reshaping the social world. The processes of understanding narrative as social practice (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2008) imply great attention to different levels of analysis (micro, macro and meso) that start from the local level of interaction (community) as the place of articulation of phenomena. Said phenomena, however, can find their explanation and understanding well beyond it.

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References Abbott, H. P. (2002). The Cambridge introduction to narrative. Cambridge University Press. Aristotle. (1968). Poetics. Clarendon Press. Barthes, R. (1975/1966). An introduction to the structural analysis of narrative (L. Duisit, Trans.). New Literary History, 6(2), 237–272 (Original work published 1966). Bennett, W. L., & Feldman, M. S. (1981). Reconstructing reality in the courtroom: Justice and judgment in American culture. Rutgers University Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Penguin Books. Berger, R. J., & Quinney, R. (2004). The narrative turn in social inquiry. In R. J. Berger & R. Quinney (Eds.), Storytelling sociology: Narrative as social inquiry (pp. 1–11). Lynne Rienner. Bertaux, D. (Ed.). (1981). Biography and society. Sage. Borisenkova, A. (2009). Narrative foundations of knowing: Towards a new perspective in the sociology of knowledge. Sociological Research Online, 14(5), 17. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro. 2011 Bourdieu, P. (2013). In praise of sociology: Acceptance speech for the gold medal of the CNRS. Sociology, 47(1), 7–14. Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J. -C., & Passeron, J. -C. (1991/1968). The craft of sociology: Epistemological preliminaries (R. Nice, Trans.). Walter de Gruyter (Original work published 1968). Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. The University of Chicago Press. Bruner, J. S. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21. Chatman, S. (1975). Towards a theory of narrative. New Literary History, 6(2), 295–318. Collins, R. (1988). Theoretical sociology. Harcourt Brace Javanovich. De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Analysing narratives as practices. Qualitative Research, 8(3), 379–387. Durkheim, É. (2005). Suicide. A study in sociology (J. A. Spaulding & G. Simpson, Trans.). Routledge (Original work published 1897). Erasga, D. S. (2010). When story becomes theory: Storytelling as sociological theorizing. AsiaPacific Social Science Review, 10(1), 21–38. Erol Işik, N. (2015). The role of narrative methods in sociology: Stories as a powerful tool to understand individual and society. Sosyoloji Araştırmaları Dergisi/Journal of Sociological Research, 18(1), 103–125. Ewick, P., & Silbey, S. S. (1995). Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: Toward a sociology of narrative. Law & Society Review, 29(2), 197–226. Franzosi, R. (1998). Narrative analysis-or why (and how) sociologists should be interested in narrative. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 517–554. Freeman, K. (2015). Narrative as a mode of understanding. Method, theory, praxis. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), The handbook of narrative analysis (pp. 21–37). Wiley. Fuller, S. (2006). The new sociological imagination. Sage. Gergen, K. J., & Gergen, M. M. (2008). Social constructionism. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (pp. 816–820). Sage. Herman, D., Phelan, J., Rabinowitz, P. J., Richardson, B., & Warhol, R. (2012). Narrative theory. Core concepts and critical debates. The Ohio State University Press. Herrnstein Smith, B. (1980). Narrative versions, narrative theories. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 213–236. Homans, G. C. (1967). The nature of social science. Hartcourt. Hyvärinen, M. (2016). Narrative and sociology (invited). Narrative Works, 6(1). Retrieved 10 July, 2021, from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NW/article/view/25445. Kluckhohn, C., & Kroeber, A. L. (1952). Culture. A critical review of concepts and definitions. Vintage Books.

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Kreiswirth, M. (2005). Narrative turn in the humanities. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 377–382). Routledge. Lasswell, H. B. (1948). The structure and function of communication and society. In L. Bryson (Ed.), The communication of ideas (pp. 32–51). Harper. Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Maffesoli, M. (1996/1985). Ordinary knowledge: An introduction to interpretative sociology. Polity (Original work published 1985). Maines, D. R. (1993). Narrative’s moment and sociology’s phenomena: Toward a narrative sociology. Sociological Quarterly, 34(1), 17–38. Merton, R. K. (1980). On the oral transmission of knowledge. In R. K. Merton & M. W. Riley (Eds.), Sociological tradition from generation to generation (pp. 1–35). Ablex. Mills, C. W. (1940). Situated actions and vocabularies of motive. American Sociological Review, 5(6), 904–913. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press. Mitchell, W. J. T. (1980). Editor’s note: On Narrative. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 1–4. OED (Oxford English Dictionary). (2021). Oxford University Press. Retrieved April 12, 2021, from https://www.oed.com/. Orbuch, T. L. (1997). People’s accounts count: The sociology of accounts. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 455–478. Ossewaarde, M. (2007). Sociology back to the publics. Sociology, 41(5), 799–812. Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. State University of New York Press. Polletta, F., Ching, P., Chen, B., Gharrity Gardner, B., & Motes, A. (2011). The sociology of storytelling. The Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 109–130. Prince, G. (2005). Narrativity. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 387–388). Routledge. Raine, S. (2013). The narrative turn: Interdisciplinary methods and perspectives. Student Anthropologist, 3(3), 64–80. Richardson, L. (1988). The collective story: Postmodernism and the writing of sociology. Sociological Focus, 21(3), 199–208. Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis. Sage. Ryan, M.-L. (2005). Narrative. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 344–348). Routledge. Ryan, M.-L. (2007). Toward a definition of narrative. In D. Herman (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to narrative (pp. 22–35). Cambridge University Press. Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33(1), 46–62. Solis-Gadea, H. R. (2005). The new sociological imagination: Facing the challenges of a new millennium. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 18(3-4), 113–122. Somers, M. R. (1994). The narrative construction of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory and Society, 23, 605–649. Sorokin, P. A. (1955). Testomania. Harvard Educational Review, XXV(4), 199–213. Sorokin, P. A. (1962/1947). Society, culture, and personality: Their structure and dynamics. A system of general sociology. Cooper Square (Original work published 1947). Sorokin, P. A. (n.d.). The nature of sociology and its relation to other sciences. University Archives & Special Collections, P.A. Sorokin fonds, MG449, I, A, 3. University of Saskatchewan. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2012). What is culture? A compilation of quotations, GlobalPeople core concept compilations. University of Warwick. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https:// warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/globalpeople2/knowledgeexchange/gp_cc_what_is_culture_ final_181204.pdf Stanley, L. (2010). To the letter: Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant and writing a life, sociologically. Life Writing, 7(2), 139–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484520903445271

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Sulkunen, P. (2008). Social research and social practice in Post-Positivist Society. In P. Alasuutari, L. Bickman, & J. Brannen (Eds.), The Sage handbook of social research methods (pp. 68–91). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446212165. Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1958/1918–1920). The Polish peasant in Europe and America: A classic work in immigration history (2 vols). Dover (Original work published, 5 vols. 1918–1920). Tilly, C. (1984). Big structures, large processes, huge comparisons. Russel Sage Foundation. White, H. (1980). The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 5–27.

Chapter 2

Background and Theoretical Framework

Abstract With modernity, man and his actions become a new focus for thought and debate, diverting attention from religious aspects to the associated life of individuals—and, consequently, politics. Hence the need to figure out the path traced by the various theories and, especially, how these theories have attempted to understand (meaning and significance) the reasons why, in certain situations, individuals tie their actions to narratives. While not all approaches have used the term narrative, they all addressed aspects of everyday life that, directly or indirectly, can be attributed to narrative processes. Indeed, dynamics analogous to narrative processes have always been present in the history of humanity. In this chapter, I will offer an overview of some relevant theories: phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, social constructionism and hermeneutics. In this effort, I will not, of course, claim for exhaustivity—either temporal or theoretical. Keywords Phenomenology · Symbolic interactionism · Ethnomethodology · Social constructionism · Hermeneutics

2.1

Phenomenology and the Life-World

The phenomenological approach to the social sciences (especially sociology) derives from Husserl’s philosophy (1970/1936) and accentuates meaningful action in everyday life. Relinquishing the point of view of society, it takes the individual as its frame of reference. The theoretical analysis of its scholars starts from the words—or, rather, the interactions—between individuals. Indeed, the words and terms used by individuals are not taken for granted but inspected in light of the context of interaction. It is necessary to identify the meaning people attribute to them in their everyday actions. The approach is innovative precisely in that it introduces new emphasis on the interpretation that individuals make of their “life situation”. The key factors at play are two: the role structure within society and the culture surrounding and framing interactions. It is not only objective factors that allow interpretation, but also and above all subjective factors. The symbolic relationship of individuals with their own body, other individuals, and the environment of reference is crucial for this process of interpretation and signification. The phenomenological approach “is © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_2

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therefore interested in the epistemological explanation of the ‘foundation’ of the lifeworld, which is on the one hand a point of reference and on the other hand an implicit basis for research work in the social sciences” (Flick et al., 2004, p. 68). In other words, the issue at stake is no longer how ideas are born and circulate, but how they are considered a reality of everyday life that allows for interpretation and subsequent decision-making and action. Referring to the life-world (Lebenswelt), which Husserl (1970/1936) defined as the “realm of immediate evidence”, means taking as leadoff three features: the common sense (embedded knowledge), the cultural system, and social interactions. Indeed, these systems and processes are the premises for all reflections and cognitive insights in everyday life. Including interactions makes it possible to consider the lifeworld and the social system jointly, because interactions are reciprocal actions with an autonomous connotation that transcends those who enact it. Nevertheless, we should never forget that interactions occur within a framework of meanings (culture) and is both a resource and constraint of the social system. The most important representative of this approach is Alfred Schütz (1962, 1964, 1966, 1967/1932). He argued for a science capable of reading the connections between the forms of knowledge and the modes of expression of social relations, as well as the social distribution of knowledge that underlie our understanding of the life-world. This drive, in his opinion, was particularly poignant for sociology. Schütz’s works are affected by the different socio-historical environments he experienced (first in Europe and then in the United States). He claims that the lack of interest towards what “appears obvious, banal” in everyday life engenders the social sciences since it is precisely the everyday life that hosts those social phenomena that constitute the core object of study of the social sciences. Schütz “pointed out that it is impossible to understand human conduct while ignoring its intentions, and it is impossible to understand human intentions while ignoring the settings in which they make sense” (Czarniawska, 2004, p. 4). Everyday life—that he specifically calls the “world of daily life”—has an intersubjective nature: “the world of daily life shall mean the intersubjective world which existed long before our birth, experienced and interpreted by Others, our predecessors, as an organized world. [. . .] All interpretation of this world is based upon a stock of previous experience of it, our own experiences and those handed down to us by our parents and teachers, which in the form of ‘knowledge at hand’ function as a scheme of reference” (Schütz, 1962, p. 208). It is precisely this kind of “knowledge at hand” that allows individuals to understand and control everyday experience. Like all other realities, it is based on the meaningful action (sinnhaft) that is expressed in interactions and makes experiences into “finite provinces of meaning”. Each life-world has specific structures or styles that can be explored from a phenomenological perspective (Schütz & Luckmann, 1973). Deriving his theoretical pillars from Weber’s work (1978/1922), Schütz strives to clarify the elements and connections underlying its concepts. Finding fault in Weber for conceiving meaningful action mainly in his model of purposeoriented rational action, Schütz states that “He breaks off his analysis of the social world when he arrives at what he assumes to be basic and irreducible elements of social phenomena. But he is wrong in this assumption. His concept meaningful

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action—the key of interpretative sociology—is by no means defines a primitive, as he thinks it does. It is, on the contrary, a mere label for a highly complex and ramified area” (Schütz, 1967/1932, p. 7). Sense, for Schütz, is “the reflexive exit from the temporal continuity” (Santambrogio, 2006). Unlike Weber, he distinguishes between action-in-progress and action completed, between the sense of producing and the sense of produced, between the sense of one’s own action (self-understanding) and that of the action of others (hetero-understanding). Hence the two core elements of Schütz’s theory: time and space—that also characterize the unfolding of everyday life events. Both constitute the social interaction processes and are essential categories of and for analysis in the social sciences. On time and its influence on action, Husserl (1991/ 1966) considered temporal experience in its threefold structure (primal impression, retention and protention): “Primal impression—the direct access to the strictly present phase of the intentional object—is related to the future and to the past. It is related to the future when it anticipates what we will perceive next, and it is related to the past when it retains what has just been fulfilled. While the anticipation of the future is not-yet fulfilled (otherwise it would not be future), the intention of the past is fulfilled. Husserl calls ‘protention’ to the first case and ‘retention’ to the second” (Dimitriu, 2013, p. 213). This pattern leads to the assumption that individuals can perceive their everyday experiences in two ways. First, in their continuous unfolding, in their flowing within the unity of experience (retention). Alternatively, they can become the object of a subsequent reflection (protention) when they are detached from the unity to which they were bound—and within which the individual had experienced them—separating, distinguishing, delimiting them. In the first case, the experience coincides with that of the individual and cannot be separated from it. In the second case, the individual reflecting on the past action grasps something distinctive, reproduces it mentally, and, in so doing, alters the experience. In this way, time is no longer unitary and becoming aware of this means that individuals are oriented in their actions by the temporal dimension. This theory allows Schütz to elaborate on the notion of reflexivity that allows individuals to escape temporal continuity. Reflexivity allows the attribution of meaning on the basis that the individual “becomes aware” of living through an experience that changes at each stage of its duration: each “now” was in turn preceded by a “now” that is a memory. This attitude towards the temporal flow of a timespan is what Schütz calls “reflection”. But the meaning attributed to action also varies based on the spheres in which it takes place, as the individuals taken as reference change. Schütz thus classifies the social world into its composing spheres: Umwelt, Mitwelt, Vorwelt and Folgewelt. Umwelt (Associates) are the individuals with whom one has direct experience in the current social context (family, colleagues, friends, etc.); Mitwelt (Contemporaries) are those with whom one has only indirect relationships (the term “contemporary” is understood in its broadest and most common sense); Vorwelt (Predecessors) are the people who preceded us in time (ancestors in a general sense, past) and, finally, Folgewelt (Successors) those who will succeed us in time (heirs in the broadest sense, future). If we apply this differentiation of spheres to the acting individual, we

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can observe that the same action can take on different meanings depending on its time frame. It can have a meaning and representation before it is performed, i.e., when it is still a project (sense of producing), while it is being performed, which means when it is experienced (sense of produced), and, finally, after it has been performed, that is, when it is remembered by those who performed it (self-understanding) and those who were interlocutors (hetero-understanding). In simpler words, according to Schütz, the attribution of meaning to any action is arbitrary: actions are linked to a project constructed by the actor for a given sphere of the lifeworld of life and are, therefore, susceptible to modification. The action designed and the one completed often do not coincide. This discrepancy entails a necessary distinction between final and causal motives, or between sense as an end (project) and as a cause (completed action). Someone else’s action can be understood in its entirety and sense only if we can understand their purpose for the action by [re] tracing it to similar experiences. The above, however, is not sufficient to clarify the complexity of intersubjective relations. For this reason, Schütz adds a further distinction concerning the sense of the product of individual actions. He distinguishes the “subjective sense” of a production when individuals can repeat, in the present, the acts constituting the experience of the one who first enacted it. Conversely, if the reference is only to the product as such, we speak of the “objective sense”. For this reason, we must also distinguish between the interpretations of the acting subject and those of the observers. If we thus connect action and meaning, the authentically subjective sense of the action remains almost inaccessible to the understanding of the other, while, at the social level, the meaning of an action is interpreted generically with its objective sense established in typifications. Typifications refer to “the taken-forgranted world” and are constituted by previous conceptual elaborations of welldefined objects that appear independent from individuals. These elaborations can be understood only if the experience of such a single element can be imputed to a general “type” (typification process). The world of human beings is one of typified objects; it is only on their basis that people can experience them in both their generality and uniqueness. Typification is a specific cognitive procedure not only for the social sciences but for individuals in general. In Schütz’s theory, the object of study is the meaningful action that takes place in the “everyday life-world”. This argument lays the groundwork for a future understanding of the processes at the origin of culture. These processes are objectified and generalised through the social communication of meanings that are first formed in the intentionality of consciousness. However, once they have been shared and internalised, they affect the consciousness itself, as well as actions and intersubjective relations. Another major contribution to the phenomenological approach was that of Berger and Luckmann (both students of Schütz’s). Specifically, Luckmann introduced the phenomenological approach into Europe, contributing to its diffusion among the European social sciences. The title of their joint work, The Social Construction of Reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), perfectly epitomizes the nucleus of their studies: for these authors, reality is nothing but a social construction. Their position

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contrasts with the knowledge of “the man on the street”1 (Schütz, 1946), who considers reality a self-evident element. For Berger and Luckmann, instead, the problem lies precisely in the conventional knowledge underlying everyday life. They do not wonder why or how a specific idea has gained ground and momentum in society (supplanting another idea) but question the processes through which any complex of knowledge is established as reality. From this premise, the analysis moves from the genesis of ideas and collective representations—to quote Durkheim—to the formation of the shared reality. These processes everyday action based on a strictly “pragmatic” and not theoretical motive since it selects—in social relations—the relevant aspects for action. Berger and Luckmann’s work is deeply influenced by their mentor’s ideas. They build on cognitive processes as means for the construction of reality and their theories always play on the binomial reality/knowledge. Without engaging in epistemological and methodological discussions, these are defined respectively as follows: “‘reality’ as a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition (we cannot ‘wish them away’), and to define ‘knowledge’ as the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 13). Inherent in this definition is the idea that reality, or groups of realities, belong to particular social domains (social relativity) and, therefore, scholars must deal with what individuals “know” as “reality” in everyday life. They must study common sense rather than the knowledge of ideas per se since it is the first form of knowledge that influences and directs individuals in their everyday actions. As for the phenomenological approach, the “everyday life-world” is the “place”, metaphorically speaking, within which to carry out the analysis. In this place, individuals explicit their intentionality-oriented attitudes towards objects. The latter, in turn, by differentiating themselves, present themselves to consciousness as constituting different “spheres of reality”. The reality of everyday life is, therefore, presented as (a) “ordered”, because the phenomena are arranged independently of the perception of them, and impose themselves on it; (b) “objectified”, because it is presented with an order of objects that is prior to the presence on the scene of individuals (a reference to of Schütz’s typifications). The core elements in this analysis are space and time, just as they had been for their mentor. Time is particularly relevant, being intrinsic to consciousness (always temporally ordered) and the interactions that constitute the most influential experience of everyday life.

“The man on the street has a working knowledge of many fields which are not necessarily coherent with one another. His is a knowledge of recipes indicating how to bring forth in typical situations typical results by typical. means. The recipes indicate procedures which can be trusted even though they are not clearly understood. [...]. This knowledge in all its vagueness is still sufficiently precise for the practical purpose at hand. In all matters not connected with such practical purposes of immediate concern the man on the street accepts his sentiments and passions as guides. Under their influence, he establishes a set of convictions and unclarified views which he simply relies upon as long as they do not interfere with his pursuit of happiness” (Schütz, 1946, p. 465).

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When interactions take place through a face-to-face encounter, they can be defined as direct (close) because they allow for a personal relationship (a meeting of subjectivities) although they entail the possibility of misunderstandings. Conversely, when interactions take place in other ways, they do not allow for an encounter with the subjectivity of the other (remote). All forms of interaction influence each other, starting from the meanings that are attributed to them. Furthermore, they rely on typifications that are continuously negotiated based precisely on the closeness or remoteness of the interactions. The degree of anonymity is influenced by distance—typifications become more and more anonymous as we move away from the situations—but also by the intimacy of the interaction. The signification processes occurring within the interaction are paramount for it—where signification processes mean the representations of situations through signs, with language as the main sign system. Berger and Luckmann’s theory shows that human beings interact not only with the natural environment but also and above all with their socio-cultural environment. The latter, in turn, holds power over individuals in the form of a continuous influence—that, it is worth remembering, is socially determined. Everyday life, therefore, is expressed through a series of “habitualized actions” (routines) that minimise the occasions when it is necessary to analyse and redefine a situation to reach a decision. Routines allow individuals to save energy, useful when faced with situations needing a “deliberative” and “innovative” decision. These processes always precede an institutionalisation that appears as an objective reality. Although the latter is external to individuals, they nevertheless produce it through a social dialectic that consists of three moments: “Externalization and objectivation are moments in a continuing dialectical process. The third moment in this process, which is internalization (by which the objectivated social world is retrojected into consciousness in the course of socialization)” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, pp. 78–79). To further clarify this “dialectical process” between individuals and social reality, one could say that reality does not influence individuals for what it is, but for what they believe it to be. Society, therefore, must be understood in the dialectical process composed of these three moments, keeping in mind that they are not three phases in chronological succession. The objective reality of institutions is the construction of human beings. The legitimation it requires tells not only individuals what they should do but also why things are the way they are. In this way, knowledge precedes values in the validation of institutions. The legitimation process takes place at different levels. The first is pre-theoretical and occurs whenever a system of linguistic objectivation is conveyed (through words), together with the meaning attributed to it. The second level consists of pragmatic theoretical propositions that offer explanatory schemes for some clusters of objective meanings (proverbs, morals, etc.). The third level contains explicit theories referring to a specific institutional sector (experts). As such, the transmission is handed over to qualified subjects. Finally, the fourth level is constituted by symbolic universes resulting from signification processes that refer to realities different from those of everyday experience. These symbolic universes can legitimise both the institutions and individual biographies by building a hierarchy of reality within everyday life.

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Fig. 2.1 Fourth level legitimation process

The symbolic universe is the matrix of all systems of meaning that are socially objective and subjectively real. The existence of the entire society—in the historical sense and that of individuals—takes place entirely within these universes. Through the fourth-level legitimation process (Fig. 2.1), they incorporate the experiences of the different spheres of reality in the same symbolic universe. In turn, the symbolic universe allows for building a hierarchy of reality that guides everyday actions. Because of their ability to integrate the institutional (public) sphere and individuals (private sphere), symbolic universes are a “protective dome” that stretches over both the institutional order and the individual biographies, delimiting social reality by fixing what is pertinent in social interaction. Besides constituting a hierarchy of realities, symbolic universes also create order in history by establishing a succession of past, present and future. In it, the past provides a memory shared by all the individuals part of the community. Without any pretension of being exhaustive, the above are the salient aspects of the phenomenological approach, which states that the social sciences must interpret human reality as socially constituted. The focus should be not on how and why some systems of knowledge are shared and disseminated, but rather why certain systems are constituted as reality in society. As Czarniawska pointed out, “Phenomenology’s encounter with US pragmatism produced two offshoots that are relevant to the present context. One is symbolic interactionism [...]. Another is ethnomethodology [...]” (2004, p. 4). I am now going to outline the salient features of the latter.

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2 Background and Theoretical Framework

Symbolic Interactionism and Everyday Life

Together with ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism is the most pragmatic field of study of phenomenology. It shifts the focus towards the everyday interactions occurring between individuals (especially in small groups) and delimited in space and time. It argues that social phenomena can be understood only based on the meanings that individuals assign to their interactions. Symbolic interactionism stemmed from social psychology (Mead and Blumer, in particular), within a cultural context dominated by Watson’s behaviourism (1914) and William James’ pragmatism (1907). It later gained popularity amid scholars of the other social sciences (such as sociology and anthropology) at the University of Chicago, particularly among what would later become the Chicago School (with Robert E. Park and William T. Thomas as its preeminent exponents). The first scholars of interactionism could not but refer to two sociological approaches: Max Weber’s Verstehen (1978/ 1922)—symbolic meaning—and Simmel’s formal sociology (1950/1908). Max Weber qualifies human action as social action only when it is “endowed with meaning”, i.e., when individuals consider the action of others as guided by individual motivation. Social action always refers to the attitude of others and is influenced by it in its evolution. In other words, social action must be defined in terms of “objective significations” of the activity of the social actor. Simmel, instead, deals with those interaction forms (or socialisation forms) whose historical evolution shows constant formal equality of changes within human groups (particularly the smaller ones).2 These forms of becoming do not coincide with social structures or behaviours, but with the human predisposition to establish social relations with other men, what Simmel calls “sociability” (Simmel, 1949/1911). The term symbolic interactionism (of which the above are the theoretical foundations) was introduced in the 1900s by Blumer (1937). A few years later, it was commonly employed to designate the group of scholars who overcame innatism and went beyond the classic stimulus-response scheme—at first mainly social psychologists but later also sociologists. The term also clarified that social psychology considered human nature differently from other perspectives—such as, for example, Watson’s behaviourism. Its scholars focused on the ways and forms of individual development, considering individuals at the social level as participants in group life. Blumer points out that “The term ‘symbolic interactionism’ has come into use as a label for a relatively distinctive approach to the study of human group life and human conduct” (1969, p. 1). He introduced the term when describing his idea of child development: “The infant is recognized to be very active, and consequently, to have impulses (such as the thirst impulse) which occasion is distress and consequently stir

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Simmel lays out two key concepts in this regard. The dyad represents a direct relationship that cannot defer responsibility to the outside world (if one of the two decides to leave, the dyad implodes). The triad, instead, envisages the possibility that one of the three members can be outnumbered or outvoted, thus constituting an opportunity to become a mediator (for the unity of the group) or to foster conflict for personal gain.

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it into activity. These impulses, however, are regarded as being plastic and unchannelized, that is, as not being directed toward any specific goal. The infant has no idea or image of ‘what it wants,’ but merely experiences discomfort and distress under the influence of an impulse. This impulse gains expression in its emotional behavior and random activity. According to this view, the development of the infant into childhood and adulthood is fundamentally a matter of forming organized or concerted activity in place of its previous random activity, and of channelizing its impulses and giving them goals or objectives. This view, then, like the previous one, recognizes original nature to be important, but not determinative of its subsequent development. It emphasizes the active nature of the child, the plasticity of this nature, and the importance of the unformed impulse. It is substantially the view taken by the group of social psychologists who may be conveniently labelled ‘symbolic interactionists’” (Blumer, 1937, p. 153). The interaction, which takes place “with” another individual and not “towards” them, emerges from its contingent “situation”. By contrast, according to functionalism, social norms pre-determine interactions. While not denying their influence, symbolic interactionism is primarily interested in explaining individual decision-making and actions while, at the same time, demonstrating the impossibility of understanding them by resorting solely and exclusively to predetermined rules or external forces. To further clarify the characterising elements of interactionism, one could say that “The term symbolic in the phrase symbolic interaction refers to the underlying linguistic foundations of human group life, just as the word interaction refers to the fact that people do not act toward one another, but interact with each other. By using the term interaction symbolic interactionists commit themselves to the study and analysis of the developmental course of action that occurs when two or more persons (or agents) with agency (reflexivity) join their individual lines of action together into joint action” (Flick et al., 2004, pp. 81–82). Given these general characteristics, the definition of the situation assumes a specific role for these studies. This concept, better known in sociology as the “Thomas theorem”, states, at its most concise, that “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928, p. 572). In other words, human actions have meaning only if we are aware that all meanings are built based on the information and knowledge through which people catalogue and interpret their experience. William T. Thomas and Robert E. Park, together with the other scholars of what will later become known as the Chicago School, strongly promoted research in this field. Their results had profound and widespread influence, including on urban and ecological studies. In the latter, a current of thought sees a cause of social action in the interdependence between social units (family, work, peers, etc.), accentuating the interchanges between the subjects that make up these social units and considering them influential in the development of human action. The emphasis, therefore, is on the meanings that individuals attribute to actions which, in turn, are caused and motivated by the values present in social intercourse and exchange. The exponents of the Chicago School try to address, through an evolutionary conception of society starting from the transformations of urban systems and the spatial dimension following industrialisation and modernisation, the

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relationship between environment and society—or between nature and culture. Their research attempt to establish a new discipline (Human ecology) applying, sometimes forcedly, the behavioural characteristics of animal ecology to human societies. In it, “the study of the spatial and temporal relations of human beings as affected by the selective, distributive and accommodative forces of the environment. Human ecology is fundamentally interested in the effect of position, in both time and space, upon institutions and human behavior” (Park et al., 1925, pp. 63–64). Building on these assumptions, the ecological theory of the Chicago School relates behaviours (particularly deviant ones) to the social environment, pointing out that interpersonal relationships change according to the size of social units (again, group size). It is especially the case in cities, born with the urbanisation processes. Followers of this approach deem cities places that lost the primary social control, making relationships more superficial. Indeed, in their opinion, the main problem of a society in continuous transformation is the loss of those bonds of mechanical solidarity (à la Durkheim) that make individual action into a causal dependence between physical involvement (especially in urban environments) and the pressure from the social environment. Some two hundred miles away, at the University of Michigan, Charles Horton Cooley studied relationship dynamics within groups, dividing them into primary and secondary.3 He showed that the experience in primary groups, characterised by direct, personal, and face-to-face relationships (family, friends, etc.), was crucial for how individuals perceived themselves, others, and social relations. Society and individuals cannot be separated but are collective aspects of the same thing: they appear and think together. For this reason, the scholar claims that the Self has no meaning without the connection with others, to the point of calling it a looking-glass self (Cooley, 1902). The concept of looking-glass self proves that self-perception is not a solitary process but includes others. According to Cooley, human beings possess an intrinsic tendency to reach out, interact, or associate with the surrounding individuals and objects. After this brief overview of the theories and currents that influenced symbolic interactionism, I will return to the two scholars who contributed the most to its analysis principles. As already mentioned, if Blumer introduced the term “symbolic interactionism”, Mead, of the Chicago School, was among the principal promoters of this developing approach—all this at a time when sociology and social psychology were beginning to take the form of sciences. Mead (more a psychologist than a sociologist) wanted

For Cooley “primary group” are “characterized by intimate face-to-face association and cooperation. They are primary in several senses, but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social nature and ideals of the individual. The result of intimate association, psychologically, is a certain fusion of individualities in a common whole, so that one’s very self, for many purposes at least, is the common life and purpose of the group. Perhaps the simplest way of describing this wholeness is by saying that it is a ‘we’” (1929, p. 23). Secondary groups, instead, interact on a less personal level. Their relationships are temporary, as they usually exist to perform precise functions. Furthermore, roles in these groups are more interchangeable than in primary ones.

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first to clarify what he thinks should be the focus of social psychology: “that of dealing with experience from the standpoint of society, at least from the standpoint of communication as essential to the social order. Social Psychology on this view, presupposes an approach to experience from the standpoint of the individual, but undertakes to determine in particular that which belongs to this experience because the individual himself belongs to a social structure, a social order. No very sharp line can be drawn between social psychology and individual psychology. Social psychology is especially interested in the effect which the social group has in the determination of the experience and conduct of the individual member” (Mead, 1934, p. 1). Mead takes as his base and building blocks the embedded knowledge constituted by experience and primary (face-to-face) relationships. Together, these precede all the reflections and insights of the cognitive process in everyday life from which we draw the inferences necessary to build three cornerstones: the social subjects (Self)— or, rather, the life project of the individual in relation to the surrounding world—the dimension of mind and thought (Mind) and, finally, the form of social organisation (Society). In Mead’s theory, the Self is constructed primarily through concrete relationships with others. It corresponds to the individual identity and is an active organism rather than a mere stimuli-responding structure. As such, it is paramount for all human interactions. It stems from the conjugation of two distinct moments: the self- (I, an individual component that can be identified only historically as a continuity of different life moments) and the hetero-referentiality (Me, a social factor that represents the objectified set of social models that individuals make their own, brought to unity in the Self). Mead defines this last aspect as “the generalized other” because it is the attitude belonging to “The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self” (Mead, 1934, p. 154). In other words, “the generalized other”, besides being one of the forms of development of the Self, is that general notion referring to the shared expectations that others have about actions and thoughts within a social system. The Self is, therefore, the product of a social process of self-interaction in which actors signal to themselves the dynamics that exist in the situations in which they act, while the resulting action depends on the interpretation of those very dynamics (Mead, 1970). This process of construction of the social individual becomes significant when the Self allows individuals, in relation to other subjects, to shape the idea of reality to direct their conduct, guiding their action towards the change not only of the behavioural structure but also of the social one. According to Mead, this objectivation of the Self (“the generalized other”) happens through two phases of individual development: play and game. In this complex process of interaction through which individuals think and perceive social reality, Mead considers language is a form of objectivation of human expressivity. It is, therefore, appropriate to clarify some points in this regard. Language is how the intellect, conceived as relatively autonomous, can know the outside world and understand the experience of the human spirit. With the evolution of the species (homo sapiens), we enter what is considered the age of the word—and later the age of language (Goody, 1986; Ong, 1982)—where the latter is a form of

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universal symbolic mediation through which the different areas of meaning are formed. On the one hand, language allows for building opinions; on the other hand, it manifests harmony or distance with/from others. It is necessary, however, to differentiate primary cultures from those that follow. The former type is based exclusively on orality, on what is recalled (memory), which is the only way through which an individual can experience knowledge. In the latter, instead, writing has changed the social organisation and the way of communicating. Following Thompson (1995), primary cultures can be associated with the “face-to-face interaction” that requires co-presence in space and time, while writing belongs to the “mediated interaction” since it necessarily implies the use of a technical medium (in the specific case of writing, paper and pen or a personal computer). Having sketched the essential aspects that characterise language as a means of objectivation, I will now briefly review the two phases of individual development. In the phase called play—intended as free play—the child does nothing more than assume, one after the other, the roles of other individuals (parents or close relatives) and animals that have become part of his life. In this case, the child explicitly imitates the attitudes of others through vocal expression (which will be less explicit as the years go by). Conversely, in the game—i.e., organised play—the developing individual imitates all the others involved in the common activity (for example, schoolmates) by respecting specific rules. In this case, the child does not simply assume the role of another individual, but he undertakes the general attitude of taking on roles—what will later be called “the generalized other”. Between play and game, there is a substantial difference that Mead himself well explains: “The fundamental difference between the game and play is that in the latter the child must have the attitude of all the others involved in that game. The attitudes of the other players which the participant assumes organize into a sort of unit, and it is that organization which controls the response of the individual” (Mead, 1934, pp. 153–154). If individuals are to develop a complete Self (individual and social component together), it is not enough for them to merely consider the attitudes of others towards themselves and others. They must simultaneously consider the attitudes of other individuals in the various phases or aspects of the common social activity in which they are engaged because they are members of an organised society or social group. With the generalisation of these attitudes, individuals can act for the various social projects that constitute their life, of which these very projects are specific manifestations. Mead left to interactionists the construction of a theory capable of capturing the dualism (individual/social, subjective/objective) of the processes that lead to configure identity. These characteristics reside in social actions, that is, in the conduct of everyone who belongs in a system of interactions within which they face their personal experience and the problems connected to their belonging to one or more social units (groups). Through interactions, individuals can develop by acquiring the ability to interpret their actions and anticipate their consequences. Individuals are active when they can evaluate, interpret, define, and plan their actions based on shared meanings.

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The importance of Mead’s contribution can be seen particularly in Blumer’s work—who, unlike Mead, was more of a sociologist than a psychologist. He highlighted the interpretive situational activities of individuals—who experience a specific situation in every circumstance—over structural aspects. While Blumer acknowledges their influence, he claims that the point of view of symbolic interactionism differs from that of society for two reasons: “First, from the standpoint of symbolic interaction the organization of a human society is the framework inside of which social action takes place and is not the determinant of that action. Second, such organization and changes in it are the product of the activity of acting units and not of ‘forces’ which leave such acting units out of account. Each of these two major lines of difference should be explained briefly in order to obtain a better understanding of how human society appears in terms of symbolic interaction. From the standpoint of symbolic interaction, social organization is a framework inside of which acting units develop their actions. Structural features, such as ‘culture,’ ‘social systems,’ ‘social stratification,’ or ‘social roles,’ set conditions for their action but do not determine their action” (Blumer, 1969, pp. 87–88). Besides that of interpretation, Blumer’s contributions will focus on other lines of analysis. Among the others, he identifies the basic theoretical premises of interactionism, without disdaining an in-depth study of research methodology. The scholar rejects behaviourism and, to distance himself from this approach, enriches the classic stimulus-response scheme by adding interpretation. The new configuration is thus that of stimulus-interpretation-response (Blumer, 1937). Individuals can see that they face different social demands and that, depending on their definition and interpretation, they can reject, accept, or transform them. In other words, individuals, rather than simply reacting automatically to each other’s actions, interpret or define them according to symbols through a process called “meaningful interaction” (Sorokin, 1962/1947). Individual actions are not mere external inputs on them but rather the result of a construction process through the interpretation of the situations in which the individual finds himself. Blumer identifies three basic premises on which he bases his entire theoretical framework; they concern the importance of meaning in human action, the origin of meaning itself and its role in interpretation. “The first premise is that human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them” (Blumer, 1969, p. 2). Such things include everything that individuals can notice in the world around them (from small objects to people) and their everyday situations. Hence, for Blumer, awareness is paramount for understanding meaningful action. “Anything of which a human being is conscious is something which he is indicating to himself—the ticking of a clock, a knock at the door, the appearance of a friend, the remark made by a companion, a recognition that he has a task to perform, or the realization that he has a cold. Conversely, anything of which he is not conscious is, ipso facto, something which he is not indicating to himself. [...]. In any of his countless acts—whether minor, like dressing himself, or major, like organizing himself for a professional career—the individual is designating different objects to himself, giving them meaning, judging their suitability to his action, and making decisions on the basis of the judgment. This

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is what is meant by interpretation or acting on the basis of symbols” (Blumer, 1969, p. 80). In the second premise, “the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows” (Blumer, 1969, p. 2). Meaning stems from the interaction process between individuals; it is not—nor it can be considered—something given and taken for granted. The last premise states that the “meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters” (Blumer, 1969, p. 2). By introducing the interpretation process, it further outlines and defines symbolic interactionism. Interpretation develops through two consecutive phases. First, the actor communicates to himself (in a kind of introspection, selfinteraction) the things towards which he is acting and that have a meaning. Then, based on this self-communication process, the interpretation allows managing the meanings through their selection, control, and transformation according to the situation in which the individual is and the directionality of his action. Blumer also contributed to the development of symbolic interactionism by addressing the methodology of this perspective, which needs adequate tools and techniques of investigation to explore the social world. As he argues, “It is not ‘soft’ study merely because it does not use quantitative procedure or follow a premapped scientific protocol” (Blumer, 1969, p. 40). Instead, it is rigorous in its empirical examination of the social world with both the parts that make up the current methodology adopted: “exploration” and “inspection”. The “exploration” is the means of simultaneously achieving two complementary and interrelated goals. On the one hand, the formation of comprehensive knowledge by the researcher of a sphere of social life that is unfamiliar and therefore unknown to him; on the other, the development and refinement of his research so that the issue, its analytical relationships, and interpretations emerge and remain rooted in the empirical life studied. The “inspection” is “The direct examination of the empirical social world is not limited to the construction of comprehensive and intimate accounts of what takes place” (Blumer, 1969, p. 42). The investigation, carried out through both these methodological tasks, leads to a threefold outcome. First, it allows researchers to obtain a picture of the personal experience of individuals (inner and private)—which, as mentioned, directs their behaviour. Second, it makes it possible to show the nature of the life perspective along the subjective dimension (the view of oneself and the world, the value and meaning that different objects assume, the definitions of situations and the set of attitudes). Finally, it encourages to promote imaginative processes in everyday life. In conclusion, the general contribution of symbolic interactionism is relevant because, as Blumer (1969) argued, the pursuit of a general theory in studying the interactions of individuals is futile, given the centrality of meanings, definitions, and interpretations of situations for social actions. And “Persons continuously construct their behavior a new in the course of activity itself. Consequently, the meanings and definitions that underlie social interaction also undergo continuous reformulation, and those applicable at one point in time will not be applicable at subsequent points in time” (Serpe & Stryker, 2011, p. 228). Therefore, scholars can only expect to

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understand social behaviour at a later point in time (when the action is fulfilled, in Schütz’s terms) rather than hoping for predictive theories.

2.3

Ethnomethodology and Knowledge

Symbolic interactionism based its essence on going beyond the stimulus-response scheme, focusing on interactions “with” others and not “towards” others. For its part, ethnomethodology—a purely sociological research approach—tries to take a step forward by focusing, not merely on interactions but specifically on how the social order they produce results from the happenings of everyday life. In other words, the purpose of ethnomethodology is to “determine the principles and mechanisms by means of which actors, in their action, produce the meaningful structure and ordering of what is happening around them and what they express and do in social interaction with others” (Flick et al., 2004, p. 72). Its principal exponent was Harold Garfinkel, who also coined the very term ethnomethodology by deriving it from the “ethnoscience” developed in North American cultural anthropology. He describes the inception of the name in great detail: “‘Ethno’ seemed to refer, somehow or other, to the availability to a member of common-sense knowledge of his society as commonsense knowledge of the ‘whatever’. If it were ‘ethnobotany’, then it had to do somehow or other with his knowledge of and his grasp of what were for members adequate methods for dealing with botanical matters. Someone from another society, like an anthropologist in this case, would recognize the matters as botanical matters. The member would employ ethnobotany as adequate grounds of inference and action in the conduct of his own affairs in the company of others like him. It was that plain, and the notion of ‘ethnomethodology’ or the term ‘ethnomethodology’ was taken in this sense” (Garfinkel, 1974, pp. 16–17). The term “ethno” indicates the members of a people, community, or group; “method” points to the set of ways through which individuals attribute meaning to their everyday life-world. Ethnomethodology tries to understand how individuals find meaning for their mundane activities, usually taken for granted. Garfinkel’s approach stems from what individuals presume as given and asks, or makes ethnomethodology ask, the question: why should individuals give meaning to what they take for granted? Garfinkel’s answer, which becomes the very core of ethnomethodology, is the following: what is taken for granted must be considered problematic like all other situations. In his opinion, this facilitates the understanding of everyday, common sense reality. Ethnomethodology is sometimes considered the study of practical reasoning (Turner, 1974). Associated with practical action, it consists of “(1) the unsatisfied programmatic distinction between and substitutability of objective (context free) for indexical expressions; (2) the ‘uninteresting’ essential reflexivity of accounts of practical actions; and (3) the analyzability of actions-in-context as a practical accomplishment” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 4). Two fundamental reasons, according to Garfinkel, must push social scientists to study how individuals think about their social world in everyday life—and, therefore, to apply the ethnographic approach. First, the social

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world does not exist (in an objective sense) except because individuals construct it; second, how individuals explain their world is identical to how they translate it into practice. Unlike the functionalists, ethnomethodology considers the social order as a fragile construction. It can engender frequent misunderstandings depending on a variety of situations and events. It can even easily collapse, as society comprehends individuals and institutions that ground their relationships on a considerable amount of trust (Garfinkel, 1963). Garfinkel uses the term “trust” to mean individual conformity to the attitude expectations of everyday life. If people follow moral attitudes, this exempts them from feeling (or makes them feel just barely) the doubt (distrust) on the correspondence between appearances and objects. Changes in each of the expectations (and/or their subsets) that constitute our attitude towards everyday life show how necessary it is to treat the social world as a problematic issue requiring shared knowledge. In his best-known work, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), Garfinkel described the so-called “breaching experiments” in support of his research activities. In fact, he preferred to call them demonstrations, yet the procedures used gave them properties akin to those of experiments. What did they consist of? They aimed at disrupting, in a specific context, the relative social order. The clearest—and easiest—examples are two: a class in which the professor begins to do things that do not fit the normative role expectations shared by the students, or the students who, among their family, behave as if in a boarding school. The attitude envisaged in the two examples disrupts the social order of the situation as it makes the bystanders (observers) doubt what they usually take for granted (in this case, behavioural rules). Thus, they try to attribute a new meaning to what is happening because the “stock of knowledge” (Schütz & Luckmann, 1973) that most often helps individuals interpret situations is missing. The stock of knowledge consists of the elements acquired through experience and those inherited and learned as a common heritage of knowledge as members of society. It follows that ethnomethodology, unlike symbolic interactionism, does not study the interaction within which subjects create role expectations. Instead, it focuses on how individuals refer to certain rules of behaviour to interpret interactive situations and ascribe meaning to them. But what form do individuals follow to reveal, to themselves and others, the meaning attributed to a situation? They adopt that of “accountable”: “Ethnomethodological studies analyze everyday activities as members’ methods for making those same activities visibly-rational-and-reportable-for-all-practical-purposes, i.e., “accountable,” as organizations of commonplace everyday activities” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. vii). Social events (and, therefore, everyday life) are where the meaningful construction of reality takes place. Individuals perform actions and employ techniques and procedures to make them recognisable, understandable, describable, and accountable. Therefore, “accountable” means not only understanding, but constructing the observable forms and representations in which perception, interpretation, or explanation occur. Moreover, these “accounts” are part and parcel of the social interaction to which they refer and the whole surrounding situation. They create and make discernible the social order

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but, at the same time, they are given meaning based on that very same order (reflexivity). “This reflexivity of accounts is manifest primarily in the fact that utterances and actions constantly relate to the context in which they occur and thereby inevitably take on an indexical character” (Flick et al., 2004, p. 75). To better address reflexivity, I will start from what Garfinkel, following Karl Mannheim (1952), calls “the documentary method of interpretation”. By this term, he means an interpretative process that treats every concrete detail as a “document” of an underlying configuration, as something that refers to it: “The method consists of treating an actual appearance as ‘the document of,’ as ‘pointing to,’ as ‘standing on behalf of’ a presupposed underlying pattern. Not only is the underlying pattern derived from its individual documentary evidences, but the individual documentary evidences, in their turn, are interpreted on the basis of ‘what is known’ about the underlying pattern. Each is used to elaborate the other” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 78). This reflexive dependence on the context in generating meanings cannot, in general, be overcome. The result is the uncertainty of the everyday life conditions in which individuals act, develop projects, and make decisions—as these conditions can be explained only to a limited extent. In this increasingly complex scenario, the easiest things to study are the routine communicative exchanges between individuals. These conversations contain much of the information “taken for granted”, and it is precisely through the shared understanding of these conversations that the social order is successfully reproduced. Everyday conversations are provisional, vague, incomplete, or ambiguous—and yet, despite this, they are the only means to achieve understanding in the everyday world. When investigating everyday conversations, Garfinkel finds that the explanations of personal behaviour to others are abbreviated. Many things are considered as “common sense”, a given, and require no additional wordy commentary. Garfinkel calls these abbreviations indexical expressions. Their meaning depends on the situation in which they are uttered (situational contextuality). Conversations mostly rely on the “stock of knowledge” shared between the interlocutors and are anchored to the contexts through personal pronouns (i.e., you, we, they, etc.) or temporal ones (i.e., now, after, etc.). This leads to conversational analysis, initiated by some followers of the ethnomethodological approach (Sacks et al., 1974). Such an analysis shows that a certain level of complexity and order is present even in the simplest and most casual communicative exchanges. This suggests to social scientists that everyday situations, usually ignored and relegated to “common sense”, need actually to be inspected in detail. “Common sense knowledge of the facts of social life for the members of the society is institutionalized knowledge of the real world. Not only does common sense knowledge portray a real society for members, but in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy the features of the real society are produced by persons’ motivated compliance with these background expectancies” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 53). In this way, Garfinkel considers as social facts the “rational accountability” features of the social structure, namely: (a) features of the society that members know, discover, use, and, above all, speak about in the everyday context; (b) features of the society that are realised in everyday life through practical reasoning. But how are these social facts realised? For Garfinkel, the answer is straightforward: in the

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everyday social world of individuals, especially through natural conversation, which constitutes the set of “procedures” for the validation of meaning. One of these procedures is the so-called “formulating”: the description of a conversation or a part of it that is expressed within the conversation itself to assume the familiar characteristics of a “self-explicating colloquy”. “A member may treat some part of the conversation as an occasion to describe that conversation; to explain it, or characterize it, or explicate, or translate, or summarize, or furnish the gist of it, or take note of its accordance with rules, or remark on its departure from rules. That is to say, a member may use some part of the conversation as an occasion to formulate the conversation” (Garfinkel & Sacks, 1970, p. 350). The other is the “et cetera clause” (Garfinkel, 1964), according to which each form of adaptation of common sense rules was made possible primarily by the fact that each principle entails an additional clause. In other words, no rule or system of rules is complete in itself, if only in the sense that it does not specify all the circumstances of its application. Garfinkel developed not a theory of social structure in the ordinary sense of the term but something that should be understood as provisional, uncertain, and pragmatic. Ethnomethodology helps highlight certain phenomena—and, as he suggested, it is easier to do ethnomethodology than to explain it. In this wake, we find Aaron Cicourel, a colleague and collaborator of Garfinkel’s during the formative years of ethnomethodology. In his early research, he studied Schütz’s and Garfinkel’s procedures and hidden premises to detect a “social fact”. This prompted him to ponder how “facts” of any kind are collected, explained, and shared within a society, institution, or group. The scholar borrowed concepts and techniques from various disciplines to the point that his work could not be classified under any label. He chose, therefore, to coin his own: Cognitive Sociology (Cicourel, 1973). The kernel of his reflection is that the mystery of linguistic competence (which cannot be left only to learning, nor to the mechanical fact of using the ears and vocal cords) is one of the fundamental problems of sociology. Speech cognition means perceiving sounds and translating them into meanings through a linguistic code (language). Individuals, it is implied, can accomplish the emission of these sounds independently from the other skills associated with social life. Cicourel sought to understand if language truly represented the ability to send and receive sounds through a linguistic code. In conducting this research, which was not concerned with studying different languages but different communicative situations, Cicourel ascertained the presence of a few common (universal) elements, all of which were not linguistics-related. According to Schwartz and Jabobs (1979), these are as follows. (1) multiple sources of information (sounds, signs, etc.) are selectively used based on the need to understand and be understood (2) meanings are not obtained from sounds employing a “code”. What is understood is always more than what has been uttered because the situation allows for a continuous back and forth between what is said and what is meant. (3) speaking and listening are almost always conditions of improvisation (broadly speaking). Given these universal rules, the sense of social structure is also provided by means other than linguistic competence. To better understand these dynamics, Cicourel and his followers observed children’s behaviour. They discovered that,

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like adults, children also built their social world—thought, obviously not the same as adults’. They also noticed that adults found it difficult to explain some concepts to children (e.g., property, privacy, danger, etc.). Yet, children are engaged daily— among themselves and with adults—in complex socially structured activities. They obtained similar results with deaf and blind people; hence, these scholars conjectured that social order and social worlds could exist without certain things—such as language, roles, and values—on which sociologists had built very complex theoretical frameworks. Starting from this point of view, Cicourel began to study what he called “interpretative procedures” that “enable the actor to generate appropriate (usually innovative) responses in changing situated settings” (Cicourel, 1973, p. 27). Interpretative procedures are reciprocally interacting procedures that provide instructions to the speaker or listener to assign—potentially—infinite meanings to the social scenes that individuals face. They also had to be universal, i.e., known and used without knowing a particular language or culture. Once ascertained that an individual possesses a set of social rules, therefore, the main problem was to explain how and why this individual considers one or more of these rules as an appropriate guide for specific actions or interpretations. From here derive two problems—or, rather, two methodological difficulties—that Cicourel must face. First, the construction of “facts”—that is, the problem of how it is possible to identify and describe non-verbal activities by reconstructing them through words. In this case, the researcher and the research itself become the very object of the study and, therefore, a social phenomenon (fact). Second, the indefinite triangulation. By this term, Cicourel means the interpretive process conducted by the researcher also using that of the subjects observed that can produce limitless versions (accounts of accounts). In extreme synthesis, cognitive sociology should deal with sociological issues related to what is habitually considered human cognition. In other words, it must investigate how individuals—or social groups—create what is called language, how this representation permeates every single experience of the individual, and how it allows the interpretation and, therefore, the knowledge of the situation of the social world experienced. Between the two pragmatist currents of phenomenology—symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology—there are differences. In particular, the latter wants to study problematic situations of sense attribution in everyday life (applying them to the researcher himself) rather than the interaction itself and the process of sense attribution.

2.4

Social Constructionism and Comprehension

The classical theories of the social sciences, particularly sociology, have made it possible to highlight the central problem of the processes of integration and social order, especially on how individuals turn external reality (objective) into internal reality (subjective). For Positivism, reality is imposed—and, therefore, given.

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Conversely, for phenomenology, external reality must be embedded into a communicative and intersubjective perspective. Pointing the spotlight towards intersubjectivity and communication means acknowledging the human ability to share reality but also to rework and transform it—and, therefore, to build new and additional meanings to be shared. The external reality, therefore, imbibes the individual who initially perceives it as unique. However, at the same time, this individual develops the reflective capacity that allows him to consider external reality (objective) as relativized and therefore no longer as the only possible worldview. In other words, social reality is considered a construction. It is necessary, therefore, to attempt to define the paradigms anew. The micro and macro dimensions of an action (the individual and the contexts within which the actions happen) must both receive equal attention. This approach shifts the attention from the order of explaining (Erklären), based on the “why” of a phenomenon (typical of the natural sciences) to that of understanding (Verstehen), based on the “how”. The search for the reason why a sociocultural phenomenon occurs must refer to a sense and no longer to a cause. The approach called social constructionism, therefore, “is more interested in the work or practices that go into creating the social world and less in its causes” (Marvasti, 2004, p. 5). Before specifying the characteristics and theoretical precursors of this approach, it is essential to clarify its all too frequent aspects of ambiguity. In this book, I will use the terms constructionism and constructionist, often accompanied by the adjective social. I embrace the meaning that Schwandt (2000) attributes to this approach: discussing the social purpose of the construction of reality. Indeed, this perspective is concerned with how individuals construct reality through the interpretation of significant phenomena in social worlds (Gubrium et al. 1994). As these terms indicate, scholars who follow this approach are concerned with how interaction helps to create social reality or, quoting Schwandt, how “constructionists believe that as human beings ‘we do not find or discover knowledge so much as we construct or make it’” (2000, p. 197). So, “Among constructionists, there is a growing consensus about the term ‘constructionism’ pointing to the social sciences, whereas ‘constructivism’ relates to the psychological body of knowledge” (Blaakilde, 2006, p. 180). Other authors clarify that “The term constructivism is sometimes used interchangeably, but much scholarship associated with constructivism considers meaning-making as taking place in the individual mind, as opposed to a product of human relationships” (Gergen & Gergen, 2008, p. 816). Conversely, social construction refers to a cultural tradition that traces the origin of knowledge, meaning, and the very nature of reality to processes generated within human relationships. As Schneider well summarised, “The argument that social constructionism proposes, with more or less insistence, about objects of social and cultural inquiry is in some sense the ‘other’ to essentialisms of all sorts. To wit: Things—including even nature—are not simply given, revealed, fully determined, and as such, unalterable. Rather, things are made, and made up, in and through diverse social and cultural processes, practices, and actions” (Schneider, 2005, p. 724). Generally, both constructionism (in the social sciences) and constructivism

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(in psychology) are considered antipositivist movements (Costantino, 2008; Marvasti, 2004), meaning that they stand as alternatives to positivism.4 The entire constructionist theoretical framework opposes the positivist idea of social reality. Its underpinning theoretical assumptions are as follows (Marvasti, 2004): (1) the subjectivity. This approach does not consider subjective interpretations a source of bias but part of the empirical research that helps the researcher understand how individuals realise and constitute social reality. (2) the situationally and culturally variable. Constructionists aim at observing how the meaning and practical consequences of action vary from one situation or culture to another. (3) the ideologically conscious. Constructionists, in their role as researchers, bear in mind that existing knowledge—taken for granted—may coincide or conflict with the results of an investigation of a socio-cultural phenomenon and promote one ideological position over another. The constructionist attention on “how” reality is produced is prone to a political examination of all steps and aspects of research. All these assumptions pose several questions for researchers but rarely have practical consequences for positivists since the social world they observe is composed of a set of facts that simply must be discovered and described in objective and neutral terms. In addition, constructionism has developed primarily within three separate movements that take a critical stance: “a critical or ideological critique of dominating discourse, a literary-rhetorical critique of realism, and a social critique that emphasizes the communal origins of knowledge claims” (Gergen & Gergen, 2008, p. 816). Social constructionism has significant implications both in questioning the authority of traditional research methods and in proposing new research paths, especially in qualitative inquiry. The theoretical framework of social constructionism relies on the above general assumptions. To better understand its critical position and strong opposition to positivism, it is necessary to investigate the origins of these foundations and how they have developed in contemporary society. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the constructivist approach develops and spreads across different approaches of the human and social sciences (phenomenology, interactionism, etc.) while never constituting an autonomous theoretical framework. It originates from Max Weber’s (1978/1922) sociology of understanding (Verstehen). In his analysis of human experience, Weber pays attention to what contemporary sociologists have defined as the agency (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998), that is, in simple terms, to the ability of an individual to act freely in a given context because guided by personal motivation. Weber distinguishes “action” from “behaviour” by qualifying human action as “social action” only when “endowed with meaning”, meaning that it always refers to other people’s attitude, which influences its evolution. For Weber, the action becomes the key to

4

For an analysis of differences and/or similarities, see Lincoln & Guba (2005), and Silverman (2000). Lincoln and Guba compare constructivism not only with positivism but also with postpositivist approaches. Silverman, for his part, notes how each approach is marked by variations and inconsistencies.

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understanding modern Western society, increasingly dominated by purpose-oriented rationality.5 The purpose of social sciences is to understand the meaning of action for an individual through interpretation. This understanding (Verstehen) is essential to explain why an action occurs because it—the understanding—is built based on the actors’ description of their motivation. Consequently, knowledge is relative and subjective. This idea will be the mainstay of the constructionist approach, finding further support throughout the twentieth century. Keeping in mind what we gathered from the section devoted to phenomenology, we find that two processes are paramount. On the one hand, those through which any complex of knowledge comes to be established as reality; on the other hand, those forming the sharing of reality. Schütz (1946) outlined and described these aspects in his The Well-Informed Citizen. An Essay on the Social Distribution of Knowledge. Its incipit reads as follows: “The outstanding feature of a man’s life in the modern world is his conviction that his life-world as a whole is neither fully understood by himself nor fully understandable to any of his fellowmen” (Schütz, 1946, p. 463). This statement represents the core of all the arguments in Schütz’s theory of knowledge. For Schütz, knowledge is a tool for constructing social reality and is considered as a set of knowledge theoretically accessible to all (practical experience, science, and technology) whose guarantee is provided by the degree of validity attributed to it. This body of knowledge, however, is not integrated. Instead, it consists of knowledge systems that are neither coherent nor compatible with each other—and this stands for both science and everyday practice. This means that individuals, while not knowing the “why” and “how” of a series of procedures, can implement them to achieve their desired ends. For example, they can drive a car if they possess the relative title (driver’s licence) even though they may not know how an engine operates. This happens in our everyday life, as knowledge is socially distributed and differs according to the social life worlds to which it refers. Individuals choose their actions (what to do or not to do) based on the expectations they place in others and those that others have placed on them. There is, however, a form of regulation sanctioned by the institutions that govern society. The focus of the question, then, is “to investigate what motives prompt grown-up men living their everyday life in our modern civilization to accept unquestioningly some parts of the relatively natural concept of the world handed down to them and to subject other parts to question” (Schütz, 1946, p. 465). To this end, Schütz constructs a typology to facilitate the understanding of his reflections. He distinguishes between three types: the expert, the man on the street and the well-informed citizen. For the first, knowledge is clear and defined but restricted to his limited field of interest. The second type possesses a practical knowledge that allows him to achieve results in certain situations while not being fully aware of the procedures similar to “ordinary knowledge” (see Maffesoli, 1996/1985). Finally, the well-informed citizen lies mid-way between the two previous types. For this type, it is essential to form

5

Weber defines his typology of social action through the conceptual tool of the ideal type (rationalpurposeful action, value-rational action, affective action, and traditional action).

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opinions that are “reasonably founded” even if they are not directly necessary to achieve his purpose. In everyday life, these types of knowledge are not—nor could they be—clearly distinguished and separated: any individual can often embody the three categories simultaneously. The difference lies in the peculiar life worlds (finite provinces of meaning)—hence the problem of the social distribution of knowledge. The three types of knowledge also differ in the speed with which things are taken for granted— while keeping in mind that what is taken for granted today can be questioned tomorrow. Within the confines of tacit presumptions, questions arise about what is not known. Individual interest allows people to discern what is problematic from what is not. And it is based on the systems of relevances6 of this interest that the “zones” or “regions” of knowledge are differentiated. It follows that the “world within my reach” of the individual—which he can observe and even partly dominate, as he knows and possesses techniques and skills that allow him to intervene at the right time—is the core of the primary relevance. This “world within my reach” is not unique but shared among several individuals. It is precisely in this “common surrounding” that interactions with the individualised other are defined: “each may act upon the Other and react to the Other’s action. In short, the Other is partially within my control as I am within his, and he and I not only know of this fact but even know of our mutual knowledge which itself is a means for exercising control. Spontaneously turning to each other, spontaneously ‘tuning in’ ourselves to each other, we have at least some intrinsic relevancies in common. But only some. In my social interaction there remains a portion of each partner’s system of intrinsic relevancies not shared by the Other [. . .]. Such is the distribution of knowledge in the social relationship between individuals if each has his definite place in the world of the Other, if each is under the Other’s control. To a certain extent the same holds good for the relationship between in-groups and out-groups if each of them is known to the Other in its specificity. But the more the Other becomes anonymous and the less his place in the social cosmos is ascertainable to the partner, the more the zone of common intrinsic relevancies decreases and that of imposed ones increases” (Schütz, 1946, pp. 471–472). Mentioning anonymity brings the reflection back to social interaction. As mentioned earlier (see the section on phenomenology), in their essay The Social Construction of Reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) Berger and Luckmann distinguished social interaction in close and remote. They agree with Schütz, albeit with different nuances, stating that the more anonymous the contact with the other (remote interaction), the more difficult it is to find common sharing elements. It is even more evident in the face of a system of imposed relevancies, and when socially derived knowledge7 is transformed into socially approved knowledge 6

There are two types of systems of relevance: the system of intrinsic relevance and the system of imposed relevance. The first pertains to the person’s interest, his will to solve a problem, plan, and implement actions to this end. The second relates to personal events (illness, force majeure, catastrophes, etc.). 7 Only a fraction of an individual’s knowledge stems directly from their experience; most of it is derived from others who have already had that experience and passed it on to other individuals.

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because it is acknowledged and accepted by others (and not only by those who possess it). The power of this type of knowledge is more robust and extensive the more it is approved by the group to which it belongs: “it becomes an element of the relatively natural concept of the world, although the source of such knowledge remains entirely hidden in its anonymity” (Schütz, 1946, p. 478). This problem emerges strongly in contemporary society due to the proliferation of new communication technologies that multiplied remote interactions. Consequently, the social distribution of knowledge takes on new importance. It also entails all the dynamics related to social representations and symbolic mediations between the intimate private life and the public life of individuals. A further fundamental contribution to constructionism was that by Berger and Luckmann (both students of Schütz). They redefined the sociology of knowledge (Wissenssoziologie)8 with the assumption that “reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyse the process in which this occurs” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 13). Taking for granted the differences in knowledge in various societies, the “‘sociology of knowledge’ will have to deal not only with the empirical variety of ‘knowledge’ in human societies but also with the processes by which any body of ‘knowledge’ comes to be socially established as ‘reality’” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 15). Compared to the classic authors who conceived this discipline as a specialised branch of general sociology, Berger and Luckmann give new impetus to the sociology of knowledge, deeming it a social science that studies everything considered knowledge in society. The sociology of knowledge must, therefore, deal with what individuals know as reality in everyday life. This primordial form of knowledge influences their actions in their mundane experience. “the sociology of knowledge must first of all concern itself with what people ‘know’ as ‘reality’ in their everyday, non- or pre-theoretical lives. In other words, common-sense ‘knowledge’ rather than ‘ideas’ must be the central focus for the sociology of knowledge. It is precisely this ‘knowledge’ that constitutes the fabric of meanings without which no society could exist” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 27). Sociological theory, from an ontological and epistemological point of view, asks the following questions: How do subjective meanings become objective facts? How does human activity (Handeln) produce a world of things (choses)? In other words, to adequately understand the “sui generis reality” of society, it is necessary to study how reality is constructed—hence the sociology of knowledge.

Scheler (1980/1926) coined the term Wissenssoziologie (sociology of knowledge) in the field of phenomenology and a very particular cultural moment of German history, so much so that the discipline was very often marked by the problems that characterised its context of origin. Beyond aspects related exclusively to German events, Scheler’s contribution is fully and completely original. He bases his sociology of knowledge on the search for the relationship between the two original dimensions of human behaviour: on the one hand, a spiritual causality (ideal factors— Idealfaktoren) acting at the general level of the spirit; on the other hand, a real causality (real factors—Realfaktoren) acting at the level of social practice.

8

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The constructivism approach, in general, emphasizes meaningful actions in everyday life, the point of view of society taking a back seat to that of individuals arising from interactions. Language becomes a crucial tool, as Berger and Luckmann stressed: “the importance of processes of historically situated legitimation in carrying forward and sustaining all such social realities, realities that illustrate what they call institutionalization. Language and knowledge are the coordinating and integrating symbolic resources that bring a coherence to the diverse lines of situated human interaction” (Schneider, 2005, p. 725). In other words, society determines the presence (Dasein) of ideas, but not their nature (Sosein). The sociology of knowledge must study the socio-historical selection of the contents of ideas, keeping in mind that they are independent of socio-historical causality (explanation). Socio-cultural phenomena permeate the life of individuals starting from the interactions established with others that are manifested through the daily implementation of roles. In specific situations, the interpretation and, therefore, the construction of everyday reality can transform a phenomenon into a social problem (it is worth remembering that the latter results from the relationship between a “fact” and a “structure”). On this issue, Spector and Kitsuse state that social problems are “the activities of individuals or groups making assertions of grievances and claims with respect to some putative conditions” (Spector & Kitsuse, 1977, p. 75). Social problems are, therefore, considered as outcomes that exist within and through the very claim of their existence. In the response of individuals, and the related activities, language and discourse are paramount, as are those individual and collective activities that seem to be grounded in the activities of understandings and interpretations of members of society. This process brings with it reflexivity that involves the researchers themselves. Researchers are considered the first promoters of various definitions of social problems that effortlessly become arguments for the theory and strategy of analysis that constructionism encourages. While it is true that constructionism’s main feature is social, we cannot overlook its psychology-related salient aspects. Psychological constructivism primarily addresses epistemological issues. It is particularly relevant to educational processes in that it focuses on how individuals learn. In short, knowledge is not acquired but produced (or constructed) because the learner is an active participant in the construction of knowledge, not a passive recipient of information. The developmental and educational theories by Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner are particularly influential in this area. On Piaget, I will limit myself here with recalling his idea that cognitive development results from the interaction between the inner development of the child’s worldview and his experiences in the social environment (Piaget, 1954). Piaget emphasises the active role of the child in his development and his choice of different strategies to interact with the environment, adapted according to needs and circumstances. Within this theoretical framework, two more approaches gain considerable influence: Vygotsky’s socio-cultural learning theory (Kozulin, 2015; Vygotsky, 1978) and Bruner’s (1986, 1990) theory of learning as individual meaning-making (personalisation of knowledge).

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Concerning Vygotsky, I cannot but recall his theory on language development and that of the zone of proximal development. The latter is a fundamental concept to explain how learning in children takes place with the help of others. The zone of proximal development is simply the distance between the child’s current level of development and the level of potential development achievable with the help of other individuals (adults or members of the peer group with a higher level of competence). In his argumentation, Vygotskij departs from Piaget’s claims on the sequence of development.9 He argues that children learn from those at a higher level of knowledge rather than by the succession of developmental periods. Moreover, he introduces the concept of “mental representation” which is that tool created by cultures to guide and transform the cognitive work of individuals. It is a hypothetical cognitive symbol within the individual that represents external reality. Alternatively, it is a mental process that uses this symbol to mentally imagine things never experienced or non-existent. Jerome Bruner, going beyond the paradigmatic or logical-scientific thinking that tries to explain reality according to the concepts of cause and effect, identifies a “narrative thinking” (Bruner, 1985) through which individuals tell their stories and give meaning to their life experiences. These two modes of thinking operate with different means, ends, and legitimacy criteria. Specifically, the narrative mode relies on common knowledge and stories, focuses on the consequences of human actions, develops practical and situated knowledge, has a temporal structure, and gives special prominence to the agentivity of social actors (González Monteagudo, 2011). According to Bruner, individuals feel the need to define themselves as subjectivities endowed with purpose and intentionality. Consequently, they reconstruct their life events so that they align with this idea of themselves. Narratives answer the individual’s need to remodel reality by giving it a temporally and spatially situated meaning and are, therefore, a decisive part of life. Through recollection and expression—in oral or written form—narratives become the means for individuals to reflect on themselves (reflexivity) and what they feel, allowing for the construction of meaning for themselves and others. The theories described so far can be chalked under social constructionism and psychological constructivism, respectively. Michel Foucault is also often linked to social constructionism, although a better definition would be neo-structuralist or poststructuralist. The French scholar has addressed mainly the relationship between power and society—or between power and knowledge. He searched for possible truths and the practices and the conditions of their possibility, starting from the fact that knowledge relies on epistemes (Foucault, 1970/1966). Epistemes are understood as the set of conceptual maps (anonymous and unconscious) that constitute the common background underpinning the knowledge of a specific historical era. Each

9 Piaget’s developmental theory asserted that children, through different stages, are always ready to learn new knowledge that they were previously unable to retain. The sequence of development hypothesized by Piaget is divided into four main periods: sensorimotor period; preoperational period; concrete operations period; and, finally, formal operations period.

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episteme implies a peculiar semiology and way of understanding the relationship between words and things. Such a relationship differs based on the epoch considered (there are three: the Renaissance, classical, and modern). Furthermore, each episteme corresponds to a way of representing things and social reality. To better understand the method permeating all of Foucault’s production, it is necessary to clarify that he defined the theory as a “toolbox”, meaning the construction of a logic (tool) appropriate to power relations and the struggles caused by them. Foucault’s is not intended as a theoretical system, but rather as continuous research carried out step by step, starting from a reflection on given situations that must inevitably be historical in some of its dimensions. Foucault himself describes his method as “archaelogy” (Foucault, 1972/1969) because it aims at identifying the modalities underlying the actions of human beings who, through their subjectivity, produce history, experiences, and the world of things through “empirical” (practice) and/or “transcendental” (theory). Foucault calls “discourses” the relationships between power and knowledge. They “are not merely bodies of ideas, ideologies, or other symbolic formulations but also working attitudes, modes of address, terms of reference, and courses of action suffused into social practices” (Holstein, 2005, p. 695). In other words, “discourses” are not merely an intersection of things and words but rather practices that systematically form the objects and subjects they speak about. As Holstein and Gubrium (2000) clarify, ethnomethodology deals with the constitutive quality of discourse systems (“discursive practice”). Instead, Foucault analyses the practice of lived experience and the subjectivities embedded in their discursive conventions (“discursive-in-practice”). He is openly concerned with social practice, given that he addresses the constitutive reflexivity of discourse: neither discursive practice nor discourse-in-practice is seen as caused or explained by external social forces or internal motivations. Foucault’s subjects not only can assimilate the objectified forms of meaning that they find available from birth, but they can also negate and discern the objectivation through a reworking that creates new forms of expression. Having concluded this brief examination of the salient features and authors that most influenced the development and application of the constructionist approach, I will now take a final look at the methodology. Qualitative research (which characterises this approach) highlights three significant relationships to be considered: the researcher’s relationships with the subjects, the public, and, more generally, society (Gergen & Gergen, 2008). On the first significant relationship, in traditional research, there is a clear distinction between the researcher and the object of study because their “neutral position” will allow researchers not to condition the research results. In qualitative research, and especially with ethnographic methods, this mediation disappears. Researchers use their personal experience to bring to light the various social worlds: after all, researchers “are ordinary human beings who have dedicated their lives to create knowledge” (Valsiner, 2017, p. 25) who are themselves part of the phenomenon they study. Regarding the second relationship, the audience generally consists of the other researchers or scholars plus the subjects studied. In the first case, this often results in rigid boundaries between the various scientific communities with a consequent limitation of the dissemination of scientific knowledge. In the second

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case, the concerns of the subjects are neglected. The scientific communities use of the observations mainly to reinforce themselves, with little restitution to the society providing the data for the research. To solve this problem, researchers have sometimes directly involved the subjects or their products (e.g., photos) in the report. The last significant relationship for constructionism is crucial in that research findings serve the purposes of those cultures or subcultures whence they stemmed. In this way, the phenomena themselves become the principal stimuli for investigation and the methods can be adapted to achieve social change. In the constructionist approach, the researcher actively promotes the construction of links between subjects and their living environments. His work is, therefore, political—in the sense not of party affiliation but of having political weight as a social actor. As such, he not only enjoys subjective and social rights but is also a bearer of values and meanings.

2.5

Hermeneutics and Interpretive Processes

The sharp split between social and natural sciences, forcefully asserted by constructionists, must be read as a formally instituted division between explanation, which refers to natural phenomena, and understanding, which refers to human action, culture, and society. If we develop the intentionality argument, the variety of meanings attributed by the individual to natural or social situations is logically unpredictable. And this unpredictability is responsible for the complete incompatibility between the study of social phenomena and the approach research of the natural sciences. It follows that the interpretation systems that support the relationships of individuals with the world and with other people also orient and organise actions and communication. It is, therefore, hermeneutics (interpretation) that intervenes in various processes. Among these, the dissemination and assimilation of knowledge, individual and collective development, the definition of personal and group identities, group expression and social transformations. As a cognitive phenomenon, interpretation binds the social belonging of individuals to affective and normative implications, to the interiorization of experiences, practices, models of conduct and thought socially assimilated or transmitted through the communication to which they are linked. These specifications must not, however, be confused with that of common sense. Interpretation, as a form of knowledge, contributes to transforming the reality of common sense. More importantly, it allows for the constitution of “shared knowledge” and its reproduction in social reality. Some derive the term hermeneutics from ancient Greece, more specifically from the messenger of the gods, Hermes. The fleet-footed god acted as a mediator between heaven and earth because the words of the gods were not understandable to mortals and needed an attribution of meaning through interpretation to make them accessible to human understanding (Freeman, 2008). In truth, there is no linguisticsemantic relationship between the two terms, just mere assonance. Yet, in origin, the

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term hermeneutics meant “to bring a message, to announce”. To be precise, the term comes from the Greek word ἑρμηνευτική (τε χνη)—hermeneutiké—which indicates the “art of interpreting” complex ancient and historical texts (e.g., Homeric texts). The origin of hermeneutics is also associated with Greek rhetoric, the art aimed at making people understand the usefulness of things. Ancient Greece rhetoric is the first example of communicative pragmatics in the Western world. Dealing with the pragmatics of the relationship between communication, actors, and the context within which the event happens, its object is the social actions occurring through language and communication. Language is thus an instrument: how the human intellect, relatively autonomous from language, can know the external world and understand the experience of human beings. Thus, language is a two-pronged tool. On the one hand, it is the fundamental means to modify opinions; on the other hand, it becomes the way to manifest harmony with or distance from others. The Greek tradition of interpretive knowledge flowed into biblical hermeneutics—the norms for interpreting the Holy Scriptures from the double standpoint of mere text and the peculiar nature of an “inspired” book. When religion became the hegemonic ideology in the West (Middle Ages), biblical hermeneutics became the dominant form of knowledge. With modern age secularisation, hermeneutics assumes its contemporary features and leaves behind its main quality as a discipline exclusively aimed at the exegesis and the study of sacred texts. Romanticism affirms the need for universal hermeneutics (explicit and intrinsic philosophical relevance) as an indispensable condition to understand the “mens auctoris” (the mind of the author) of a text. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1998/1838) is considered the forerunner of the so-called “universalistic turn” of hermeneutics. According to the German philosopher, interpreting means understanding any text whose meaning is not immediately evident. In a way, interpretation is a problem that stands between individuals and the text itself. So, hermeneutics belongs now to all texts, no longer exclusively to sacred ones—and, therefore, it is no longer the sole province of religion. Together with Dilthey’s historicism, hermeneutics thus became a specific method of the then-called historical or human sciences—those disciplines that studied the expressions of the human mind (history, literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, and others). With Schleiermacher and Dilthey, the interest shifts from the philological to the philosophical aspect of the understanding. For Dilthey (1985/1883), for example, “the distinction between the natural sciences and the ‘Geisteswissenschaften’ is built upon the aim of ‘understanding’ in the field of human affairs in contrast to the search for ‘explanations’ of natural phenomena. Hermeneutics no longer only deals with the narrow topic of textual understanding but widens to the question of understanding as a fundamental principle of human action and everyday life encounters” (Wernet, 2014, p. 234). Martin Heidegger (1972/1927, § 32) associates this universalization of hermeneutics to its radicalisation (hermeneutics as a philosophical and ontological problem). Understanding is a way of “being there” (Dasein); that is, the man who exists by the simple fact that he experiences his existence (the experience of being that is peculiar to humankind). Only human beings can explicitly ask themselves questions about being (existentialism). And his being-in-the-world (the fundamental

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condition of human existence, how individuals “inhabit” the world regardless of any additional occupation and activity) has always been correlated to an understanding or pre-understanding of the world itself in which individuals find themselves and upon which they linguistically act. For Heidegger, language is not simply an ability of individuals or a mere product of the linguistic activity but an attending to oneself, a kind of reflexivity to know oneself and others. Individuals are both messengers and referents, and the essence of language is that it does not give itself except in speaking of being (Dasein) as a place of being. It constitutes a sort of hermeneutic circle between what is said and what can be said (there are a speaker/writer and a listener/ reader): for Heidegger, the sign reveals the ontological structure of what it refers to. Between the original saying (Sagen) and the showing or indicating (Zeigen), there is an analogy with thinking (Denken), speaking (Sagen) and appearing (Erscheinen). Hermeneutics is, therefore, analytics of existence and phenomenology of existential understanding. Dasein (being) is man’s mode of being, that of understanding. It is interpretation (Auslegung, Erörterung) in the sense of unveiling (Aufweisung), the ability to grasp the traces of being in and between words. For Heidegger, hermeneutics is the existential project connected to life and its possibility-being, even if it is full of contradictions and doubts concerning the structure and the very way of being. Hermeneutics thus switches from being a methodology for the exclusive interpretation of written texts to an ontological philosophy of being. This transformation extends it not only to other disciplines but also to texts other than written ones: “Philosophical hermeneutics argues that understanding is not, in the first instance, a procedure- or a rule-governed undertaking; rather, it is a very condition of being human. Understanding is interpretation” (Schwandt, 2000, p. 194). Philosophical hermeneutics, therefore, formulates a theoretical concept of understanding as a fundamental principle of the constitution of the human world and as a necessity of the scientific investigation of this world. It rejects the belief of only one adequate interpretation, preferring an idea of understanding that emphasises the role of tradition, prejudice, and the subjective horizons of individuals. The hermeneutic approach is partial and not absolute: “The process of interpretation therefore involves a ‘self-examination’ of the interpreter. Interpretation is no longer seen as the result of a distanced view of a scientific interpreter that leads to an unbiased understanding, but as a dialogue, in which different perspectives meet” (Wernet, 2014, p. 234). As Gadamer argues, it is not an isolated activity of the human being but a life experience: “We are always taking something as something” (1984, p. 58). When individuals listen to a story, they attribute to it their meaning, which in turn is ascribable to their experience and tradition (horizon). However, the same story—or a part of it—may also elicit a different interpretation, thus promoting a new relationship between the individual and his previous experience and tradition. We are thus caught in an endless circle of interpretation that continuously generates new forms of understanding. This daily interpretive work is rooted in the cultural and linguistic context, but it is constantly reviewed and reconsidered. Hans-Georg Gadamer (2004/ 1975) embraces this process (hermeneutic circle), using the metaphor of the “fusion of horizons” (Vessey, 2009) to describe it. The horizon indicates both the social

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space (frame) in which the individual is and what lies beyond it. Interacting with others is enough to modify this space and be projected into a possible new social space, allowing individuals to experiment with other reference frames. However, reference frames direct the “particular” ways of understanding because individuals bring their previous experiences with them. Gadamer deems that the potential development of new understandings is due to the interactions between the individual’s perspectives on the world and those that the situation elicits. At this juncture, individuals reflect on the historically influenced nature of their state of being in the world. And it is in dialogue that the experience of understanding is most productive. For Gadamer, asking and answering (dialogical dialectic) are the heart of the authentic hermeneutic experience (fusion of horizons). Individuals, long before they understand themselves through the process of self-examination, understand themselves overtly in the family, society, and state in which they live. The pivot of subjectivity is a “distorting mirror”: “The self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being” (Gadamer, 2004/1975, p. 278). For this reason, Gadamer considers “prejudices” as conditions for the understanding of experience. He identifies some as the core of his hermeneutics: (1) The rehabilitation of authority and tradition, and (2) The example of the classical. The latter he summarises as the mediation between the present of the individual and the legacy of the past. Faced simultaneously with a relationship of foreignness (distance with the past) and familiarity (tradition), individuals inhabit a middle ground: not everything is foreign, nor is it familiar. If everything were familiar, there would be no need for hermeneutics. In the case of full foreignness (unfamiliarity), we would fall back into the subject-object model. This is where the historical tradition comes in: individuals belong to a tradition and seek to understand another moment of the same tradition—of which, however, they are part. So much so that “the self-criticism of historical consciousness leads finally to recognizing historical movement not only in events but also in understanding itself. Understanding is to be thought of less as a subjective act than as participating in an event of tradition, a process of transmission in which past and present are constantly mediated” (Gadamer, 2004/1975, p. 291); (3) The hermeneutic significance of temporal distance. Among Gadamer’s elements, this points out that the true place of hermeneutics is mid-way: it stands in the interplay between distance and familiarity for what individuals deem as traditional, between an object is historically distant and belonging to a tradition. Given its intermediate position, it follows that hermeneutics’ job is not to develop a procedure for understanding but to clarify the conditions under which understanding occurs. For this to be accomplished, hermeneutics “must foreground what has remained entirely peripheral in previous hermeneutics: temporal distance and its significance for understanding” (Gadamer, 2004/1975, p. 291). Adequate hermeneutics, therefore, should demonstrate the reality and efficacy of history in understanding itself since understanding is, essentially, a historically effected event that leads to the last of the prejudices identified by Gadamer: (4) The principle of history of effect (Wirkungsgeschichte). It is the principle by which Gadamer introduces the concept of horizon because the concept of “situation”

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represents a point of view that limits the possibility of vision. Therefore, the concept of “horizon” is essential for that of “situation” as the former “is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point. Applying this to the thinking mind, we speak of narrowness of horizon, of the possible expansion of horizon, of the opening up of new horizons, and so forth” (Gadamer, 2004/1975, p. 301). The horizon of the present cannot be formed without the past because it is in a continuous state of becoming precisely in the encounter with the past and the understanding of the tradition whence individuals come. There is no isolated horizon of the present in itself; rather, understanding is always the fusion of these horizons that are supposed to exist on their own. That being so, it follows to the significance of “dialogue” (question and answer— hermeneutic dialectic) in Gadamer’s theories and beyond. Indeed, he explained that language is the contact point between self and others and between one’s experience and its expression. In a conversation, quite obviously, some things remain unsaid, and the same goes for their meanings. Therefore, the individuals involved in the communication must engage in (and with) everything that the conversation offers. Gadamer argued that an authentic hermeneutic dialogue requires an engagement in the experience of understanding. In other words, it requires looking for possible meanings in both what is said and what is not said. It is a critical reflection on the structure of understanding which requires active questioning (asking questions) by those involved in it. It is also a reflection that does not rely on first impressions but seeks to expose and examine the more profound and hidden meanings of understanding. Gadamer shifts the focus from the understanding of the world to the process of linguistic communication in which it is embedded. For his part, Ricœur (1984/1983, 1985/1984, 1988/1985) treats the importance of such communication by considering narration as a specific form of understanding that also takes time into account. In his hermeneutic analysis, Ricœur makes explicit at a structural level the connection between symbol and interpretation: “I define ‘symbols’ as any structure of signification in which a direct, primary, literal meaning designates, in addition, another meaning which is indirect, secondary, and figurative and which can be apprehended only through the first. This circumscription of expressions with a double meaning properly constitutes the hermeneutical field. In this turn, the concept of interpretation also receives a distinct meaning. I propose to give it the same extension I gave to the symbol. Interpretations, we will say, is the work of thought which consists in deciphering the hidden meaning in the apparent meaning, in unfolding the levels of meaning implied in the literal meaning. In this way I retain the initial reference to exegesis, that is, to the interpretation of hidden meanings. Symbol and interpretation wherever there is multiple meaning, and it is in interpretation that the plurality of meanings is made manifest” (Ricœur, 1974/1969, pp. 12–13). The plurality of meanings requires a kind of “arbitration” between those that hold a totalitarian and/or absolutist claim, and this emphasises that individuals are always embedded in dialogic networks of interlocution, reinterpreting experiences according to cultural narratives in a process that Ricœur (1984/1983) calls “refiguration”. In this process, narratives are “never ethically neutral” (Ricœur, 1988/1985, p. 249). And it

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is through them that, according to Ricœur, the “narrative identity” is constituted (Ricœur, 1992/1990). To avoid ambiguity, narrative identity should be distinguished into idem, which refers to the social definition of the individual and the continuity of the same (mêmeté) and ipse, which refers to the unpredictable personal singularity. To better introduce this dialectic between idem and ipse, we refer to the notion of life-story (Ricœur, 1986), understood as the autobiography rooted in the narrative fabric and, therefore, linked to the literary dimension of human life itself. The meaning of experience frequently alters over time, thus requiring multiple readings. This suggests an indissoluble link between individuals and their past, where the latter must be relocated, reinterpreted, and even rewritten according to an ever-changing present. The same goes for the self-narrative: like the past, it is constantly rewritten from the current perspective. The challenge of hermeneutics is to engage the social sciences with the dynamic and historically situated nature of human understanding. Research, then, is no longer separate from its object. Although hermeneutics does not have an explicit method, it influences both the theory and practice of qualitative research. In particular, the centrality of language (and other symbolic meaning systems) as a means of mediating the experiences of individuals allows both research subjects and researchers to use symbolic systems to interpret these experiences. On the dynamic interaction involved in understanding the interpretations of others, scholars such as Clifford Geertz have written extensively. In The Interpretation of Cultures (1977), Geertz lays out the principles of the interpretive theory of culture but immediately points out that the anthropologist’s interpretation cannot but be a “second degree” one. Geertz explains it using the following metaphor: someone who strives to read over the shoulders of those to whom the culture rightfully belongs. The researcher comes upon multiple interpretations: those of the natives of the culture studied, which are common and shared, and those of the anthropologist, which are subjective and influenced by their own cultural and disciplinary references. Finally, this hermeneutic potential opens the space of difference between self and other (Taylor, 1989). Hence the call for social researchers to review their role by transforming themselves from mere instruments of transmission of scientific knowledge to promoters of intercultural dialogue in which the understanding of self and others occurs in conjunction with the research. In his essay Sources of Self (1989), Taylor argues that individuality and morality are inextricably intertwined and describes the history of the relationship between the self and the good. He criticises modernity, which seeks to objectify and naturalise all accounts of the individualities of human beings, believing that these (accounts) are unable to provide a complete narrative of the self that represents the depth of the individual experience. He also strived towards the definition of a political culture of modernity (political philosophy), addressing broader issues such as nationalism, multiculturalism, and ethnocentrism (Taylor, 1992). Culture is the set of elements that allow strengthening both identity and the sense of in-group belonging. However, this is not possible without recognition. The classical hermeneutic approach gives thus rise to a hermeneutic of narration that refers to the existence of human beings. As Brockmeier and Meretoja claim, “in

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speaking of existential acts of meaning- making we do not assume universal features of human nature but refer to socioculturally very specific practices, as we explain in what follows. Our case is all but a universalist one; we argue that, particularly under complex and challenging conditions, our efforts to understand ourselves and the cultural world in which we live—we call this existential understanding—tend to take the form of narrative. Yet the narrative dimension of understanding is only one side of the coin. On the other side is the interpretive nature of narrative, so we also must address this side, that is, the fact that an interpretive process is at the heart of every process of narrative understanding” (Brockmeier & Meretoja, 2014, p. 2). From this perspective, this form of narrative hermeneutics offers an interpretive approach not only to narratives but to the experience of human beings in the world at large and blends it with a perspective of narrative as a hermeneutic practice in itself.

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Chapter 3

Contemporary Perspectives in the Study of Narratives

Abstract This chapter offers an in-depth look at some of the authors (Erving Goffman, Jerome Bruner, Paul Ricœur, Hannah Arendt) who best contributed to our knowledge of narratives. Not all of them have directly referred to this concept, but each discussed—directly or indirectly—or outlined the main elements that characterise narratives as an object of study. Their theories and thoughts are an intellectual legacy to use as building blocks for expanding our knowledge of the issue. Each of the authors discussed can be traced back to one or more of the founding theories of narrative studies, except Arendt. She closes the chapter not by chance, as she represents a sort of link between all the theories. Above all, she allows us to transition from theory to praxis (theory of action). I will describe the ideas and constructs of these authors without speculations and without claiming to be exhaustive. I merely aim at offering a descriptive reading, pointing out the elements directly or indirectly connected to narratives. Keywords Goffman · Bruner · Ricœur · Arendt · Narratives

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Erving Goffman and Dramaturgical Action

With the phenomenological theory, the object of study of sociology became the significant action that takes place in the “world of everyday life”. This argument lays the groundwork for a future understanding of the processes underpinning culture through the social communication of meanings. Said meanings are initially constituted in the intentionality of consciousness but, once shared and internalised, they influence the consciousness itself, actions, and intersubjective relations. One of the most prominent scholars who pursued this topic is Erving Goffman. Assuming that the social is nothing more than a stage representation, he erases any “dialectic between inside and outside”. He considers the subject as a pure mask of a social pantomime, whose rules and structural characteristics determine the different parts played by the subject itself.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_3

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The interaction,1 identity and self are the core elements that characterise all of Goffman’s scholarly production, which is sometimes markedly “political”. This is especially true for his essays Asylums (1961) and Stigma (1963). The first deals with the analysis of the dynamics within total institutions2 defined as “a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life” (Goffman, 1961, p. xiii). Goffman meticulously describes the life within the psychiatric institution and the dynamics that the inmates implement to maintain their spaces of autonomy, earning a reputation as an antiinstitutional sociologist (it is worth pointing out that, between the 1960s and the 1970s, a counterculture that radically criticised the concept of mental illness, later called “anti-psychiatry”, was raging through Europe and the United States). The second essay describes and analyses the practices of “social inferiorization” of subjects considered “different” through the management of stigma and the attribution of moral judgments that, in turn, allow for labelling them as belonging to a lesser group. Total institutions, particularly those in which institutionalisation is not voluntary (asylums and prisons) tear down barriers in three spheres of life: living, leisure and work. These spheres, which are normally distinct from one another, tend to coincide in a total institution: “all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority. Second, each phase of the member’s daily activity is carried on in the immediate company of a large batch of others, all of whom are treated alike and required to do the same thing together. Third, all phases of the day’s activities are tightly scheduled, with one activity leading at a prearranged time into the next, the whole sequence of activities being imposed from above by a system of explicit formal rulings and a body of officials. Finally, the various enforced activities are brought together into a single rational plan purportedly designed to fulfil the official aims of the institution” (Goffman, 1961, p. 6). In everyday life, individuals adapt themselves to situations and try to adapt them to their own needs—a thoroughly difficult process within a total institution. To carry on this double adaptation process in everyday life, individuals construct their behaviour on the role expectations that the outside world presents to them; in this way, they try to control and guide their Interaction “can be identified narrowly as that which uniquely transpires in social situations, that is, environments in which two or more individuals are physically in one another’s response presence” (Goffman, 1983, p. 2). 2 In his analysis, Goffman identifies a non-exhaustive typology of total institutions, which differ in their purpose. The first group cares for non-threatening incapacitated persons (institutes for the blind, orphans, etc.). The second group safeguards those who are unable to look after themselves and represent a danger, even if unintentional, to the community (psychiatric hospitals, sanatoria, etc.). The third group protects the community from an intentional danger (prisons, concentration camps, etc.); in this case, the welfare of the segregated persons is not the ultimate goal. The fourth type groups together those institutions created with a specific activity and purpose; these find their justification in their instrumentality (army, boarding schools, etc.). Finally, the fifth type includes those institutions defined as “out of this world”, whose principal function is to serve as places of preparation for religious life (abbeys, convents, seminaries, etc.). 1

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actions depending on the idea that others have of them. In total institutions, instead, these dynamics are modified. Goffman outlined them well when he talked of the moral career of the mentally ill,3 “a career composed of the progressive changes that occur in the beliefs that he has concerning himself and significant others” (Goffman, 1961, p. 13). The American scholar claims that everyone needs an “identity-kit” to manipulate their own image: “the individual can hold objects of self-feeling-such as his body, his immediate actions, his thoughts, and some of his possessions-clear of contact with alien and contaminating things. But in total institutions these territories of the self are violated; the boundary that the individual places between his being and the environment is invaded and the embodiments of self profaned” (Goffman, 1961, p. 23). The aims of the institution obviously do not coincide with the wishes of its utterly powerless inmates: “total institutions disrupt or defile precisely those actions that in civil society have the role of attesting to the actor and those in his presence that he has some command over his world-that he is a person with ‘adult’ selfdetermination, autonomy, and freedom of action” (Goffman, 1961, p. 43). For Goffman, identity must be distinguished into personal identity and social identity and the latter, in turn, into virtual and actual identity. Virtual identity is attributed to the individual based on his appearance. It relies on what others imagine and, therefore, on approximate and presumed classifications. Conversely, actual identity is the real identity, since it allows us to ascribe almost certainly an individual to a category. When someone is right in front of us, “evidence can arise of his possessing an attribute that makes him different from others in the category of persons available for him to be, and of a less desirable kind—in the extreme, a person who is quite thoroughly bad, or dangerous, or weak. He is thus reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one. Such an attribute is a stigma, especially when its discrediting effect is very extensive; sometimes it is also called a failing, a shortcoming, a handicap. It constitutes a special discrepancy between virtual and actual social identity” (Goffman, 1963, pp. 11–12). The constant fluctuation of social identity between virtual and actual, due to the never-ending situational changes, forces individuals to redefine their social identity when stigmatised. Stigmas are a personal (physical or cultural) attribute—such as mental illness, homosexuality, skin colour, disability or religion—which cast doubt on the social identity of the individual, resulting in the predominance of virtual over actual. For their part, stigmatised individuals (even if imprisoned in a total institution) try to control the difference between the two components of their identity or hide the elements that could produce the stigma, forestalling any action that could provoke social disapproval and therefore a lack of integration. The systems and techniques of interaction implemented within a social institution redefine the very identity of a subject. Inmates apply all the available strategies to two ends: preserve their identity and social status and maintain links with the outside world—to which, after all, they must account for their behaviour. It is precisely the

3

For psychiatric patients, the moral career has two phases: the pre-patient phase and the in-patient phase in the institution.

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barrier separating them from the outside world, erected on their joining the total institution, that unbalances the inmates’ identity and forces them to redefine themselves. This condition produces a progressive de-structuring of the self since psychiatric internment—or any other kind—prevents subjects from using the strategies they usually employ to elude power dynamics. In many cases, the Self of the institutionalised subject is humiliated for the simple fact that he no longer has the autonomy he used to enjoy outside. The ensuing frustration determines a reconstitution of the personal biography through which he justifies his state. From being a “confinement”, the institution becomes “the whole world”. Identity and the Self, for Goffman, are the main features of interactions, so much so that, like Mead, he distinguishes the Self into two components: the actor, who represents the free and independent component of the subject, and the character, who represents the set of characters necessary for man every time he interacts with others in his everyday life. The Self is the result of a situation ( frame) presented and experienced: it originates from the meaning attributed to the circumstances around which the relationship is organised based on a kind of negotiation. These dynamics habitually occur in the construction and strengthening of identity and the Self. Every individual, in everyday life, experiences plenty of direct and mediated social encounters with others. “In each of these contacts, he tends to act out what is sometimes called a line-that is, a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which he expresses his view of the situation and through this his evaluation of the participants, especially himself” (Goffman, 1972, p. 5). Goffman (1959) well illustrated this model of interaction: he states that individuals assume and interpret different expressions of identity, depending on the contexts and social situations in which they are placed (dramaturgical approach). Goffman’s micro-sociological theory of the frames argues that reality is not just one, nor it knows a single level. Reality consists of a complex of intersecting frames in which each frame can be constructed from another. The concept of frame originated in psychology with Bateson (1955) and refers to those messages (meta-communication) that define a context. Later, Goffman widely used it to refer to the structure of the experience that individuals have in certain moments of their social life. In particular, he states that “definitions of a situation are built up in accordance with principals of organization which govern events [. . .] and our subjective involvement in them; frame is the word I use to refer to such of these basic elements as I am able to identify” (Goffman, 1974, p. 10). According to Goffman, the frame can be clear to everyone if everyone believes in it. This is supported by the individual’s perception that others also believe in it. It is taken for granted but not necessarily given by an explicit perception of the frame itself. What is at stake is the definition of reality, which is continually agreed upon and adjusted based on the contribution of others. Reality is understood as a vision formed by the processes through which individuals determine it (that is, the very same reality) and not as an image of what is external to individuals. It is revealed as it is in the understanding of the situation and the reflection on it (experience and communication). Reality has different facets and can be interpreted in different ways. Therefore,

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this concept means not only what is de facto happening but also how the individual interprets and perceives the situation. In Goffman’s theoretical architecture, frames can be generated through two essential “primary transformations”: framing and keying. The former consists of adding or removing frames to reality to obtain a different one and, therefore, to switch from one level to another. The latter refers to the transposition process that allows people to obtain another reality at the same level. Since reality is structured in various levels, the so-called “primary transformations” apply to the lowest ones ( frameworks)—the set of physical objects and the social world of other individuals. Accordingly, the frames are not randomly connected but follow precise and detailed linking paths. The interpretation of reality must take into account the limited cognitive capacities of individuals which, at times, can also make interpretation in their everyday life problematic. Consequently, frames are not static but change over time and have their own history. Moreover, they are revised according to their perception and the specific situations. They have a social and cultural origin and can be negotiated continuously, both implicitly and explicitly. Frames are an essential part of culture because they are understood as polysemic symbols with their fluid and interactive nature; this means that an individual’s actions can be partly bound to a repertoire of stereotyped frames and partly oriented by the communicator through the framing process. Individuals interpret and shape reality through so-called primary structures or schemas that are dynamic and layered (rather than fixed or rigidly established). This allows the interpreter to move further and further away from the literal and static reality into a new and completely different one. These primary structures are found “When the individual in our Western society recognizes a particular event, he tends, whatever else he does, to imply in this response (and in effect employ) one or more frameworks or schemata of interpretation of a kind that can be called primary. I say primary because application of such a framework or perspective is seen by those who apply it as not depending on or harking back to some prior or ‘original’ interpretation; indeed a primary framework is one that is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful” (Goffman, 1974, p. 21). Each primary structure is important because it allows the social actor to detect, perceive, identify and label many real events. These structures can be distinguished into natural (e.g., the succession of day and night) and social (e.g., turning on the light when the sun goes down). The former type refers to events seen as undirected, inanimate, unguided and purely physical. The latter, instead, helps understanding events that include will, purpose, control (“guided doing”). Ergo, events can be perceived according to the natural and social structures of a particular social group, whose culture they represent. To describe a given event, individuals may use one of these types. However, they run the risk of being mistaken because some information may be incomplete. To overcome this and even go beyond the concept of frame, Goffman introduces the concept of key. Key and keying are how individuals perform part of their everyday activities, but in such a way that it goes beyond the surface value (Collins, 1988). The term key indicates “the set of conventions by which a given activity, one already meaningful

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in terms of some primary framework, is transformed by the participants to be something quite else” (Goffman, 1974, pp. 43–44). Goffman classifies keys into four categories: Make-Believe, Contests, Ceremonials and Technical Redoings. Make-Believe events are imitations of “real” activities without practical consequences (plays, role-playing, etc.). Contests derive from manifestations of conflict and dominance but are strictly structured to control the extent of aggressive behaviour (combat sports such as boxing, tournaments, fox hunting, etc.). Ceremonials are performed for their symbolic meaning and not as actions of ordinary life. They entail something different from regular activity, being an extrapolation of usual events (e.g., weddings, funerals, etc.). In them, individuals represent themselves and reduce themselves in their various roles in everyday life (parent, spouse, citizen, etc.). Finally, Technical Redoings refer to actions that individuals perform for utilitarian purposes (e.g., rehearsals, demonstrations) outside of the usual everyday context (demonstrations, shows, etc.). While he refers to a key fifth (readaptation), Goffman also noted that it was conceptually problematic to define an additional category by referring to these as simply other keyings of ordinary activities that may occur. While these represent the macro-categories of possible keys, there are other, more complex and unclear keyings of ordinary activities. Reality can become very complex and varied, but individuals can manage these multiple realities because they know how to connect the single frames to evaluate situations. If necessary (that is, if difficulties arise), they can (they know how to) withdraw into a primary reality. Hence, according to Goffman, individuals can misapply frames (natural and/or social) and, therefore, be easily misunderstood or misinterpreted. Individuals are not always fully aware of their context (the surrounding situations), and their perceptions are often misleading. Besides, there may also be some who, intentionally or not, manage actions so as to lead others into a false perception of what is happening.4 When doubts arise in an interaction (conversation), the actors involved must take responsibility and show their involvement. They must also clarify their relationship with and towards the frame, which is the interpretive key allowing them to access the various situations in real life. The frame refers to a relational dimension of meaning; it is, in a way, a metaphor that explains what happens in social interactions governed by usually unestablished rules or implicitly posited principles. When the frame breaks down, three situations can occur. The first is the possibility for the individual to upend his position, becoming unable to play another organised role (e.g., sudden bursts of crying or laughing). It would show that the frame can do very little in supporting the actors in their transformations and roles. In the second situation, the individual is a mere uninvolved—or even concealed—spectator in a framed activity. However, he suddenly loses control of his apparent non-involvement and bursts into it. Finally, in the third case, the frame hinders the possible responses of the

4

In this regard, the American sociologist distinguishes between benign fabrications and direct and indirect fabrications, i.e., a series of transformations that individuals carry out purposedly to deceive.

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individual, who experiences sensations that induce him to increase or decrease his distance from the initial activity. Goffman elaborates his reflections on the construction of reality through his perhaps best-known metaphor, that of life as dramaturgical representation (Goffman, 1959). The theatrical representation, for Goffman, is not a simple metaphor for the behaviour of the individual but a much more complex and articulated discourse. In short, performances are those devices that transform an individual into a “stage actor” and lead him to expect behaviour from other individuals in the role of “audience”. What happens in everyday life is analogous to a theatrical performance, differing from it only in terms of the frame; the theatrical keying of an ordinary action requires the audience to exclude any frame other than that of the theatrical performance itself. When considering everyday actions as theatrical performances, it is not enough to refer only to the interaction between audience and actor. Instead, it is necessary to consider also both frames and roles. It follows, according to Goffman, that the roles that each subject plays and interprets in various social contexts and situations are nothing more than a dramaturgical effect: “The self . . . is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature and die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented” (Goffman, 1959, pp. 252–253). He defined scripts as recurring interactions that generically define the criticality of the actors’ roles. In other words, this notion refers to a structure that is adequate to describe an appropriate sequence of actions in a given context. Scripts are thus complex structures of knowledge about an ordered succession of actions defining various situations, which have become known through experience. The use of this form of knowledge does not require specification or explanation of what one is doing. In everyday life, the most effective methodology that individuals implement to manage situations is environmental interpretation. It is done through schemas (conceptual representations of individual objects) and scripts (conceptual representations of social events and relationships) that recur and generically define the essential role of the actors in a relationship. Goffman, considered in many ways Mead’s successor, dealt mainly with the micro-processes of interaction between the Ego and the Other, focusing on face-toface interactions. Assuming that such interactions have motivations intrinsic to certain preconditions of social life,5 what suggests the status of the person, or the character of the social relations, is not the appearance of the former, nor the set of forms through which the latter are expressed. Instead, what provides clues are but the information and factors that are independent of what individuals are. In this way, in all social relations, the social position of the individual depends on the participatory structure, which can change according to the context insofar as the latter influences the subjective attitude of each participant in the interaction (this gives rise to formal or informal, spontaneous or planned, symmetrical or asymmetrical, etc.).

5

There are many reasons why individuals carry on social interactions in co-presence, inevitably giving relevance to public visibility.

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As mentioned above, interpreting situations is a complex process involving numerous social actors and different spheres. The circular framing process is continuously enriched, developed and destroyed by other frames. Considering the influences on each social actor from various fronts (economic, social, political, cultural, etc.) it is fundamental not to interpret everyday events passively. Instead, we should be aware that the interpretation can be influenced by several variables.

3.2

Jerome Bruner and the “Narrative Thought”

Jerome Bruner’s contribution to narrative studies is unquestionable (Bruner, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991a), if only because he introduced the concept of “narrative thought” (Bruner, 1986). Before delving deep into his theories on this subject, it is worth clarifying the scientific context. According to Bruner, the cognitive revolution in psychology had lost its original impulse because it related to the “computational metaphor” (Bruner, 1990).6 Therefore, it was necessary to reinvigorate it: “a revolution inspired by the conviction that the central concept of a human psychology is meaning and the processes and transactions involved in the construction of meanings” (Bruner, 1990, p. 33). In the wake of what was happening in other disciplines (e.g., social constructionism in the social sciences), Bruner claimed the urgency to establish a new scientific approach to the mind based on the concept of meaning and the processes through which meanings are created and negotiated within the community. The foundational groundwork of this new approach was the idea that the symbolic systems with which individuals construct meanings were already available and deeply rooted in culture and language—what will be later known as cultural psychology (Shweder, 1990) and which Bruner originally called folk psychology (1990). The importance allotted by this author to culture and language is the presupposition of all his arguments, as he believes that culture and language contain the symbol systems through which individuals relate and construct meaning through “transactions”. By “transactions” Bruner means: “those dealings which are premised on a mutual sharing of assumptions and beliefs about how the world is, how mind works, what we are up to, and how communication should proceed” (Bruner, 1986, p. 57). When referring to modes of communication, one must also consider the relations between them: “The relation of words or expressions to other words or expressions constitutes, along with reference, the sphere of meaning. Because reference rarely achieves the abstract punctiliousness of a ‘singular, definite referring expression,’ is always subject to polysemy) and because there is no limit on the ways

By “computational metaphor” he meant the capacity of the human mind to represent the world internally, which was compared to how the computer processes information and can represent it within the system in the form of symbolically encoded language. Hence the use of this metaphor for mental processes.

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in which expressions can relate to one another, meaning is always underdetermined, ambiguous” (Bruner, 1986, p. 64). This process includes culture, which contains the tools that allow individuals to create transactions with others. Culture consists of both objective and subjective elements and is one of the main factors in assessing individual adherence to (or integration in) society. All activities and institutions are “cultural” because they require the explication of meaning to operate. I do not mean, here, to endorse the position that social living pertains to cultural determinism. Rather, like others, I see culture as a fundamental component that is situational (space) and temporal (time) for the actions of individuals. I argue, therefore, that culture is the essential component of individual action: “every social practice depends on and relates to meaning; consequently, that culture is one of the constitutive conditions of existence of that practice, that every social practice has a cultural dimension” (Hall, 1997, pp. 225–226). Cultural objects have meaning for individuals living in a social world; the latter, in turn, has meaning only through the culture (Griswold, 1994) with which it is observed. Culture is a set of implicit and partially interconnected knowledge of the world from which derive the “negotiations” that shape the actions of individuals in various contexts. And just as Rosaldo claimed, a conception of culture is needed “wherein meaning is proclaimed a public fact—or better yet, where culture and meaning are described as processes of interpretive apprehension by individuals of symbolic models. These models are both ‘of’ the world in which we live and ‘for’ the organization of activities, responses, perceptions and experiences by the conscious self” (Rosaldo, 1984, p. 140). It follows that as individuals explain their conduct and the events they experience, they do so primarily in terms of narratives. Therefore, narratives constitute “the major link between our own sense of self and our sense of others in the social world around us” (Bruner, 1986, p. 69) and the common link may well be the narrative forms. But why does Bruner focus so much on narratives? Because he considers them one of the two ways of thinking of individuals, each with its own method of ordering experience and social reality. The central point, for Bruner, is to answer not the epistemological question of how individuals know the truth but rather how they come to attribute meaning to their experience (Rorty, 1979). It is, therefore, necessary to examine these two types of thinking which, despite being complementary, cannot be reduced to one another. The first is “the paradigmatic or logico-scientific one, attempts to fulfill the ideal of a formal, mathematical system of description and explanation” (Bruner, 1986, p. 12) which deals with general causal connections and their establishment through verifiable and empirically tested elements. Narrative thinking, on the other hand, “deals in human or human-like intention and action and the vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course. It strives to put its timeless miracles into the particulars of experience, and to locate the experience in time and place” (Bruner, 1986, p. 13). The localisation in space and time refers to Ricoeur’s work (1984/1983, 1985/1984, 1988/1985): narrative thought derives from the interest in the human condition insofar as the narrative can reach several outcomes while logical thought is either “conclusive” or not. Unlike paradigmatic thinking, where the path and the end are known, narrative thinking is not able to formally understand both the path and the

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end. This is probably because the narrative must construct two scenarios at the same time: that of the action, the components of which are the very elements of the action, and that of consciousness, which changes every time what the individuals involved in the action know (or do not know), think (or do not think) and feel (or do not feel) emerges. The latter case accentuates the individual psychic component; narrative, to be considered as such, must deal with the “vicissitudes of intention” of individuals, because “intention is immediately and intuitively recognizable: it seems to require for its recognition no complex or sophisticated interpretive act on the part of the beholder” (Bruner, 1986, p. 17). The construction of the double scenario must, in turn, consider both the verbal aspect (not arbitrary but indicative) and the affective aspect (pre-structured by the language of the story)—which, however, is indeterminate. It follows that, according to Bruner, all narratives (or, rather, the discourses of narratives) must allow the listener or reader to construct their virtual text. To this end, the discourses must have three characteristics: “The first is the triggering of presupposition, the creation of implicit rather than explicit meanings” If everything were explicit, the interpretative freedom of individuals would be null and void. “The second is what I shall call subjectification: the depiction of reality not through an omniscient eye that views a timeless reality, but through the filter of the consciousness of protagonists in the story” (we find here, again, time as a variable). Finally, “The third is multiple perspective: beholding the world not univocally but simultaneously through a set of prisms each of which catches some part of it” (Bruner, 1986, p. 26). Therefore, individuals do not consider the possible world but possible worlds as they act according to the way they perceive others and their choices. Perceptions and decisions, furthermore, influence each other. Bruner is so convinced of his ideas about narratives that he wants to apply them when inspecting the stories individuals tell about their lives: “the form of thought that goes into the constructing not of logical or inductive arguments but of stories or narratives. What I want to do now is to extend these ideas about narrative to the analysis of the stories we tell about our lives: our ‘autobiographies’” (Bruner, 1987, p. 11). His approach is undoubtedly constructionist; indeed, its central theoretical premise is that “world-making” is the principal function of the mind (Bruner, 1991b). However, when applying the constructionist approach to autobiography one is faced with several issues. First, “stories” do not “happen” in the real world but in the minds of individuals. Second, stories happen to individuals who can (i.e., know how to) tell them. Bruner argued that autobiography had a curious feature: it “is an account given by a narrator in the: here and now about a protagonist bearing his name: who existed in the there: and then, the: story terminating in the present when the: protagonist fuses with the: narrator” (Bruner, 1990, p. 121). Beyond this, Bruner proposes his two theses in combining autobiography and culture. First, according to him, individuals have no other way of describing their “lived time” than through some form of narration. Second, the mimesis—understood as imitation and metaphor of reality, derived from Ricoeur and Aristotle’s Poetics—of life and narration has a double meaning: “Narrative imitates life, life imitates narrative”. Narratives compose facts, but, at the same time, facts engender the narratives, creating reflexivity, particularly in an autobiography: “The story of one’s own life

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is, troubled narrative in the sense that it is reflexive: the narrator and the central figure in the narrative are the same” (Bruner, 1987, p. 13). It is precisely this reflexivity that makes life stories highly susceptible to cultural, interpersonal and linguistic influences, producing changing effects throughout individual life. And “Given their constructed nature and their dependence upon the cultural conventions and language usage, life narratives obviously reflect the prevailing theories about ‘possible lives’ that are part of one’s culture” (Bruner, 1987, p. 15). For Bruner, the study of autobiographies is one of the most important research projects for psychology. It should aim at studying the “development of autobiography”, that is, the changes in narrative techniques and how these stories allow individuals some form of control over their life. Life as it is experienced, then, is inseparable from life as it is told. In other words, life is not “as it is” but as it is interpreted and reinterpreted, told and re-told, bearing in mind that anything can be narrated and recounted in several ways. How individuals put their narratives together when narrating their own and others’ life stories, including how they might have proceeded, becomes the focus of culturally sensitive psychology that studies the alleged discrepancy between what individuals say and what they actually do. There is no such thing as human nature independent of culture. This return to the origins of the cognitivist revolution presupposes folk psychology7 as a mediating factor that “is and must be based not only upon what people actually do, but what they say they do and what they say caused them to do what they did. It is also concerned with what people say others did and why. And above all, it is concerned with what people say their worlds are like” (Bruner, 1990, p. 14). Saying (verbal discourse or experience) and doing (action) are inseparable for the individuals living within the cultural system—which not only orients their everyday lives but also accommodates those very same saying and doing. Together with the search for meaning, culture is the structuring element of the life-world (social reality) and biology is its limit. To understand individuals, one must understand their experiences and actions conditioned by intentions formed through the symbolic systems of culture. Bruner’s point of view assumes “that it is culture, not biology, that shapes human life and the human mind, that gives meaning to action by situating its underlying intentional states in an interpretive system. It does this by imposing the patterns inherent in the culture’s symbolic systems-its language and discourse modes, the forms of logical and narrative explication, and the patterns of mutually dependent communal life” (Bruner, 1990, p. 34). There is a world of experience “internal” to the individual and one “external” to him—and, therefore, different forms of interpretation. Some of these interpretations can be held in check by individuals, while others cannot (e.g., natural events). In some cases, certain conditions assume an intermediate position between these two. In these constant processes 7

According to Bruner and his point of view as a participating observer, folk psychology presents some specific components made up of elementary beliefs or assumptions. Individuals have beliefs and desires, they believe that the world is organised in certain ways, that they want things and that some things matter more than others. These organised beliefs and desires lead to what can be defined as “choices” or “ways of living”.

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in the everyday life of individuals, narratives, with their characteristics, become the object of study for understanding the experiences of individuals. Their first characteristic is their “sequentiality”, i.e., a narrative is constituted by a particular sequence of events and mental states involving individuals as characters or actors. Moreover, it can be “real” or “imaginary” without causing the story to lose its poignance. However, what it does cause is an atypical relation between sense and reference of the story. Finally, it can establish links between what is considered “exceptional” and “ordinary”. In short, “The function of the story is to find an intentional state that mitigates or at least makes comprehensible a deviation from a canonical cultural pattern. It is this achievement that gives a story verisimilitude” (Bruner, 1990, pp. 49–50). From the very first words of the child, narratives, in recounting the experience through their structures and schemas, relate the actions of individuals, highlighting their intentions, combining saying and doing, and negotiating the different possible meanings through interpretations. To be understood, the actions of human beings must be located within a specific cultural world, and the resulting social reality is a negotiation between individuals. The social world in which individuals live is neither in their heads nor outside. It results from the process of knowledge acquisition that is both situated and distributed. Besides being within the individual mind, knowledge can be found in many other sources, such as in notes, books, annotations, etc. This availability of knowledge projects the Self into a cultural-historical dimension. According to Gergen (1973), this conception leads back to two universal principles that orient individuals towards culture and the past. “The first is human reflexivity, our capacity to turn around on the past and alter the present in its light, or to alter the past in the light of the present. Neither the past nor the present stays fixed in the face of this reflexivity. [...] The second universal is our ‘dazzling’ intellectual capacity to envision alternatives—to conceive of other ways of being, of acting, of striving. So while it may be the case that in some sense we arc ‘creatures of history,’ in another sense we are autonomous agents as well. The Self, then, like any other aspect of human nature, stands both as a guardian of permanence and as a barometer responding to the local cultural weather. The culture, as well, provides us with guides and stratagems for finding a niche between stability and change” (Bruner, 1990, pp. 109–110). There is, therefore, no single definitive interpretation of action in the ontological sense. When trying to create meaning, there are no definite causes but only actions, expressions and contexts to be interpreted that allow individuals to construct their conceptions of themselves, others and the world in which they live with the set of symbolic systems that make up culture. The brief analysis above aims at the limited purpose of this book and not at expounding the entirety of Bruner’s thought. I will conclude by mentioning a few other elements proposed by this scholar (Bruner, 1991a) on the acquisition of knowledge by human beings and on the construction of reality to know the human or symbolic world (and not only the natural or physical world). As previously mentioned, “narrative thought” creates “verisimilitude”. The realities thus fashioned are not accepted because of empirical verification and/or logic; instead, they are conventionally governed by “narrative necessity”—although

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individuals continue to categorise them as “true or false”. To further support this, Bruner proposes ten characteristics of narratives, a sort of skeleton on which to build a more systematic narrative (account). Bruner found it arduous to outline these characteristics due to the burdensome task of distinguishing narrative thinking from the other forms of narrative discourse. These are not separate but interconnected. They shape one another; no one is more important than the other. For the sake of clarity, I will briefly describe all ten. Narrative Diachronicity Narratives are an account of events occurring in time—a time that, as Paul Ricoeur (1984/1983, pp. 21–31) noted, is “human time” because it is organised narratively. The latter, in turn, is significant insofar as it gathers and draws the characteristics of temporal experience. Particularity Narratives are about particular events, although these often becomes only a tool and not the very purpose of the narrative: “The ‘suggestiveness’ of a story lies, then, in the emblematic nature of its particulars, its relevance to a more inclusive narrative type. But for all that, a narrative cannot be realized save through particular embodiment” (Bruner, 1991a, p. 7). Intentional State Entailment Narratives concern characters acting in particular situations; they describe events referring to the intentional states of individuals while they are involved in the same occurrences and in the narrative itself. However, the intentional states narrated “never fully determine the course of events, since a character with a particular intentional state might end up doing practically anything. For some measure of agency is always present in narrative, and agency presupposes choice-some element of ‘freedom’” (Bruner, 1991a, p. 7). Individuals can predict from the intentional states of a character only how he “felt” and/or “perceived” that specific situation. They can most certainly not identify causal explanations. However, they provide the elements for understanding why a particular character acted as he did: interpretation is about the reasons for things happening rather than their causes. Hermeneutic Composability What hermeneutics is about is clear: the interpretation of a text, or similar, to which someone has attributed a meaning. However, this approach implies a difference between what the text (or other narrative forms) expresses and what, instead, it might mean for the interpreter. Furthermore, such interpretation may not be definitive (“the last word”) but lead to multiple interpretations (a new start). Canonicity and Breach Not all sequences of the narrated events constitute a narrative (see above the characteristics necessary for a narrative to be present) despite having a temporal succession. Some events do not deserve to be narrated. All narratives require scripts (Goffman, 1959), but for a sequence of events to be considered a narrative it must infringe the legitimacy White (1980) speaks of. In other words, a story is worth telling if it contravened the expected canonical script. As Lobov argues, there are two components of the narrative structure of a linguistic account (Labov & Waletzky, 1967): what happened and why it is worth telling.

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Referentiality The acceptance of a narrative does not depend on its correct reference to reality—or the imaginary and fictional aspect that it carries with it would be lost. As mentioned, narrative “truth” is judged by its verisimilitude rather than its verifiability. Genericness This peculiarity is linked to the genre of the narrative; everyone knows that there is no single genre but there are different recognisable types of narrative (comedy, tragedy, novel, etc.). Normativeness As mentioned above, narrative, as a form of discourse, is based on the violation of conventional expectations. Therefore, it necessarily presents itself as normative since a violation presupposes a norm, and its form changes with the concerns and issues posed by the era and circumstances to which it refers. Context Sensitivity and Negotiability This feature is directly linked to that of “hermeneutic composability” and multiple interpretations. Considering the context raises the issues of the narrative intention and background knowledge of individuals. Narrative Accrual This is the last of the ten characteristics Bruner identifies regarding the structuring of a narrative. It implies that narrative, like science, is “cumulative”—even if the scientific criteria of verification and falsification have limited applicability when one is dealing with the intentional states of individuals, as with narratives. One cannot draw conclusions from Bruner’s theorisations—it would be belittling if not impossible. It is certain, however, that his contribution to the development of study approaches both in psychology and other human sciences (such as the field of educational processes) is non-negligible. Shifting the understanding of human action from the principle of causality to the meanings and intentions located within a cultural system is very clear today, but when Bruner made his theories public it represented a real revolution. And the focus on “narrative thought” was perhaps the most revolutionary thing. Narratives appear as an interpretative tool but at the same time also a tool for preserving social order, in the sense of preserving the sequential properties of everyday life.

3.3

Paul Ricœur and the Narrative Identity

With hermeneutics, interpretive processes underlie the relationships of and between individuals in their everyday activities, to the point of orienting and defining actions and forms of communication. Whenever an individual tries to inspect a situation or context, he wonders about meaning. The answer to the questions he asks himself is a way of interpreting (hermeneutics) and attributing one or more meanings. This brings attention to meaning but, as Ricœur put it, “every question about any kind of ‘being’ is a question about the ‘meaning of being’. [...] The choice for meaning is therefore the most general presupposition of all hermeneutics. Hermeneutics becomes a philosophy of interpretation [...]” that “has its own presupposition within

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a general theory of ‘sense’” (Ricœur, 1975a, p. 96). The scenario is complex: the world and the individuals who are part of it are a boundless network of relations based on communicative acts that intersect, overlap, determine themselves and can often be dissonant (Festinger, 1962). The continuous communicative acts allow, through the information that is processed, to reproduce the “meaning” through a “symbolic mediation” between the intimate aspects of private life and those of public life of human beings. Such mediation, in turn, allows the interpretation and construction of reality. The attribution of “meaning” and “significance” to actions and events defines social reality, as well as experience, by identifying limits, meanings and types of interactions (construction of the self). It does so by reducing the differences and ambiguity of information in everyday life. Social reality clears away the ambiguity from the meanings of actions, thus elucidating what is to be explained and what is the explanation (effects and causes) through an established order within which individuals can interpret and understand their material and social world by becoming active subjects in social life. Reality construction processes are, therefore, strongly influenced by symbols and representations. These affect the elaboration and interpretation of everyday experience, also directing the construction of the self. In their everyday lives, individuals are producers of meanings, norms and values. They experience and generate significant interactions from the thought and symbolic mediation processes that allow the attribution of meaning. The latter, however, is constantly in progress. Following Schütz’s theory, the attribution of meaning for action is never definitive as it is linked to a project built by the individual that undergoes continuous changes and transformations. Therefore, what is common to the different interpretations is the symbolic nature. In his hermeneutic analysis, Ricœur explains the connection between symbol and interpretation: “I define ‘symbols’ as any structure of signification in which a direct, primary, literal meaning designates, in addition, another meaning which is indirect, secondary, and figurative and which can be apprehended only through the first” (Ricœur, 1974/1969, p. 12). After all, one cannot overlook that human actions are culturally oriented and filtered by the approval of the group of belonging. In this case, culture contains the tools—language, symbols, signs, etc.—that give meaning because they are shared within a context that must then validate the action. The symbolic systems used by individuals in interacting with others are already a constitutive element of the social environment of reference because they are rooted within the culture and specific linguistic codes. Meaning, therefore, stems from a system of symbols shared by a culturally determined community that thinks of itself and the surrounding world through these symbols and meanings. As Ricœur (1959) states, the symbol “gives rise to thought”. The use of a codified and at the same time formalised symbolic system makes the relationship with the meaning unequivocal for those who share this symbolic system—and only for them. All the others, meanwhile, can only make an arbitrary interpretation. This disparity leads to the exclusion of those not familiar with the symbolic systems because they are unable to interpret the communication clearly and unequivocally. Consequently, they are excluded also from the “world” that has

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espoused these symbolic systems. Hence, the “non-final” nature of every interpretation. And yet, Ricœur does not consider this incompleteness an unbridgeable distance between the truth and the desire to reach it. On the contrary, it drives continuous research through an interpretative form that tries to become a “mediator” between divergent interpretations in a substantially dialectic logic. This prompts the French scholar to extend his analysis to language as the instrument par excellence for symbolic mediation (hermeneutics). Indeed, he believes that the world of symbols is also that of words. At the same time, however, he warns those who consider language as an autonomous structure in its own right: language would not even exist if not analysed within the experience of the world of individuals (Ricœur, 1974/ 1969). In other words, language must be examined starting from the existence of individuals. The analysis must include the socio-historical dimension, the intentions of the speaker, and the relationship with the interlocutor. These are all indispensable references for understanding action, clearly expressed through metaphor and discourse. The former (metaphor) in particular, starting from its discordances and sometimes its logical absurdities, introduces semantic innovation: “Les véritables métaphores sont les métaphores d’invention dans lesquelles une nouvelle extension de sens des mots réplique à une discordance dans la phrase. [...], la métaphore dit quelque chose de nouveau sur la réalité” (Ricœur, 1975b, p. 148).8 The metaphor is mimesis: that “word sometimes translated as ‘imitation,’ sometimes as ‘representation,’ but always as something having to do with that puzzling intuition that makes us want to say that art imitates life” (Dowling, 2011, p. 1). The mimesis is the imitation of an action (a metaphor for reality). Ricœur breaks down this process into three phases—mimesis1, mimesis2 and mimesis3—with the second phase (mimesis2) constituting the central node of his analysis as it opens the individual to the world of the plot of the narrative. The French scholar, however, clarifies that “Hermeneutics, however, is concerned with reconstructing the entire arc of operations by which practical experience provides itself with works, authors, and readers. It does not confine itself to setting mimesis2 between mimesis1, and mimesis3. It wants to characterize mimesis2 by its mediating function. What is at stake, therefore, is the concrete process by which the textual configuration mediates between the prefiguration of the practical field and its refiguration through the reception of the work. It will appear as a corollary, at the end of this analysis, that the reader is that operator par excellence who takes up through doing something—the act of reading—the unity of the traversal from mimesis1, to mimesis3, by way of mimesis2” (Ricœur, 1984/1983, p. 53). Mimesis1 is the “pre-understanding of the world of action”, particularly its intelligible structures, its symbolic elements and its temporal nature. Mimesis2 is a true representation and concerns the narrative function of integrating the data acquired from the world of action by transforming them into the world of text (or verb) through a plot that can compose a sensible story from the various and

8

True metaphors are metaphors of invention in which a new extension of the meaning of words replicates a discrepancy in the sentence. [...], the metaphor says something new about reality (personal translation).

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multiple events. Weaving them into a plot causes these events to go beyond their particular signification to assume the sense that governs the entire development of the plot to which they contribute. Finally, mimesis3 closes the mimetic circularity and refers to the real world in which the action takes place (in a different way from mimesis1) because a new autonomous universe is re-created. The closure of the mimetic cycle highlights narratives’ ability to reconfigure the world and then offer this reconfiguration to their recipients—be they readers or listeners. Indeed, the reconfiguration of the social world through narration becomes effective only with the external encounter. In turn, the recipient assumes a reflexive position towards the same narration by bringing into play belonging and situation. This connection with the outside confirms that language is not a closed system. In further support, Ricœur offers the example of discourse. Discourse is an event that is actually overcome as an event due to two distinctive features: its relationship with the individual’s intentionality, which also constitutes its meaning, and its reference to a situation, objects and the speaker. Like metaphors, discourses are never closed and inert systems. On the contrary, they are dynamic: “This universal signification of the problem of reference is so broad that even the utterer’s meaning has to be expressed in the language of reference as the self-reference of discourse, i.e., as the designation of its speaker by the structure of discourse. Discourse refers back to its speaker at the same time that it refers to the world. This correlation is not fortuitous, since it is ultimately the speaker who refers to the world in speaking. Discourse in action and in use refers backwards and forwards, to a speaker and a world” (Ricœur, 1976, p. 22). For Ricœur, neither syntax (the formal internal structure of discourse) nor semiotics (what is said) are central, as they are the prelude to semantics (what is spoken of, and the use made of it). Semantics, therefore, “is the theory that relates the inner or immanent constitution of the sense to the outer or transcendent intention of the reference” (Ricœur, 1976, p. 22). Indeed, the French scholar deems problematic that linguistics linked to de Saussure (2013/1916) and based only on signifier and signified. As Ricœur stated in an interview, what is needed is “a semiotic of three terms: signifier, signified, referent. This is the demand for a referent that is not met by the binary signifier-signified” (Brohm & Uhl, 1996, p. 5). The use of these three terms makes it possible to overcome the signifier/ signified binomial. The introduction of the third term (the reference) allows for distinguishing what is being said from what is being talked about. The latter (what is being spoken of) is always at the forefront of the discourse because it includes the “world” that opens up discourse together with the speaker and the interlocutor. It follows that the type and form of the discourse change depending on the “reference”. Furthermore, we cannot overlook the relationship between the discourse and its author. A clear example is a scientific or bureaucratic language, whereas ordinary language holds greater communicative capacity and, therefore, becomes a valid analysis for the problem of meaning. Ricœur’s turns out to be hermeneutics of the self (Ricœur, 1992/1990), founded in the social world and the interactions with others. It emphasises the spaces of relationships within socio-cultural processes, becoming crucial for the recognition of identity through and within the relational investments of individuals. Indeed, the self

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is constructed in a sphere with its own places, times and symbols, which are paramount for the cognitive processes of self-signification that individuals activate in their everyday experiences. The Self is a reality perpetually in motion with dynamics of structuring and deconstruction, resulting from a continuous process of socialisation. The socialisation process allows building both individuality and an individual inclined towards the collective (social subject). This process results from a dialectical relationship between “distance” and “appropriation” (Ricœur, 1991/1986). In the process, appropriation is always provisional, thus maintaining a certain distance between the subject and the “traces” produced by symbolic mediation. This dynamism is reflected in the meanings that individuals attribute to the external world, including their actions. To be interpreted, individual actions must be equated with the written text: “Meaningful action is an object for science only under the condition of a kind of objectification which is equivalent to the fixation of a discourse by writing. This trait presupposes a simple way to help us at this stage of our analysis. In the same way that interlocution is overcome in writing, interaction is overcome in numerous situations in which we treat action as a fixed text” (Ricœur, 1971, pp. 537–538). This equation derives from the simple fact that linguistic acts are full and proper actions that can be compared to a text with its own logical and linguistic structure that facilitates the interpretation of meanings. This assimilation of action to text gives rise to the “semantics of action” (Ricœur, 1977; Scott-Baumann, 2011) in which the interpreter, faced with action, asks himself certain questions: who? what? and why? In attempting to answer these questions, the interpreter tries to understand all the relationships established between actors, meanings, culture and whatever else may motivate (intentionally) an individual to act. As he did for discourse, Ricœur again supports his theory with an analogy between action and text: the principle of autonomy. When the action is fully realised, it is detached from the person who produced it, lives a life of its own and fully assumes its social value, just as it happens with a text. In these dynamics, events are also defined by the variable time. Indeed, not only does narration (verbal or textual) necessitates a chronological dimension, but is narration itself that defines time: “time becomes human to the extent that it is articulated through a narrative mode, and narrative attains its full meaning when it becomes a condition of temporal existence” (Ricœur, 1984/1983, p. 52). This allows for a sort of reunion between the past and the present. It outlines the historicity of human beings, which makes it easier to understand their actions. This is also true of autobiography, already widely discussed by Bruner (1987, 1990), which produces a “hermeneutic of the self” (Ricœur, 1992/1990). Autobiographies re-read one’s past (biographical account to oneself and others) and recompose the experience into a narrative plot. What follows is the construction of the “narrative identity”, which Ricœur defines as “the sort of identity to which a human being has access thanks to the mediation of the narrative function. [...]. I formed an hypothesis that the constitution of the narrative identity, whether of an individual or an historical community, was the place to search for this fusion between history and fiction” (Ricœur, 1991/1988, p. 73). It should be noted that the third volume of Time and Narrative (Ricœur, 1988/1985) closes with a sort of question on the existence of

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a form of experience that could integrate two major narrative genres: historical and fictional. With the introduction of narrative identity, Ricœur tries to clarify the ambiguities of the very term identity: “The conceptual frame under which I shall conduct my analysis rests on the fundamental difference that I see between two major uses of the concept of identity: identity as sameness (Latin idem; English same; German gleich) and identity as self (Latin ipse; English self; German selbst). Ipseity, I shall argue, is not sameness. My thesis is that many of the difficulties which obscure the question of personal identity result from not distinguishing between these two usages of the term ‘identity’” (Ricœur, 1991/1988, p. 73). The idem refers to the definition of the individual within the social world and the continuity of the same (mêmeté), while ipse refers to the singularity of the individual (of a self). This duality makes it necessary to establish a dialectic between the two identities that can be found in the notion of life-story (Ricœur, 1986), understood as autobiography rooted into a narrative fabric. As the meaning of experience changes over time, so does the narrative of the self: as with past events, it is continually rewritten from the point of view of the present, which produces different readings. This process refers to memory, particularly to collective memory (Halbwachs, 1992/1950), which is not only subjective but also intersubjective and selective at the same time. And it is precisely this selection, that is renewed periodically, that allows for the reconstruction of the memory depending on the present. This process implies the relationship with the other (both as an individual and as a group to which the subject belongs) within a context—a framework, to use Halbwachs’ terminology—which contains objective and objectifiable references. It follows that narrative identity is closely linked to memory and shares its form. It is revised according to the present and the future and, therefore, it depends on the narrative that individuals make of themselves and the stories they hear. This continuous dialogue—between mimesis and between identities—leads to further dialectics: that between diverging interpretations. Each side, reflexively, highlights the limits of the other but, at the same time, recognises the differences (otherness) which open up new perspectives of existence for the individual. According to Ricœur, the greatest effort of human beings should aim towards the understanding and interpretation of actions (semantics of action). Hermeneutics, which is a hermeneutics of the self, must support individuals in these discovery processes of the relations with human experience (narration) which produces differences in the moral life precisely from the interpretation of social reality (mimesis).

3.4

Hannah Arendt and the Theory of Action

The authors mentioned so far have been easily pigeonholed into theories (namely phenomenology, social constructionism, and hermeneutics). However, it is not equally easy to find a place for Hannah Arendt who, despite being known as a political philosopher, prefers to call herself a political “thinker”. I will not delve into the details of Arendt’s theories, limiting myself to this last aspect, which is germane

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with the subject of this work. As Taylor (1989) did, in different terms, and actually going beyond his position, Arendt maintains the need for the definition of a political culture of modernity (political philosophy) that recognises plurality through praxis (action): “Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the human condition of plurality, to the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world. While all aspects of the human condition are somehow related to politics, this plurality is specifically the condition—not only the conditio sine qua non, but the conditio per quam—of all political life” (Arendt, 1958, p. 7). Arendt is mainly known for her book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), a study on the Nazi and Stalinist regimes which ignited a debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. For the present contribution, I will refer mainly to The Human Condition (1958) and, in the final section, to The Life of the Mind (1978). The former, with a completely original approach to philosophy, investigated the three fundamental categories of human activity (vita activa): labour, work and action. The latter, published posthumously, examined the three fundamental faculties of the contemplative life (thinking, willing, judging). At the time of Arendt’s death in 1975, only the first two sections had been completed. The core of the reflections proposed here lies on the theory of action. Before I can attempt to detail it, it is necessary to briefly lay some general premises on Arendt’s idea of modernity, which, truth be told, does not appear particularly positive. In her 1958 book and in other essays written between 1954 and 1960 (Arendt, 1961) she clearly exposes what she considers to be the losses following people’s abdication of tradition, religion and authority. At the same time, she offers some suggestions on the available resources in modern society to address issues concerning the meaning of reality, identities and values. For Arendt, modernity is marked by a transformation of the public and private spheres that previously characterised the city-states of former times, leading to the primacy of the indistinct social of the nation-state: “The distinction between a private and a public sphere of life corresponds to the household and the political realms, which have existed as distinct, separate entities at least since the rise of the ancient city-state; but the emergence of the social realm, which is neither private nor public, strictly speaking, is a relatively new phenomenon whose origin coincided with the emergence of the modem age and which found its political form in the nation-state” (Arendt, 1958, p. 28). Modernity brought about mass society and the manipulation of public opinion, it unleashed forms of totalitarianism (Nazism and Stalinism) as a result of the institutionalisation of terror and violence, and it is the era in which history takes on a different role: “In the modern age history emerged as something it never had been before. It was no longer composed of the deeds and sufferings of men, and it no longer told the story of events affecting the lives of men; it became a man-made process, the only all-comprehending process which owed its existence exclusively to the human race” (Arendt, 1961, p. 58). For this reason, Arendt’s work is ridden with a tension between conceptual reflection and the analysis of concrete events, in a sort of dialogue between the world of reality and the need to provide answers within the framework of her philosophical-political theorisations. “History

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as narrative” is the method Arendt uses to reconstruct events, emphasising their singularity and drawing a picture that privileges human actions rather than the impersonal forces of history—“life as narrative” (Kristeva, 2001) that must lead once again to freedom and plurality. This can only happen by re-appropriating the past through what was defined as “the deadly impact of new thoughts” (Arendt, 1968, p. 201), in the hope of giving meaning back to the present and thinking of the future as “only now will the past open up to us with unexpected freshness and tell us things no one has yet had ears to hear” (Arendt, 1961, p. 94). There is little doubt that Arendt’s idea of modernity stems from the events of the twentieth century in which she was personally involved. As the daughter of Jews, she had to flee from the Nazi fury first to France and then to the United States where she settled permanently. Yet, there seem to be some rays of light. Arendt’s theory of action develops within this idea of modernity. It can be considered one of the most original contributions to twentieth-century political thought, particularly for her revival of the classical notion of praxis. She distinguishes action as doing (praxis) from making (poiesis) and, by linking it to multiple factors such as freedom, plurality, speech, memory and others, she articulates a conception of politics in which questions of meaning and identity can be addressed innovatively and differently. For Arendt, action is one of the three fundamental categories for the human condition (labour, work and action): “labor, which corresponds to the biological life of man as an animal; work, which corresponds to the artificial world of objects that human beings build upon the earth; and action, which corresponds to our plurality as distinct individuals” (Arendt, 1958, p. ix). Each activity is autonomous in the sense of having its own distinctive principles and being judged according to different criteria. For example, action (doing) is judged based on its ability to reveal the identity of the individual who acts for the affirmation of the reality of the world and to promote freedom. Action, then, is the specific characteristic of human beings that distinguishes them from animals and gods—the other two (labour and work) contributing to the differentiation of action in the vita activa. Action has two main characteristics; the first is freedom, understood not understood so much as a freedom of choice (dear to the liberalist tradition) as the ability to initiate something new (something unforeseen): “Freedom as related to politics is not a phenomenon of the will. We deal here not with the liberum arbitrium, a freedom of choice that arbitrates and decides between two given things, one good and one evil, and whose choice is predetermined by motive which has only to be argued to start its operation” rather is “the freedom to call something into being which did not exist before, which was not given, not even as an object of cognition or imagination, and which therefore, strictly speaking, could not be known” (Arendt, 1961, p. 151). “Calling something into being which did not exist before” according to Arendt, is ingrained in human beings right from birth because it is birth itself that introduces that much novelty into the world, “the new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting. In this sense of initiative, an element of action, and therefore of natality, is inherent in all human activities. Moreover,

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since action is the political activity par excellence, natality, and not mortality, may be the central category of political, as distinguished from metaphysical, thought” (Arendt, 1958, p. 9). This leads to the second characteristic, namely plurality, which “is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live” (Arendt, 1958, p. 8). If action is tantamount to introducing something new, it cannot be done without others, it cannot be done in isolation or independently from the presence of a plurality of actors who, from their different perspectives, can judge the quality of what is enacted; indeed, without the recognition of others, the action would cease to be meaningful. Plurality refers, therefore, to both equality and distinction: human beings belong to the same species, but two of them are never interchangeable, since each is endowed with a unique biography and perspective on the world. It is precisely because of this plurality that individuals can act and relate to each other in a unique way through communicative interaction that takes place through language and storytelling (Collin & Muth, 2020). In several passages of her work, Arendt emphasises that action has primarily a symbolic dimension that is realised through the networks of relations of individuals by way of discourse (communicative interaction): “Action and speech are so closely related because the primordial and specifically human act must at the same time contain the answer to the question asked of every newcomer: ‘Who are you?’ This disclosure of who somebody is, is implicit in both his words and his deeds; yet obviously the affinity between speech and revelation is much closer than that between action and revelation, just as the affinity between action and beginning is closer than that between speech and beginning, although many, and even most acts, are performed in the manner of speech” (Arendt, 1958, p. 178). In short, action needs the word which, articulated through language, makes it possible to attribute meanings to one’s own and others’ actions, as well as to coordinate the actions of groups of individuals and their aggregations. The opposite is also true: the word implies action, in the sense that the word is both a form of action (many actions are expressed through speech) and at the same time a form of control of the speaker. The link between action and speech is central to Arendt’s conception of power, which states that “Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities. Power is what keeps the public realm, the potential space of appearance between acting and speaking men, in existence” (Arendt, 1958, p. 200). The link between action and speech also makes it possible to detect the identity of the one who acts by showing their personality to the world and distinguishing “who” they are from “what”: “In acting and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world, while their physical identities appear without any activity of their own in the unique shape of the body and sound of the voice. This disclosure of ‘who’ in contradistinction to ‘what’ somebody is-his qualities, gifts, talents, and shortcomings, which he may display or hide-is implicit in everything somebody says and does” (Arendt, 1958, p. 179). In this sense, action and word are

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closely related because both contain the answer to the question posed to every newcomer: “Who are you?” This revelation on “who” is made possible by both actions and words, but of the two it is the word that has the closest affinity with revelation; without the word, the action would lose its revelatory quality and would no longer allow the identification of the agent. There is, however, one aspect that cannot be overlooked: individuals are never certain what kind of self they will reveal, this can only be done retrospectively, by observing the action once it has been performed (past). In other words, their identity will become fully manifest by listening to the stories that will arise from these actions. In this narrative, the figure of the narrator is crucial because “They tell us more about their subjects, the ‘hero’ in the center of each story, than any product of human hands ever tells us about the master who produced it, and yet they are not products, properly speaking. Although everybody started his life by inserting himself into the human world through action and speech, nobody is the author or producer of his own life story. In other words, the stories, the results of action and speech, reveal an agent, but this agent is not an author or producer. Somebody began it and is its subject in the twofold sense of the word, namely, its actor and sufferer, but nobody is its author” (Arendt, 1958, p. 184). Here, the term “hero” is not to be understood in the classical sense; it refers not to someone performing a heroic act, but to the subject at the heart of the story. The meaning of an action depends on the a posteriori reconstruction and articulation given to it by historians and narrators. Narrative, therefore, is important for Arendt because it can show agents in the web of human relationships, “Stories can illuminate the formation and appearance of subjects in fluid relational contexts that disallow the reduction of any one person to a set of traits existing prior to and in abstraction from human encounters” (Norberg, 2013, p. 756). The narration of actions and what is said by individuals are both constitutive of their meaning, which allows their retrospective articulation for both the actors themselves and the spectators. Acting individuals, in the very moment of their action, are absorbed by the goals to be achieved and are, therefore, most of the time, unable to rationally evaluate and judge the implications of their actions. For this reason, as the narrative is posthumous, it can add further insight into the motivations and goals of the actors. In this process, narrative allows the memory of actions to be preserved over time, but at the same time, it allows actions to become an inspiration for the future, models to be imitated and/or overcome. Narrative thus becomes important in reuniting past and future, because it seems that individuals are neither “equipped nor prepared for this activity of thinking, of settling down in the gap between past and future” (Arendt, 1961, p. 13) and it is memory alone, through the revisiting of actions as stories, that can save the lives and actions of actors from oblivion. Arendt goes beyond Heidegger’s conception of language (Melaney, 2006), for narrated action is not the revelation of truth through verbal experience but relates human beings to the conditions of plurality and unfolds in political space which, in this way, can be grasped historically. Narrative provides the basis for political life: “It is through narrative, and not In language In and of itself (which nonetheless is the means and the vehicle in play here), that essentially political thought is realized. Through this

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narrated action that story represents, man corresponds to life or belongs to life to the extent that human life is unavoidably a political life” (Kristeva, 2001, p. 27). Hence, Arendt’s reference to the Greek polis as a community whose primary function was to preserve the words and actions of its citizens from the oblivion of time and pass them on to future generations. The polis is the organisation that arises from the acting and speaking together of individuals, “It is the space of appearance in the widest sense of the word, namely, the space where I appear to others as others appear to me, where men exist not merely like other living or inanimate things but make their appearance explicitly” (Arendt, 1958, p. 198–199). This space is very fragile, precisely because it is actualized through actions and words. Therefore, it must be continually nourished by the production of actions and discourses of individuals who have decided to come together because they have a common purpose. And it is the capacity of individuals to act jointly for a public (political) purpose that Arendt defines as power, the result of a collective commitment that is produced by action and relies entirely on persuasion. In this regard, Cavarero clarifies the concept by speaking of narratable self rather than narrated self: “The narratable self finds its home, not simply in a conscious exercise of remembering, but in the spontaneous narrating structure of memory itself. This is why we have defined the self as narratable instead of narrated. Indeed, the particular contents—the pieces of story that the memory narrates with its typical and unmasterable process of intermittence and forgetting—are inessential. What is essential is the familiar experience of a narratability of the self, which, not by chance, we always perceive in the other, even when we do not know their story at all” (Cavarero, 2000/1997, p. 34). According to the Italian scholar, the narratable self is part of what can be identified as a relational ethics of contingency, it is similar to what happens within the interactive scene that Arendt calls “politics”. At the centre of the narrative scene is a “Who” who is not locked in autobiography but embedded in a relational matrix in which s/he expresses and receives an unrepeatable story in the form of a narrative. Two of the characteristics of action proposed by Arendt are still missing: unpredictability and irreversibility. The former is a manifestation of the capacity to innovate, but it means also that action takes place within the network of relations between (plural) individuals who cannot control the consequences of their actions. The latter, instead, means that every action starts processes that cannot be cancelled or recovered in the way that, say, we are able to eliminate a defective object. Actions are irreversible because acting always takes place within a network of relations in which each action becomes the source of reactions and, therefore, future actions. To overcome these two (negative) aspects of action, Arendt suggests not to abstain from acting in the public sphere, but to rely on two other capacities inherent in action itself: forgiveness and promise. The former looks back at what has happened and absolves the actor of what was done unintentionally; the latter looks forward and tries to establish elements of security for another uncertain and unpredictable future. These two remedies reconcile individuals with the past and make them look to the future, trying to set limits to its unpredictability.

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Together with the theory of action, the unfinished theory of judgement represents the pivot of Arendt’s political thought. Unfortunately, as mentioned at the beginning of this section, her work The Life of the Mind (1978) is missing its last volume (Judging) due to the author’s premature death in 1975. While one can distinguish the outline of two models from the other two volumes (Thinking and Willing), some collected works (Arendt, 1961) or scatteredly published essays, and a series of lectures, no organic theory can truly emerge. The first model is based on the point of view of the actor (judging in order to act), the second on that of the spectator (judging in order to attribute meaning to the past). These two modes are somewhat at odds with each other. There seem to be two clearly distinct moments: the first one in which judgement is the faculty of political actors acting in the public sphere, and the following one in which it is the faculty of spectators who seek to understand the meaning of the past to reconcile themselves with what happened. In the latter case, judgement is no longer exercised to decide how to act in the public sphere but is a component of the mind of individuals that becomes vital (that is, “of life”) as it is necessary for the retrospective recomposition of past events. Arendt’s desire to affirm judgement as a faculty of retrospective evaluation originated in her attempt to come to terms with the double political tragedies of the twentieth century (Nazism and Stalinism). Indeed, she repeatedly mentions the need to come to terms with these traumatic events in an attempt to understand them in such a way that they are not explained but confronted in all their harsh reality (Arendt, 1953, 1964). The problem of understanding is, therefore, closely related to the problem of judging, as for Arendt understanding is “so closely related to and interrelated with judging that one must describe both as the subsumption of something particular under a universal rule” (1953, p. 383). However, she does not believe that individuals have lost their faculty of judging; on the contrary, she is of the opinion that, having the capacity to begin again, they are able to model new categories and formulate new criteria for judging events that have occurred and those that may emerge in the future. Arendt’s participation in the Eichmann trial (Arendt, 1963) made her aware again of the need to come to terms with a reality that initially defied human understanding (the genocide of the Jews by the Nazi-fascists). After participating in Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Arendt (1978) returned to this issue and enriched it by providing an account of the mental activities of individuals, missing in her earlier work (Vita Activa, 1958). Eichmann’s absence of thought in circumstances where judgement was most needed prompted her to ask the following question: “Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing or even actually ‘condition’ them against it?” (Arendt, 1978, vol. I, p. 5). Arendt tried to answer by linking the activity of thought to that of judgement. The link is twofold: first, thought (as inner dialogue) prepares individuals for the activity of judging particulars without the aid of pre-established universals; second, thought, by actualizing the inner dialogue, produces conscience as a by-product that tells individuals only what to avoid in their actions and relations with others and what to repent of. If conscience represents the inner control through

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which individuals evaluate actions, judgement represents the outward manifestation of individuals’ ability to think critically. Both these aspects relate to the question of good and evil, but while conscience directs attention to the self, judgement directs attention to the external world. If we want to draw conclusions that bring together Arendt’s theory of action and her emphasis on narratives, we can say that narratives (stories) connect otherwise disconnected and contingent facts into comprehensible sets, giving meaning to even shocking events (e.g., the Holocaust), teaching acceptance of reality and enabling individuals to make appropriate judgements about the past. Regarding the Eichmann trial, narrative is the only way to represent human beings as agents in a world of human plurality (Arendt, 1958) and to determine their responsibility for what happened. Procedural narrative, then, is a form of description of the world that is both politically and legally necessary (Norberg, 2013). As Speight argued, “Arendt’s account of narrative action thus spends less time on formal considerations of plot structure, for example, than on the question of how one can assess responsibility and character in the identification of an agent with a particular action” (2011, p. 118). In the case of the Eichmann trial, politics and law are interconnected. Since the trials produce narratives about actions these bring the existence of individuals into what Arendt calls the public (political) sphere. According to some scholars (see, e.g., Benhabib, 1990; Disch, 1994), Arendt believed that the political theorist should become a narrator, since acting individuals are only truly understood and represented when they appear in narratives. But “the Eichmann case put Arendt’s case for narrative to a severe test. Eichmann, it turned out, came to Jerusalem equipped with a particular kind of narrative, one that shielded him from the presence of others, which complicated enormously the enterprise of telling his story” (Norberg, 2013, p. 748), Arendt, therefore, withdrew as a narrator, leaving Adolf Eichmann to tell his own life story. She temporarily relinquished her role as a political theorist of narrative and limited herself to the practice of critical quotation, to better expose the banality of narrative as well.

References Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Arendt, H. (1953). Understanding and politics. Partisan Review, 20(4), 377–392. Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. The University of Chicago Press. Arendt, H. (1961). Between past and future. Six exercises of political thought. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. Viking Press. Arendt, H. (1964, August 6). Personal responsibility under dictatorship. The Listener, 185–187, 205. Arendt, H. (1968). Men in dark times. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Arendt, H. (1978). The life of the mind (Vol. 2). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Bateson, G. (1955). A theory of play and fantasy; a report on theoretical aspects of the project of study of the role of the paradoxes of abstraction in communication. Psychiatric Research Reports, 2, 39–51.

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Ricœur, P. (1975b). Parole et symbole [Word and symbol]. Revue des Sciences Religieuses, 49(1–2), 142–161. Ricœur, P. (1976). Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning (D. Pellauer, Trans.). The Texas Christian University Press. Ricœur, P. (1977). La sémantique de l’action. Ière partie : Le discours de l’action [The semantics of action. Part I: The discourse of action]. Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Ricoeur, P. (1984/1983). Time and narrative (Vol. I) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1983). Ricoeur, P. (1985/1984). Time and narrative (Vol. II) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1984). Ricœur, P. (1986). Life: A story in search of a narrator. In M. C. Doeser & J. N. Kraay (Eds.), Facts and values (pp. 121–132). Martinus Nijhoff. Ricoeur, P. (1988/1985). Time and narrative (Vol. III) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1985). Ricœur, P. (1991/1986). From text to action: Essays in hermeneutics, II (K. Blamey & J. B. Thompson, Trans.). Northwestern University Press (Original work published 1986). Ricœur, P. (1991/1988). Narrative identity (M. S. Muldoon, Trans.). Philosophy Today, 35(1), 73–81 (Original work published 1988). Ricœur, P. (1992/1990). Oneself as another (K. Blamey, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1990). Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and mirror of nature. Princeton University Press. Rosaldo, M. (1984). Toward an anthropology of self and feeling. In R. Schroeder & R. Le Vine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion (pp. 137–158). Cambridge University Press. Scott-Baumann, A. (2011). Text as action, action as text? Ricoeur, λoγoσ and the affirmative search for meaning in the ‘universe of discourse’. Discourse Studies, 13(5), 593–600. Shweder, R. A. (1990). Cultural psychology—What is it? In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 1–43). Cambridge University Press. Speight, A. (2011). Arendt on narrative theory and practice. College Literature, 38(1), 115–130. Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Harvard University Press. White, H. (1980). The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 5–27.

Part II

Narratives and Social Change

Chapter 4

Narratives Between Knowledge and Communication

Abstract In contemporary society, the search for links that can explain and interpret socio-cultural phenomena leads to a broader perspective. The aim is to outline an overall view of the interconnections between all the actors and elements involved in the transformation processes of conceptual structures and how these transformations permeate the relationship between individual and society—and thus, inevitably, narrative. This section will detail the idea of narrative, which has a twofold manifestation: as a way of communicating and as a way of knowing. I will first advance some general reflections on a few issues, namely: (a) how the concept of communication and knowledge, which are unequivocal elements of narrative processes, has been transformed in recent decades; (b) the effects that these transformations have produced, by analogy, in the interactions between individuals. Keywords Social changes · Communication · Knowledge · Narrative · Ideology/ utopia

4.1

An Ever-Changing Society

Marshall McLuhan, in his terse analysis of society and the transformations of social and communicative events (that were skyrocketing in the second half of the last century), argued that “[. . .] after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man—the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 5). A few decades later it seems that his words were prophetic: today’s society indeed experienced profound changes in several conceptual structures whose relationships are inseparable and complex but fundamental in the everyday life of individuals. These same conceptual structures, with their complex relationships, are involved in different ways and to different degrees in narrative processes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_4

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The analysis of socio-cultural phenomena cannot be based exclusively on explaining (erklären) but must rely also on understanding (verstehen). That being so, it is necessary to seek an objective foundation in the relationship between knowledge and the social life within which it is embedded. Research into phenomena should no longer refer to a cause, but to a meaning that can represent the key to understanding the dynamics of the interaction of individuals with the social systems and organisations with which they interact. Seeking an objective foundation in the relationship between knowledge and social life is, therefore, a crucial issue. Since many socio-cultural phenomena are considered “social problems” (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988), it is necessary to remember that this is an all-encompassing category that includes phenomena ranging from delinquency to unemployment, from political participation to health risks, and many others in a never-ending list. In addition, scholars vastly disagree on the terminology to be employed. The question on the meaning of the term “social problem” is still open: not only does it not explain the why (erklären) but it is not even able to understand (verstehen) the multiple significant interactions that develop between three elements (society, culture and personality)1 that must necessarily be considered together as they are interdependent. An additional knot to be unravelled is that the term “social problem” covers any kind of issue, but if we consider the “variable culture” this issue would be further complicated by cultural relativism—a concept of the anthropological and sociological sciences. Cultural relativism is a methodological principle aimed at escaping ethnocentrism. It argues for approaching the study of a phenomenon by recognising the fact that each culture has its validity and coherence and cannot be judged starting from the criteria of the researcher’s culture of reference. If the search for an objective foundation in the relationship between knowledge and social life entails these critical nodes, this is also because the narrative of the system of ideas of that particular society constructs them in this way. Mannheim claimed that “there are modes of thought which cannot be adequately understood as long as their social origins are obscured. It is indeed true that only the individual is capable of thinking. There is no such metaphysical entity as a group mind which thinks over and above the heads of individuals, or whose ideas the individual merely reproduces. Nevertheless it would be false to deduce from this that all the ideas and sentiments which motivate an individual have their origin in him alone, and can be adequately explained solely on the basis of his own life experience” (Mannheim, 1954/1929, p. 2). In the 1960s and 1970s, the dominant system of ideas (we prefer this term to ideology as the latter’s use too often does not correspond to its historical and social meaning) was focused on emancipation: the affirmation of individual rights and freedoms and/or of the groups to which they belonged (widely disseminated in Western countries and scarcely present in other

1

Personality is the subject of the interaction, society is the set of interacting personalities, with their socio-cultural relationships and processes, and, finally, culture is the set of meanings, values and norms held by interacting persons and the totality of vehicles that objectify, socialise, and transmit these meanings (Sorokin, 1962/1947).

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geographical areas). Today, the system of ideas seems to claim back those rights and freedoms acquired with emancipation but not fully recognised. How this system of thought is expressed has certainly changed, if only because of the wide diffusion of the mass media. Furthermore, in the last century, one could speak of “activism”— meaning that the moment of action overrode all other activities (political, religious, trade union, research, etc.). Today, activism and the role of the researcher (intellectual) are blended. And yet, according to Weber (1946/1919), the latter should entail impersonality. If one does not want to use the term impersonality, deeming it too extreme, one can speak of “neutrality”. This often leads to the diffusion of theoretical models that may well become mainstream but are not truly objective. It is certainly difficult to be “aseptic” towards the object of study, but Bourdieu claimed, particularly for sociologists, that the role and, therefore, the main function of researchers was “the critical unhinging of the manoeuvring and manipulation of citizens and of consumers that rely on perverse usages of science” (Bourdieu, 2013, p. 12). The question that arises, then, is: What happens in the society in which narrative processes, directly and indirectly, involve the lives of individuals in both the individual and collective dimensions of social life? Narratives are inherently highly rhetoric (Phelan, 1996)—a feature undoubtedly accentuated by the communication forms adopted—but they still promote debate. However, such a debate does not interest all issues affecting society and certainly does not occur in all the places of society. Narratives are, inescapably, part of social life. They are also inherently conceptually ambiguous, which often leads to “perverse effects” (Boudon, 1982/1977): there is conflict in them. For example, narratives can mobilise on the global level but this mobilisation still has a local appropriation: “While communication and information are increasingly diffused on a global scale, these symbolic materials are always received by individuals who are situated in specific spatial-temporal locales. The appropriation of media products is always a localized phenomenon, in the sense that it always involves specific individuals who are situated in particular social-historical contexts, and who draw on the resources available to them in order to make sense of media messages and incorporate them into their lives. And messages are often transformed in the process of appropriation as individuals adapt them to the practical contexts of everyday life. The globalization of communication has not eliminated the localized character of appropriation but rather has created a new kind of symbolic axis in the modem world, what I shall describe as the axis of globalized diffusion and localized appropriation. As the globalization of communication becomes more intensive and extensive, the significance of this axis increases. Its growing importance attests to the dual fact that the circulation of information and communication has become increasingly global while, at the same time, the process of appropriation remains inherently contextual and hermeneutic” (Thompson, 1995, p. 174). This symbolic axis— globalised diffusion vs. localised appropriation—means that information, images, knowledge and other artefacts are acquired in ways typical of the globalised society but are, then, interpreted and processed where individuals carry on with their everyday lives. Furthermore, they are usually employed to consolidate values and beliefs. All this shifts the attention to the transformation of the conceptual structure

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of spatial and temporal distancing. Giddens (1990) emphasised the complex relationships between circumstances of co-presence (local implications) and connections of presence and absence (distant interaction), stating that in the modern era spatialtemporal distancing is much higher than in any other period, “stretching” local and distant social forms and events. It is, therefore, crucial to verify the impact of the global diffusion of information vs. a local appropriation of products on the construction of social reality. The more this condition is accentuated, the more the symbolic space-time distance of everyday life increases. However, this phenomenon of symbolic distance is not the only feature of the local appropriation of information that deserves attention. The integration of the appropriation processes with other local complex practices can consolidate, in some respects, the forms and the relations of power and dependence that can lead to what Touraine (2000/1997) called communitarianism. This is the world in which millions of individuals live, but I cannot help pointing out that it represents a paradox: in the face of the global dissemination of information, knowledge, images and symbols, which affect all fields of social life (from the economy to communication, just to mention two), the appropriation and processing take place at the local level, accentuating the cultural differences and divisions. This kind of context increases the defence of the local reality, including through ethnocentric actions and attitudes, which aim above all at a re-appropriation of individual and collective identity homologated by the excess of mass media information. The same information, through narrative processes, contributes significantly to the construction of social reality and the establishment and definition of the self as an individual and collective life project. The final outcome is a greater fragmentation of the world (Geertz, 2001). Indeed, although we are witnessing a technological and knowledge progress never recorded in the history of mankind—particularly in the Western world—many quarters are raising doubts on an unequal development that leads to the consolidation of relations of subordination. For the sciences of society, this has meant having to turn the attention—in the different spheres of societal life (economic, political, cultural and social)—to processes of structuring and deconstruction, integration and exchange, and conflict. All of this in a society that has become a “world system” (Wallerstein, 1976) of which it is necessary to grasp the generating conditions if we want to explain the nature and evolution of this new system.

4.2

Communication and Knowledge: An Inseparable Dyad

In contemporary society, searching for objective links that can explain and interpret socio-cultural phenomena inevitably leads to a broader perspective. The aim is to outline an overall view of how all the actors involved in the different transformation processes of the conceptual structures are interconnected and how these transformations permeate the relationship between individuals and society. To proceed along this path, which will then allow us to reach the idea of narrative at the core of this

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book, it is necessary to first advance some general reflections on how the concepts of communication and knowledge have been transformed in recent decades and what effects these transformations have caused on the interactions between individuals. Both communication and knowledge, it is worth remembering, are unequivocal elements of narrative processes.

4.2.1

Communication Between the Cultural and the Digital Revolution

Contemporary society cannot do without communication systems, whose two main purposes are transmitting culture and transferring information. These functions are even more necessary because in contemporary society the interaction forms between individuals are rarely linear and instead often quite ambiguous. Meaningful interactions—as Sorokin (1962/1947) defined them—take place between personality, society and culture (interdependent and inseparable aspects) and consist of three components. First, human beings (both individuals and groups) who create, use, communicate and exchange values with each other through vehicles; second, meanings (values and criteria of conduct) which can be defined as those cognitive meanings, values and norms superimposed on the biophysical properties of the interacting individuals; and finally, vehicles (material objects, sensory, energies such as sounds, lights, colours, movement, electrical, thermal and other agents) through which the intangible meanings and values are “objectified” and “communicated” to others. Most of the time, meaningful interactions take on a double valence: on the one hand, exchange of information, on the other, symbolic action. Communication is, therefore, a social interaction since it is through this act that individuals bring their thoughts outside their own minds. In so doing, they open themselves up to dialogue with others. And it is always through communication that reflexivity takes place. The easy enjoyment of many new means of communication (Lister et al., 2003) has allowed communication processes to penetrate deeply into the everyday subjective experience, as well as into the images of the world that individuals possess and construct for themselves. At the same time, however, the fact that the media often represent the only source of information causes dependence—above all about the ideas and images that they can construct of and on reality. In this situation of pseudosubordination, individuals’ power on selecting the information is inferior to that exercised by the media themselves (McCullagh & Campling, 2002). In communication studies, this has led to the recent affirmation of a tendency to focus on researching the effects, at the level of construction of individual and collective knowledge, of the representations of reality that communication events contribute to construct and convey. Communication is, therefore, an inexhaustible source for the acquisition and construction of knowledge that allows people to build an interpretative space of

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meanings of the reality they experience with others. Communication is the foundation of knowledge that allows individuals to understand what surrounds them in order to construct a representation of the world within which to build their identity and plan their life path. Communication forms have changed throughout human history, and their transformation has simultaneously changed the forms of narration. To better understand these transformations, I will divide the analysis into three major strands (phases) that illustrate its macro-evolution: the oral phase, the writing phase and the electronic phase. Metaphorically, these can be read from the point of view of “once upon a time”, “today there is” and “tomorrow there will be...”. Elementary forms of communication have existed since the origin of the human species. At first, (pre-humans and proto-humans) the communication made use exclusively of signs and signals (mainly shouts and body gestures). These, being the constituent elements of all communication, made it possible to unite an event (concept) with an acoustic image, generating a meaning to be attributed to the situation (danger, joy, fear, etc.). With the evolution of the species (homo sapiens), we enter what is considered the age of speech—and what will later be recognised as the age of language, the latter being understood as a form of universal symbolic mediation through which the various spheres of meaning are constituted. This was the origin of the culture of orality, which was to be definitively supplanted by writing, “Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness” (Ong, 2002, p. 77). Orality links communication to time: “Sound exists only when it is going out of existence. It is not simply perishable but essentially evanescent, and it is sensed as evanescent. [...] There is no way to stop sound and have sound. I can stop a moving picture camera and hold one frame fixed on the screen. If I stop the movement of sound, I have nothing—only silence, no sound at all” (Ong, 2002, pp. 31–32). These dynamics—because they are dynamics rather than static events—influence not only how individuals express themselves but also their intellectual processes. Cultures based exclusively on orality (primary cultures), base their knowledge on what is remembered: “knowing by heart” is not a mere aid to thought, but the only way in which the individual can experience knowledge. In such a context, memory acquires a primary role since there is no written source. The memory of oral cultures is based mainly on recurrent, rhythmic, chant-like thought and communication since continuous repetition allows retention (memorisation) for longer than the time that translates into knowledge. This was the period of ancient Greek rhetoric and epic narratives, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, which, despite being later transcripted in written form, were born as oral compositions. Orality, which is characterised by verbal communication (the spoken word), cannot be separated from non-verbal communication: narratives, songs and nursery rhymes are always accompanied by bodily mimicry that reinforces the meaning of what is being said. For this reason, human interaction is fundamental—a well-known example being the performances of Greek tragedies in which gestures were an integral part of the act. As a closing note, I can state, with a symbolic expression, that orality “unites”, while writing “isolates”: recalling

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Thompson’s (1995) theories and considering the characteristics of orality, I can associate the latter to the type of “face-to-face interaction” that requires co-presence in space and time, while writing can be associated with the type of “mediated interaction” that does not require co-presence in time and space. The origin of writing is remote2 and it is the first great technological revolution (Powell, 2009) affecting communication. The one immediately following was the invention of movable type printing which made it possible to spread written text to the masses, and then came the spread of the computer. Of the three, writing is the one that fundamentally changed the way we communicate and social organisation: in fact, it initiated what was later definitively achieved by printing and computers, “It initiated what print and computers only continue, the reduction of dynamic sound to quiescent space, the separation of the word from the living present, where alone spoken words can exist” (Ong, 2002, p. 80). Writing does not come from the unconscious, it is pre-constructed as it follows invented rules that are recognisable and cannot be modified. Writing has been demonised but is far from a mere external aid: it is now internalised—a world without writing is unthinkable. It is part of the continuous transformation of mind and thought structures, as well as of the ways of preserving knowledge. No longer oral sources, but written sources (documents), which increased with the introduction of printing, enabling the accumulation and preservation of knowledge that was no longer lost—without being passed on to future generations—once the holder had disappeared, as it was the case with orality. These transformations changed not only the forms and modes of communication but also the social organisation and everyday lives of individuals, that branch into several different structures even within the same social system. And if these are the consequences of writing and the planetary diffusion of printing, the electronic age— as McLuhan defined it—has perhaps not yet had its full effect on how individuals express themselves. In all likelihood, those who live today will not be able to experience and analyse them, and for those who will come later, imagining the future technological progress, we will all be “troglodytes”. Electronics and the new means of mass communication propel humanity into the future (“tomorrow there will be...”) and into the so-called “mediated quasi-interaction” (Thompson, 1995). In this kind of interaction, all potential receivers are an undefined whole; however, by carrying out a communication process and symbolic exchange, it creates a particular social situation that can be considered as an interaction. The difference between the three phases (orality, writing and electronics) is twofold. The first feature refers to the directionality of the communicative event, which in the electronic phase is usually one-way; the second concerns the spatialtemporal relationship, which in the orality phase involved co-presence (shared space and time), whereas for both the writing and electronic phases the contexts are

The first real writing system was Cuneiform, a script developed in the Middle East within the Sumerian civilisation around 3500 BC. This was followed by Egyptian hieroglyphics (3000 BC), Indian writing (3000–2400 BC) and Chinese writing (1500 BC).

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separate, and accessibility is extended in time and space (the individuals acting in such a communicative event may be absent). The source of information for individuals is no longer just those with whom they interact daily and engage in a symbolic exchange. Instead, information comes from the media that generate a mediated (inevitably) and continuous symbolic exchange. The new means of communication, particularly computers, have created a continuous and continuously usable flow of information. This is even more true in the current historical phase, with its shift from the network society (Castells, 1996) to the platform society (van Dijck et al., 2018). The former is characterised not only by the consequences of technological innovation and a change in capitalist structures, as well as by cultural transformations based on individual freedom and social autonomy through which to express identity. In the latter, the platforms3 are places where users exchange communicative practices, forms of togetherness, and participation in public life, as well as technologies that allow both individuals (citizens) and institutions to engage and achieve their aims. This transformation creates a new ecosystem, to the point of defining a new perspective: that of media ecology (Strate, 2004). This novel viewpoint offers a further key to interpreting socio-cultural processes because it is not limited to a vision centred on the medium but takes into account the relationships between micro and macro aspects of social life interconnected by digital media.

4.2.2

Knowledge in the Face of the Challenges Posed by Globalisation

Nowadays, with the advent of new information technologies that allow for the creation of links and the remote management of even highly complex processes, national boundaries are easily overcome—at least virtually. The changes and development of such a society must be rethought. The focus is shifting from the traditional elements of competitive advantage to the new ones that are based on the “knowledge resource”, unique and inimitable. Since ancient times, the problem of knowledge has been at the centre of attention of scholars from different disciplines for two main reasons. Firstly, because the main function of knowledge is to enable the construction of meanings and thus of social reality (linking it closely to narrative); secondly, because the expansion of knowledge (especially scientific knowledge) has improved, where there has been no distortion, the quality of life of individuals (e.g., the medical progress in treating a vast number of illnesses). Knowledge is therefore not simply the transmission of

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The platform is not just an infrastructure, but an economic model that feeds and grows on the data produced by users, which will be useful to the platform but also to subjects outside it. One example is the Big Five who manage, process, and direct all the data circulating on the network: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and Amazon—hence the acronym FAMGA.

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information, but the construction and research of the meanings of human action, as well as the interpretation and perception by individuals of situations and contexts of everyday life. We can simplify the concept of knowledge to the bone by considering it as the set of meanings and interpretations that individuals elaborate and attribute to the data and information they grasp from the social context. The cognitive process does not consist in the mere mechanical recording of information; instead, information is reorganised, re-elaborated, represented and interpreted. It is a construction process, in the sense that individuals actively process knowledge (learning and processing) rather than merely acquiring it passively. The processes of reorganisation, re-elaboration, representation and interpretation of information involve psychological aspects (perceptions, emotions, cognitions) and social, cultural and historical aspects that enable their transformation into models and representations. I agree with McCarthy’s thesis that knowledge is culture and, specifically, that “To assert that knowledge is culture, a claim that draws together the disparate theories presented in this book, is to insist that various bodies of knowledge, such as those of the natural sciences or the social sciences, operate within culture—that they contain and transmit and create cultural dispositions, meanings, and categories. It also means that all knowledges, whatever else they do, operate as systems of meaning; that they provide categories and conceptions that enable their users to understand their worlds as something” (McCarthy, 1996, p. 108). The action of knowing, therefore, implies (a) participating in the construction of the meanings of social and cultural reality in such a way as to transform it into a symbolic representation; (b) attributing “sense” and “meaning” to facts, objects, or individuals, based on knowledge, expectations and hypotheses; (c) processing in a complex and dynamic way the information that individuals manage to grasp, transforming it into knowledge. Every interaction with objects or human beings, every act of communication, implies a transmission of skills and knowledge—therefore, an exchange that becomes a process of integration of the differences. In this process, differences are understood as a collective richness; everyone is recognised in them and can identify with them. If these are general aspects of the cognitive processes, it is also appropriate to look at whether and how (if at all) the globalisation processes have affected the forms and dissemination of knowledge. The ongoing technological advancement means that the human factor has become increasingly marginal in the production processes, shifting the skills of the latter from material production to managerial and intellectual activities. The need for knowledge is typically human. The need—but also the desire—to explain the world has always constituted, at the level of knowledge, the necessity to overcome the limits of the individual to become aware of the reality with which s/he interacts. And yet, interacting means widening the field of knowledge. It is precisely on these dynamics that the assumption of the economy of the intangible unfolds, in which “frozen knowledge” is bought and sold (Nonaka, 1994). Knowledge is, therefore, the main resource for personal and collective growth and development, as well as a real source of wealth. A “fireproof” element on which to base security is “intellectual capital” as Stewart (1997) defines it. In societies where competitive

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market logics prevail, which affect the individual as well as entire companies, the policies of protection and distributive justice are increasingly diminished. Technological revolutions have transformed the ways and forms of disseminating and circulating knowledge, severely affecting their stability. It is precisely in the light of this awareness that cognitive processes take on the function of shaping individuals in their entirety and at the same time providing them with the tools to maintain an adequate degree of knowledge, competence and skills required in everyday life in both the private and public spheres. Individuals not only participate in the construction of meanings relating to their social reality but also construct meanings relating to the organisational reality within which they carry out their daily activities (a company, an institution, a political party, etc.). Human beings attribute meaning and significance to all objects, facts and situations depending on their ability to recall knowledge from memory that is processed together with the newly acquired information. Knowledge is the future, and as such, we need to invest in it because, in cases of great crisis (economic or otherwise), it remains the main strategic factor for development—industrial, social and cultural. The process of human development based on the knowledge economy is facilitated by the constant “creation of knowledge” aimed at “continuous innovation” in the industrial, social and cultural fields. The new challenge to keep up with the globalisation processes is to be able to learn faster to better anticipate changes and to do this it is necessary to be able to activate mechanisms for the acquisition, creation, dissemination and incorporation of the “critical” resource knowledge. The global society is the knowledge society (Stehr, 1994): in it, the fundamental economic resource is no longer capital, nor labour itself or natural resources, but knowledge and the individuals who possess it. Such are the effects of globalisation in the industrial world on the circulation and diffusion of knowledge, which is increasingly considered a factor of competitiveness and strong differentiation. As it is, one cannot fail to propose a final reflection on the effects on the non-industrialised world. Not being able to access the tools and forms of dissemination of information will further frustrate borderline situations while certainly not allowing the acquisition of those entitlements (Dahrendorf, 1988; Sen, 1981)—that is to say, those titles that allow one to enjoy civil and social rights—that a protection system should guarantee to citizens to allow them to express, on the one hand, their needs and, on the other hand, the satisfaction of the same.

4.2.3

Communication and Knowledge in Space and Time

Before detailing the idea of narratives that permeates this book, I will point out again the connections between communication and knowledge, on the one hand, and the dimensions of space and time on the other. The first two elements, it is worth remembering, are how narrative is made explicit.

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Fig. 4.1 Connections between communication and knowledge with the dimensions of space and time

As these elements are inseparable from the everyday life of individuals, which is manifested in a defined spatial-temporal dimension, the relations between them are very complex. For this reason, I will attempt to synthetically link the two conceptual structures of communication and knowledge with time and space. I will identify keywords (most often in reciprocal opposition) that define characteristic situations of the connections associated with them. To simplify the analysis of the single connections—each of which represents the relationship between one conceptual construct and the dimensions of time and space—I will draw them on a Cartesian axis (Fig. 4.1). The graphical representation provides an overall view and a “snapshot”, bearing in mind that nothing is static, since the daily unfolding of society and the relations between it and individuals are in a state of continuous change. The analysis will proceed clockwise by quadrants, determining the four areas that mark the connections. As already mentioned, for each of them I identified two keywords that represent the conditions that individuals experience in their everyday activities. For the link between communication and the dimension of space, the keywords are presence and absence. Both refer to the type of interaction that the new mass media (more than anything else) have engendered (Thompson, 1995). The “mediated quasi-interaction” that generated absence insofar as the relationship is no longer only based on “face-to-face interaction”, also birthed a “continuous presence”—e.g., mobile phones that make individuals available H24, wherever they are, unless they decide to be “unreachable”. The emergence of new information technologies has therefore transformed the traditional model of face-to-face interaction, which entailed also a relationality based on the body-identity relationship. The new media have developed the tendency towards virtualisation, allowing the birth of “faceless and bodiless identities”.

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For the space-knowledge connection, I identified the keywords global and local. This dichotomy (local-global) has always accompanied the processes of globalisation (Martell, 2010; Robertson, 1992)—where the second term (global) is certainly better known also in terms of its consequences. Here, however, it is important to highlight the importance of the term local, clarifying and defining it in its spatial, relational and contextual aspects. Appadurai (1996) well highlighted this process when he defined locality as a phenomenon of people’s social life engendered by intentional activities that, in turn, produce material effects. In other words, the concept of “local” is to be understood as the definition of the dimension of space within which most of the activities of everyday life take place and which are characterised by the “presence” of individuals—localised activities—and by “faceto-face” interactions (Giddens, 1990). The local-global dichotomy is dissolved in what Robertson (1992) calls “global localisation” (glocal) deriving it from the Japanese term dochakuka. Glocalisation processes are carried out by groups of individuals (communities) to defend themselves from the homologating action of globalisation. I should point out that these groups do not, however, deny themselves the latter (globalisation), which they do not consider as opposed to the specificity of individual places. The choice of these two keywords (local and global) to characterise this connection owes to two orders of processes related to information that Thompson (1995) identifies as follows: diffusion and appropriation. While each of them can take place at a global or local level, I wish to highlight an aspect that is related to both, i.e., the digital divide (Norris, 2001). If, in the past, one talked about knowledge gaps (Donohue et al. 1975; Tichenor et al., 1970), today, considering the new media, we speak of digital inequalities (Robinson et al., 2020). The different opportunities to access information technologies (and, therefore, knowledge) create new inequalities both at the global and local levels. The former, because part of the world, particularly the West, has made large investments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT); the latter, because within the same territories the opportunities for access to new technologies are not equally distributed, creating “pockets” in the population unable to participate in the transformations taking place. However, this type of inequality is changing. One no longer speaks so much of differences in access as of differences in use and, above all, given the overload of information, of differences in the critical cognitive tools with which to re-elaborate and re-structure the information acquired. The next connection (knowledge-time) focuses on the “durability” of knowledge and its maintenance. Everything is consumed quickly, and knowledge today becomes obsolete in far less time than in previous decades. Technological progress is so fast that individuals hardly have time to adapt to something new before it is considered outdated. The keyword is therefore innovation, preceded by experimentation and contrasted with preservation—the latter being understood as the process of maintaining both knowledge and the status quo. All too often, innovation is confused with the introduction of artificial elements into societal processes. Instead, innovation-triggering processes all rely on the assumption of methodological approaches to the problems to be addressed and the operational and organisational formulas needed to solve them. Regarding the preservation of knowledge, it is worth

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highlighting that for old archiving media (paper, photographic and cinematographic films, etc.) the resistance to wear and tear over time is known (see the papyrus that has come down to our days). Conversely, for new archiving media—i.e., all digital media—it is not certain. In the long run, a lack of sturdiness may lead to the loss of a series of information translated into knowledge, which becomes difficult to retrieve since individuals use these supports almost as prostheses of their own bodies. For example, mobile phones’ address books and planners have all but completely replaced people’s memory and paper address books. The keywords synchronisation and desynchronisation are associated with the time-communication connection, which poses the problem of peoples’ encounters in their everyday activities. Synchronization refers to the meeting of two or more individuals at the same time. Formerly, such a meeting could take place only and exclusively face-to-face. Then, the instruments of long-distance communication allowed for synchronisation that entailed only the temporal contemporaneity but not the spatial one (e.g., the telephone). Desynchronization, instead, refers—in its strong or absolute meaning—to the moment when two subjects do not or cannot meet, i.e., are time-shifted. Synchronization and desynchronization pose, therefore, a major problem in rewriting the mediation between biographical and social times (which are increasingly accelerated) in a society governed by the “culture of immanence” that flattens everything onto the present. Rhythmicity imposes the need to “be synchronous” and subjects who do not manage it (where there is no explicit request for desynchronisation) become increasingly marginal for the major societal processes. If these are the connections between communication and knowledge and time and space, it follows that they should be conceived as a rearrangement of time and space in relation to everyday social life. The relevant aspects of such a process can be traced mainly to two dimensions, the economic and the ethical-cultural one. On the economic side, we find the increase in international trade (with the establishment and strengthening of multinational companies and large trusts) and the continuous transformations and implementations of information and communication technologies. At the ethical and cultural level, the ongoing cultural and ethical changes increasingly distance people from common goals and objectives generated by solidaritybased approaches. Indeed, these approaches are no longer suitable for a society that prefers markedly competitive individualistic approaches. Beck (Beck & BeckGernsheim, 1994), emphasises the aspects that characterise the individualisation of individual lives: on the one hand, the dissolution of pre-established forms of social life is produced and, on the other, new institutional demands, controls and constraints.

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Narratives Between Knowledge and Communication

Readers will probably be wondering by now why I chose to dwell on this framework for an in-depth study of communication and knowledge. The answer is quite simple and has already been partly anticipated, both overtly and latently. This conceptual framework preludes to the idea of narrative that underpins the whole book—namely the fact that, beyond the different disciplines, approaches, theories and scholars that have dealt with it, narratives have two main forms: (a) as a mode of knowledge; (b) as a mode of communication. Therefore, “If we add instrumental needs to expressive needs (or better still if we remove any divide between them), social theory and social practice can be treated as special genres of narrative situated within other narratives of modern (or post-modern) society. Social sciences can therefore focus on how these narratives of theory and practice are constructed, used, and misused” (Czarniawska, 2004, p. 6). This is precisely what I will try to do. In the previous sections, I explored both the concepts of knowledge and communication, but I still need to make a brief specification. With the term knowledge, I mean the set of meanings and interpretations that individuals elaborate and attribute to the information and data that they can grasp within the social context in which they live and/or carry out their everyday activities. Communication, for its part, is the foundation of knowledge that allows individuals to understand what surrounds them and construct a representation of the world within which to build their identity and plan their life path. Narratives as a mode of communication develop a system of symbols and meanings shared by a culturally determined community that thinks of itself and the surrounding world through these very symbols and meanings. Knowledge enables the development of systems of ideas; communication allows for their dissemination. It is easy to understand how narratives are pivotal for promoting social change. Thompson’s symbolic axis globalised diffusion vs. localised appropriation (1995) marks the acquisition—in ways typical of the globalised society—of all those inputs (information, images, knowledge, artefacts, etc.) that are then interpreted and processed in the places (social contexts) in which individuals experience and live their everyday reality, trying to consolidate the values and beliefs they share. When analysing narratives (production, dissemination, appropriation), therefore, the dimensions of space and time cannot be overlooked. I am here compelled to mention Ricœur’s idea of the conflict of interpretations—particularly that of the “symbol [that] gives rise to thought” (Ricœur, 1959) and the importance of time in narration (Ricœur, 1984/1983, 1985/1984, 1988/1985): “one presupposition commands all the others, namely, that what is ultimately at stake in the case of the structural identity of the narrative function as well as in that of the truth claim of every narrative work, is the temporal character of human experience. The world unfolded by every narrative work is always a temporal world. [...]: time becomes human time to the extent that it is organized after the manner of a narrative; narrative, in turn, is meaningful to the extent that it portrays the features of temporal

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experience” (Ricœur, 1984/1983, p. 3). I must also cite Schütz (1967/1932) when he distinguishes between action and act, between the sense of producing and that of produced, between the sense of one’s own action (self-understanding) and that of someone else’s (hetero-understanding). What happens when applying all this to the narration of a socio-cultural phenomenon? A true juxtaposition between ideology and utopia (or, vice versa, utopia vs ideology) is probably uncommon, but sometimes an ideology emerges from a “utopian” attempt. In both these circumstances, one sees the distortions evoked by Mannheim: “The concept ‘ideology’ reflects the one discovery which emerged from political conflict, namely, that ruling groups can in their thinking become so intensively interest-bound to a situation that they are simply no longer able to see certain facts which would undermine their sense of domination. There is implicit in the word ‘ideology’ the insight that in certain situations the collective unconscious of certain groups obscures the real condition of society both to itself and to others and thereby stabilizes it. The concept of Utopian thinking reflects the opposite discovery of the political struggle, namely that certain oppressed groups are intellectually so strongly interested in the destruction and transformation of a given condition of society that they unwittingly see only those elements in the situation which tend to negate it. Their thinking is incapable of correctly diagnosing an existing condition of society. They are not at all concerned with what really exists; rather in their thinking they already seek to change the situation that exists. Their thought is never a diagnosis of the situation; it can be used only as a direction for action. In the Utopian mentality, the collective unconscious, I guided by wishful representation and the will to action, hides certain aspects of reality. It turns its back on everything which would shake its back or paralyse its desire to change things” (Mannheim, 1954/1929, p. 36). The Hungarian scholar grounds the overcoming of relativism precisely in cognitive processes, arriving at “relationalism”. He considers it impossible to directly relate thought and social strata and, therefore, associates the former with the vision of the world of the strata in which it develops. This allowed for the “unmasking”4. This perspective enables Mannheim to fully expound his idea: the content of ideas and the evaluations attributed to them are all different, hence the way of posing a problem, as well as the forms and categories defining experiences, differ from the position the individual occupies in the social structure. Unlike Mannheim, Merton (1949) researched the social origins of thought believing that it is socially conditioned. Whereas in Europe he focused mainly on the conditioning of intellectual thought, in the United States he directed his gaze at the more general conditioning of public opinion by the mass media. To these two conditionings, Merton applies, with just a few adjustments, the “mottos” already employed for the two groups of sociological research. In them, the sociologists based 4

For Mannheim, the sociology of knowledge allows for the study of systems of thought by integrating several factors: (a) the self-relation of thought and knowledge; (b) the new relation system of the social sphere with the relativisation of thought; (c) the appearance of the “unmasking consciousness”, and (d) the whole system of thought (neither thought nor idea) in relation with the social being that supports it.

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their theories on two substantially opposed ideas: on the one hand, those who seek above all to generalise, to formulate a sociological law as quickly as possible; on the other hand, those who remain confident that their reports are truthful (indeed, they are usually verifiable even if they do not often explain why they chose some observations over others). According to Mertonian mottos, the first group states “We do not know whether what we say is true, but it is at least significant”, while the second group claims “This is demonstrably so, but we cannot indicate its significance” (Merton, 1949, p. 140). The narration of socio-cultural phenomena is close to both of Merton’s “mottos” and narratives, with all their implications, rely precisely on this double proximity. Furthermore, in them, quite often, those who construct the story are the same as those who tell it. The question, then, is: What is narrated? Who constructs the story? And above all, who tells it and how does s/he tell it? In the following pages, I will try to answer this question by analysing the evolution of the system of ideas aided by some specific cases. First, however, I will condense in a diagram what I call the “narrative cycle” between communication and knowledge (Fig. 4.2). Today, with the increase (one might say, exponential) in the use of new means of communication, it is necessary to take up the aspects that refer to the structure and function of communication and consider them valid also for the narrative of sociocultural phenomena. For this reason, when referring to communicative processes, one must consider the different positions of the various senders and receivers of the message, as well as the contexts and situations of the communication. By context, I mean the concrete space in which a given communicative event takes place, including its environmental and physical components. Situations, instead, result from the combination of different elements and meanings of a social, relational and psychological nature that act on the communicative event. I refer here to the frame as defined by Goffman (1974) and to the processes of framing (addition or subtraction of frames to one reality to obtain another) and keying (the process of transposition to obtain another reality at the same level). The concept of narrative can be articulated according to the two widely described modes of communication and knowledge, which are interdependent. For both processes, one must take into account the three levels of analysis (Collins, 1988): micro, meso and macro. The micro level deals with the relationship between individual and society, on the one hand, and actions, on the other; the macro level relates to social systems and their forms of organisation. Finally, the meso level tries to integrate the previous two, and it applies to the interactions between the social system and the life-world (the set of meanings and representations of culture). The communicative process considered here is, in turn, shaped by the communicative event itself and by how an individual or a group communicates. Therefore, I

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Fig. 4.2 Narrative cycle between communication and knowledge

deem it necessary to recall the so-called Kipling method,5 i.e., Lasswell’s 5W rule (1948), with the addition of the question “how” (5W1H). This, specifically for narratives, makes it possible to overcome Chatman’s distinction between “what” and “how” (1975), as well as Ewick and Silbey’s rules on the social organisation of narration: what, when, how and why (Ewick & Silbey, 1995). The power of communication over social change and transformation lies in its symbolic action, and it is precisely for this reason that all the elements of the Kipling method are relevant for narrative-related communication processes. Indeed, they characterise it. What identifies what is being transmitted. The story consists of the chain of events (actions and happenings) and the individuals (characters and bystanders) who are part of it, undergo it, or form the background in the social

The “5W1H” method is also called the Kipling method after the 1902 short poem: I Keep Six Honest Serving Men. In it, he used questions to define these “six honest serving men” (I keep six honest serving-men/(They taught me all I knew); /Their names are What and Why and When/And How and Where and Who/[...]). Over time, the use of/using these questions (What? Why? When? How? Where? and Who?) has become a problem-solving exercise.

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setting. Why seeks to identify the reasons why the individual or a collective decides to narrate (Orbuch, 1997), i.e., it allows one to identify the ultimate purpose of the narrative, When, and, above all, How it is transmitted. I mentioned several times the importance of the temporal dimension, but the means and tools used to convey information from one individual to another, from one community to another, or within the same community are not to be neglected (How). In today’s platform society (van Dijck et al., 2018), much of the information is conveyed via the mass media. From this point of view, the web has assumed in recent years a predominant role. In the symbolic axis of globalised diffusion vs. localised appropriation (Thompson, 1995), Where is, perhaps, the pivotal question: on the one hand, it specifies the place (social context) within which the story took place, on the other hand, it specifies the social context within which it is narrated. Finally, Who, like Where, needs a twofold answer: it identifies the sender of the message (the individual, a collective, an institution, etc.) who belongs to a community (stakeholder), but at the same time it must identify the recipient who, in turn, may be an individual, a collective or another form of social organisation. Given the above, it is important to remember that the field of narration knows continuous frame changes. It is enough to change just one of the elements indicated by the so-called Kipling method to partially modify the others as well. These are the complex procedural aspects of communication in its narrative form. The aspects of narratives as a mode of knowledge are no less intricate. Again, they must refer to the three levels of analysis (micro, meso and macro). To better explain them, I will refer to Touraine’s tripartition: individual, subject, actor (1995/1992). According to the French scholar, instrumental rationality is not the only criterion for attributing meaning to an action. Indeed, the process of attributing meaning is much more complex than the shallow rationalistic reduction too often made of human action (see the theoretical approaches that refer to phenomenology). This reduction leads to depersonalise the action in a deterministic sense, forgetting “That Subject is freedom, and the criterion of the good is the individual’s ability to control his or her actions and situation, to see and experience modes of behaviour as components in a personal life history, to see himself or herself as an actor. The Subject is an individual’s will to act and to be recognised as an actor” (Touraine, 1995/1992, p. 207). The three terms—individual, subject, actor—must be discussed in mutual relation: “The individual is no more than particular unity where life merges with thought, experience with consciousness. The Subject is the transition from Id to I, the control that has to be exerted over the lived experience if it is to have personal meaning, if the individual is to be transformed into an actor who is inserted into social relations and who transforms them without ever identifying completely with any group or collectivity. An actor is not someone who act in accordance with the position he occupies, but someone who modifies the material and, above all, social environment in which he finds himself by transforming the division of labour, modes of decision-making, relations of domination or cultural orientations” (Touraine, 1995/1992, p. 208). If the actor is the one who modifies the material and social environment in which s/he is situated, the subjectivation process partially transforms individuals, who are in constant search of the conditions that can allow them to be

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the protagonist of their own story, into subjects insofar as the order of the world becomes the principle guiding their behaviour. For individuals, it is a question of claiming their right to individual existence, which can only take shape where the split between individual and subject is more acutely felt. According to Touraine, this eliminates two opposing situations: on the one hand, exclusion, on the other hand, massification. The former leaves no solution outside of community defence; the latter integrates the individual into a hierarchical social order insofar as mass culture (in this sense improperly defined) is always loaded with signs of recognition of the social level possessed or aspired to. By bringing together the processes of the two ways through which narrative manifests itself (communication/knowledge) and by cross-referencing the levels of analysis with Touraine’s tripartition, one can guess which forms of narration are transformed into action and, therefore, as Arendt argued (1958) become political. Indeed, narratives have a significant political valence (Ewick & Silbey, 1995) which can potentially be both subversive and hegemonic. The former because it allows to “give a voice” to those who often lack one, the latter because the conventional nature of narratives often expresses ideological effects and hegemonic assumptions. This brings the discussion back to what Mannheim (1954/1929) argued about the distortions that can arise between utopia and ideology, and vice versa. For Mannheim, both concepts leave out several aspects of social reality, hence, when referring to the ways of conceiving reality by individuals who have their narrative thought (Bruner, 1986) and their narrative identity (Ricœur, 1991/1988) because they occupy a historical and social position within society, he favours the term “perspective” (Aspekstruktur), to avoid evaluative judgements. Two moments can produce social change. The first can be traced back to the meso dimension of Touraine’s actor, the second to the macro dimension. If we want to distinguish by phases, about the meso level, we have to mark two: in the first phase (micro level) there is only the particular unit (individual), but when s/he tries to become the protagonist of his own life, he first experiences himself (subject, still at the micro level) and then he becomes an actor projecting it into the meso level (since this refers to his life in a social context that he can modify). And it is at this moment that an actor can produce social change. In the case of the macro level, the protagonist is still an actor, but it is an actor constituted by structured social organisations—such as, for example, political parties or social movements—that not only identify and select a social phenomenon as a problem but also suggest how to remedy it. The diagram (Fig. 4.2) shows that the implications of the narrative are as manifold as the factors at play—indeed, those indicated are certainly not exhaustive. This complex scenario leads to a distinction between the various levels of analysis. The role of sociologists and social scientists, also due to the individual disciplines, calls for the production of knowledge to foster the study and analysis of the narration of socio-cultural phenomena so that it is not compressed in the debate ideology/ utopia but overcomes Merton’s “mottos” (1949). Narrative deserves this new approach because it is a social practice (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2008) that takes place in social contexts of which it also constitutes the founding elements.

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References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press. Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. The University of Chicago Press. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (Eds.). (1994). Riskante Freiheiten: Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschaften [Risky freedom: Individualization in modern societies]. Suhrkamp. Boudon, R. (1982/1977). The unintended consequences of social action. Palgrave Macmillan (Original work published 1977). Bourdieu, P. (2013). In praise of sociology: Acceptance speech for the gold medal of the CNRS. Sociology, 47(1), 7–14. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press. Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Blackwell. Chatman, S. (1975). Towards a theory of narrative. New Literary History, 6(2), 295–318. Collins, R. (1988). Theoretical sociology. Harcourt Brace Javanovich. Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. Sage. Dahrendorf, R. (1988). The modern social conflict. An essay on the politics of liberty. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Analysing narratives as practices. Qualitative Research, 8(3), 379–387. Donohue, G. A., Tichenor, P. J., & Olien, C. N. (1975). Mass media and the knowledge gap: A hypothesis reconsidered. Communication Research, 2(1), 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 009365027500200101 Ewick, P., & Silbey, S. S. (1995). Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: Toward a sociology of narrative. Law & Society Review, 29(2), 197–226. Geertz, C. (2001). The world in pieces: Culture and politics at the end of the century. In C. Geertz (Ed.), Available light: Anthropological reflections on philosophical topics (pp. 218–263). Princeton University Press. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Polity. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press. Hilgartner, S., & Bosk, C. (1988). The rise and fall of social problems: A public arenas model. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 53–78. Lasswell, H. B. (1948). The structure and function of communication and society. In L. Bryson (Ed.), The communication of ideas (pp. 32–51). Harper. Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Kelly, K., & Grant, I. (2003). New media. A critical introduction. Routledge. Mannheim, K. (1954/1929). Ideology and Utopia. An introduction to sociology of knowledge (L. Wirth & E. Shils, Trans.). Hartcourt Blace (Original work published 1929). Martell, L. (2010). The sociology of globalization. Polity. McCarthy, E. D. (1996). Knowledge as culture. The new sociology of knowledge. Routledge. McCullagh, C., & Campling, J. (2002). Media power. A sociological introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media. The extensions of man. McGraw-Hill. Merton, R. K. (1949). Social theory and social structure. The Free Press. Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37. Norris, P. (2001). Digital divide. Civic engagement, information poverty, and the internet worldwide. Cambridge University Press. Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy. The technologizing of the word (2nd ed.). Routledge. Orbuch, T. L. (1997). People’s accounts count: The sociology of accounts. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 455–478.

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Phelan, J. (1996). Narrative as rhetoric. Technique, audiences, ethics, ideology. Ohio State University Press. Powell, B. B. (2009). Writing: Theory and history of the technology of civilization. Wiley Blackwell. Ricœur, P. (1959). Le symbole donne a penser [Symbol gives rise to thought]. Esprit, 7–8, 60–76. Ricœur, P. (1984/1983). Time and narrative (Vol. I) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1983). Ricoeur, P. (1985/1984). Time and narrative (Vol. II) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1984). Ricoeur, P. (1988/1985). Time and narrative (Vol. III) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1985). Ricœur, P. (1991/1988). Narrative identity (M. S. Muldoon, Trans.). Philosophy Today, 35(1), 73–81 (Original work published 1988). Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization. Social theory and global culture. Sage. Robinson, L., Ragnedda, M., & Schulz, J. (2020). Digital inequalities: Contextualizing problems and solutions. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 18(3), 323–327. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-05-2020-0064 Schütz, A. (1967/1932). The phenomenology of the social world (G. Walsh & F. Lehnert, Trans.). Northwestern University Press (Original work published 1932). Sen, A. (1981). Poverty and famines. An essay on entitlement and devolution. Clarendon Press. Sorokin, P. A. (1962/1947). Society, culture, and personality. The structure and dynamics. A system of general sociology. Cooper Square (Original work published 1947). Stehr, N. (1994). Knowledge societies. Sage. Stewart, T. A. (1997). Intellectual capital: The new wealth of organizations. Doubleday. Strate, L. (2004). A media ecology review. Communication Research Trends, 23(2), 1–48. Thompson, J. B. (1995). The media and modernity. A social theory of the media. Polity. Tichenor, P. J., Donohue, G. A., & Olien, C. N. (1970). Mass media flow and differential growth in knowledge. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 34(2), 159–170. Touraine, A. (1995/1992). Critique of modernity (D. Macey, Trans.). Basil Blackwell (Original work published 1992). Touraine A. (2000/1997). Can we live together: Equality and difference (D. Macey, Trans.). Stanford University Press (Original work published 1997). van Dijck, J., De Waal, M., & Poell, T. (2018). The platform society. Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press. Wallerstein, I. (1976). A world-system perspective on the social science. The British Journal of Sociology, 27(3), 343–352. Weber, M. (1946/1919). Science as a vocation. In H. H. Gerth & C. W. Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (pp. 129–156). Oxford University Press (Original work published 1919).

Chapter 5

Future, Narratives, and Social Change

Abstract Time and its future perspective are essential for the analysis of narratives. However, the idea of the future is influenced by the uncertainties inherent in a global society. Therefore, how we picture time is paramount—where time is not individual but social, distinguished into Chronós (measurable chronological time) and Kairós (time of action). The conjugation of these two forms of time makes it possible to redefine the “cultural goals” and the “legitimate means” of individuals or groups, with a view to the future. It is precisely on the adaptations of Merton’s cultural values, cross-referenced with Touraine’s tripartition (individual, subject, and actor), that I will outline, in the following pages, the possible functions of narrative and its effects on social change. Keywords Uncertainty · Future · Imaginary · Social change · Narratives

5.1

Global Society and Uncertainty

Globalisation is a process that leads to a “single social system” (Giddens, 1989)—or “world system” (Wallerstein, 1976). This, in short, is the claim of different disciplines and, above all, numerous authors belonging to different schools of thought and theoretical orientations. Social connections (be they cultural, economic, or political) have crossed the borders of single countries, creating new forms of interdependence between social actors, and affecting the ways and forms of individual interaction. Globalisation is “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1990, p. 64). As such, one should conceive it in the sense of a rearrangement of time and distance in social life. Some changes distance individuals from shared goals and objectives of social solidarity, making them increasingly prefer markedly competitive individualistic approaches. Both Bauman (2001) and Beck speak of an individualised society; the latter clarifying the concept of individualisation as follows: “This concept implies a group of social developments and experiences characterized, above all, by two meanings. In intellectual debate as in reality these meanings constantly intersect and overlap (which, hardly surprisingly, has given rise to a whole series of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_5

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misunderstandings and controversies). On the one hand, individualization means the disintegration of previously existing social forms [. . .] the second aspect of individualization. It is, simply, that in modern societies new demands, controls and constraints are being imposed on individuals” (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002/1994, p. 2). The inequality of resources, which now appears to be intrinsic to all societies (even non-capitalist ones), forces individuals towards competition, which is increasingly pronounced, transforming their very biographies. Part of the population tends to conform to this process, whose negative outcome is that of fostering distrust and distance, increasing social uncertainty. We are faced with what Bauman called the “uncertainty society”, in which we find “the view of the future of the ‘world as such’ and the ‘world within reach’ as essentially undecidable, uncontrollable and hence frightening, and of the gnawing doubt whether the present contextual constants of action will remain constant long enough to enable reasonable calculation of its effects... We live today [...] in the atmosphere of ambient fear” (Bauman, 1997, pp. 21–22). The changes brought about by globalisation have certainly not reduced inequalities; indeed, in many cases, the gaps have widened. Nonetheless, we cannot avoid considering some multidimensional aspects that affect and condition political choices, the economy, culture, and our actions through the elaboration and interpretation of knowledge that influences the construction of the reality of individuals and, therefore, their social action. In the flow of everyday experience, individuals attempt to dialogue with society in the context of the symbolic relationships existing between them, groups, and institutions. As symbolic constructions that are also influenced by the social position of the actors who produce them, narratives often “conventionalise” objects, individuals, and phenomena, giving them a precise form, assigning them to a category, and confining them to a model. This process is partly similar to what happens with social representations (Jodelet, 1984). Narratives, as a way of both knowing and communicating, are, in fact, cognitive elaborations of reality that guide the sense-making processes of individuals, constituting the symbolic and cultural arena hosting everyday interactions. Action becomes the final event that combines all these aspects. To analyse actions correctly, we must observe them from a sociological perspective, starting from Max Weber’s ideas. Unlike Durkheim, who maintained the prevalence of structure over individuals, Weber considered sociology as the comprehensive science (Weber, 1978/1922) of social action—where actions are social when individuals take into account those of others (whether present or absent). People are also guided by an individual motivation, which always refers to the attitude of others and is influenced by it in its evolution. Social action must be defined in terms of the “objective meanings” of the activity of the social actor. Action, therefore, qualifies as social because it always refers to the attitude of others and is influenced by it in its evolution. Social action is the key to understanding modern Western society, which, according to Weber, is becoming increasingly dominated by

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purpose-oriented rationality1. However, as Weber points out, attitudes towards the future do not appear to adhere to such rationality (action guided by the rational evaluation of aims, means, and consequences). Rather, they seem to search for a balance between “goals” and “means” (Merton, 1949), starting with the selection of “goals” on a hierarchical scale that can be traced back to Maslow’s (1954). For the latter, the motivation to act arises from the universal tendency to satisfy certain orders of needs that are different in nature and complexity. If social action is the key to interpreting society, then this also becomes the key to interpreting the future. However, thinking about the future means re-appropriating the past by giving meaning back to the present through what Arendt defined as “the deadly impact of new thoughts” (1968, p. 201). On this idea, Arendt based her theory of action: in this process, narratives allow past actions to become a creation of the future, models to imitate and/or overcome. In other words, narratives bring together past and future. In this way, actions in relation to the future cannot be pigeonholed into an ideal model (e.g., Weber’s), since they escape all possible rational logic (Simon, 1983). For example, those who practise extreme sports (sky diving, bungee jumping, etc.) take a voluntary risk (that of death or permanent disability). Likewise, some assume lifestyles that put their lives at risk—edgework (Lyng, 1990). The actions of those who practise no-limit sports appear paradoxical in a society where the tendency is to reduce individual and collective risks by increasing the level of safety. And yet we are again faced with the search for a balance between “goals” and “means” that is redefined in time and space.

5.2

Future, Imaginary, and Narratives

The dynamics of everyday life highlight the problem of choice (action) which, in turn, must be declined in relation to time, particularly in a future perspective. A few years ago, the anthropologist Marc Augé (2014/2008) published a pamphlet entitled The Future in which he asked what had become of the future, highlighting its main paradoxes. I intend to start from the paradox according to which each individual lives in a time that follows his birth and precedes his death (finite and infinite) to arrive at the idea that, despite finitude, individuals can still imagine a future dimension of time and consequently act—or not—accordingly. Hence the necessary reflection on time and its declinations. Time is pervasive, but in everyday reality, it is still inseparable from individual actions. And yet, for many years, it was not considered a problematic aspect of human life (Adam, 1995, 2004). The scientific traditions that studied time are two: philosophy and the physical and natural science. In the former, the idea of the

1

Weber defines a typology of social action using the conceptual tool of the ideal type, distinguishing it into purpose-oriented and value-oriented rational action, affective action, and traditional action.

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linearity or circularity of time predominates (subjective times); the latter developed the concept of natural times up to Einstein’s relativity. Between these two lies sociological research (Sorokin & Merton, 1937), which attempts to mediate between the infinitesimal nature of the former and the vastness of the latter, focusing on “social or collective time”. This idea of time will be taken up by Ricœur (1984/1983, 1985/1984, 1988/1985) in his definition of events, which become the centre of narrative (verbal or textual). For Ricœur, narratives not only become explicit in a chronological dimension, but are what defines time: “time becomes human to the extent that it is articulated through a narrative mode, and narrative attains its full meaning when it becomes a condition of temporal existence” (Ricœur, 1984/1983, p. 52). The social reading of time in the global society requires the analysis of temporal cultures—which are linked to all aspects of everyday life (psychological, social, and cultural). I should point out that there are different models and social practices relating to time. In the philosophical tradition, it is stated that there is a chronological time (Chronós) consisting of a measurable triadic conception—past (before), present (now) and future (after). In contemporary society, although time remains measurable, this concept seems to have been reduced to the idea of the present. The society of immanence, of the hic et nunc, prevails over the others, even influencing narratives as actualizations of the past in a future perspective. The past seems no longer to be the resource from which collective identities are consolidated and re-constructed. The uncertainty in individuals’ biographies leads them to avoid detailing a long-term project, thus contracting the “duration” (or timespan) of temporal horizons (Leccardi, 2014). In turn, this makes individuals focus on the present, with the consequence of not enjoying what they are doing. And it is precisely what they are doing—i.e., action—that characterises the other concept of time (Kairós). The Kairós (the time of action) consists of that occasion that may arise at a given moment, the so-called “due time, right time, the time for”. If the Chronós is the “time of truth” (measurability and duration), the Kairós is the “time of action”, that is, the search for meaning in human action. It is precisely this meaning that evokes narrative processes. Kairós allows us to state that in individual experience, as well as in that of collective life, time is not uniform: it does not have the same value in different periods, nor or in the same day. This disparity reflects on daily activities and on the forms that individuals adopt to communicate. Apart from philosophical tradition, the cultural model that is currently gaining ground is that of time as rhythm. This model goes beyond the static nature of the concept of time to become a “movement” perpetually seeking a balance between the satisfaction of individual needs and the conditioning of social systems, particularly the cultural system (balance between “goals” and “means”). This concept of time is closely linked to the transformations of the ways of communicating—increasingly synthesised and speeded up, as if they were periodically returning commercials (repetition in time frames), like their compelling and enthralling jingle. The new mass media massively influenced this process, accelerating the obsolescence time of a communicative event and its consequences. The acceleration and speeding up of communication translate into the parallel speed of the behaviours that manage relationships. In turn, these further reduce relative times and propose new and plural

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temporal behaviours. The fragmentation and temporal acceleration of contemporary society (Rosa & Scheurman, 2009) entail two other interesting aspects: first, the need to re-determine the relationship between biographical and social times (which are increasingly accelerated) in a society guided by the “culture of immanence” that flattens everything onto the present. Rhythm imposes to “follow the beat”. Those who are “off-beat”, who cannot reconcile biological and individual rhythms with social ones, become increasingly marginal in social processes. The second aspect is the use (consumption) made of time “freed” from constraints, i.e., free time or spare time. Leisure (Dumazedier, 1974) is a new form of attraction, a need to dispose of oneself for oneself. It follows that the experience of time in everyday activities is strongly differentiated from individual to individual and from society to society. If one can imagine a future dimension of time for individuals, these two models of temporal culture (Chronós and Kairós) merge. The Chronós refers to the present (culture of immanence), which in turn leads individuals back to the ancient conception of Kairós, which linked it to fate. Individuals make decisions regarding the future based on instrumental rationality (especially when they want to profit from the outcomes), but they also often assume a fatalistic outlook (e.g., the above-mentioned no-limit sports). In other words, the experiences of time (time cultures) in everyday life—beyond common aspects such as measurement—influence individuals in different ways, since they act as a symbolic mediation between individual subjectivity and society. Each experience of time determines new time horizons on which to make decisions for future projects. Time is the variable—not to say the means—that “ferries” human beings towards their end (death). And yet, they necessarily must exorcise the latter, or they would be helpless in the face of everyday situations and unable to think of a possible future. Since their evolution, human beings have had at their disposal one of the most powerful tools for exorcising death: the world of the imaginary—a key concept in sociology since Durkheim’s (1995/1912) study of the elementary forms of religious life. The imaginary and narrative are closely linked. For Durand (1999/1960) the imaginary is a temporal psychic activity capable of challenging time (the finitude of the human being) that translates into action—like narration—producing periodic and cyclical changes. Coming from the Latin word imaginariu(m), the term imaginary refers, for its very etymology, to the image. However, to better understand this concept, its structures, and functions, we must include two additional features: the sign and the symbol. These three elements (image, sign, and symbol) are intertwined, as per the founder of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure (2013/1916). He stated that the sign (linguistic sign—semiotic event in the strict sense) is a complex event that cannot exist without one of its two constituent elements, namely, signifier and signified. Ricœur (1976) pursued a new idea of linguistics by adding a third element, namely, the referent. This third feature makes it possible to distinguish what is said from what is spoken about. It encompasses the “world” that the speaker and the interlocutor partly open together with the speech. The imaginary is partly composed of two interdependent dimensions: the iconic (image) and the symbolic (meaning). Imagining is nothing more than a re-construction of social events (matching an image—an event—to an idea and an

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idea to an image—another event) that creates the substrate of (symbolic and cultural) meanings without which no community could operate, and no individual could interact with other individuals. Imagining is narrating and narrating is imagining; the two processes are analogous. Hence, when narration takes on the function of actualising the past to construct a future perspective, imagination and imagining come into play. As Moscovici (2000, 2008/1961) claimed, the image of a concept ceases to be an indication and becomes a replica of reality insofar as the notion or entity from which it is derived loses its immaterial character and acquires an almost physical, independent existence. What is perceived takes the place of what is conceived; images become real factors rather than factors of thought. The focus on the imaginary and the action of imagining stems from the epistemological revolution of the last century caused by the proliferation of image technologies (cinema, TV, personal computers, and all the other devices that allow for the production and reproduction of images). Images acquire power because they are founders of meaning and undergo a process of rehabilitation within cultural contexts compared to what they had been until then. What is gaining ground is the idea that the world of images cannot be relegated to the grey area of unreality or the ephemeral. On the contrary, it is precisely by understanding their role that it is possible to restore the complexity of the “reality” of everyday action. Understanding the role of the imaginary cannot be separated from a phenomenological and comprehensive approach to forms of sociality and the role of images in collective and everyday life. The society of images leads to at least two order of problems related to the imaginary: too much and too little. The current malaise regarding the imagery of the future is therefore constituted both by the proliferation of images and by their consumption, which also undermines creativity. The attitudes towards the future do not appear to be dominated by purpose-oriented rationality in the Weberian sense (orientation of action based on evaluating purposes, means, and consequences in a rational manner), but result from the search for a balance between what Merton (1949) called “cultural goals” and “legitimate means”.

5.3

Social Change and the Balance Between “Cultural Goals” and “Legitimate Means”

Except for very rare cases, such as when, for example, the body activates the innate defence mechanism of shivering to keep warm against the cold, human actions are not a response to biological or instinctual impulses. Rather, they are a response to social pressures exerted on individuals by the set of structures of the society to which they belong. Society has “cultural goals” and “legitimate means” that constitute two types of institutionalised values within the social or cultural structure. The first type, the “cultural goals”, consists of the aims, aspirations, and legitimate interests of the members of society ordered according to a hierarchical model of priorities that characterises the society of reference. The second type, the “legitimate means”, or

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norms, establish how the goals themselves are to be achieved. These institutionalised values (cultural goals and legitimate means) do not always enjoy the same emphasis, nor a constant relationship. To better understand the balancing processes between “cultural goals” and “legitimate means”, I will refer to Merton’s (1949) theory of deviance (mid-range theory2). Quite obviously, I will be applying it to the focus of this work. The choice fell on this American scholar because he founded his functional analysis (despite not mentioning functionalism per se) precisely on the relationship between ends and means to understand and describe individual adaptation. Modern societies are marked by the high importance attached to “cultural goals” and the parallel attenuation of that ascribed to the “means”, thus dissociating end values from instrumental values. This is particularly the case when the importance of legitimate means decreases in favour of the use of any effective means to achieve the cultural goal. When legitimate practices for achieving a strongly supported cultural goal are overshadowed, one is faced with a form of anomie (lack of regulation). It is addressed through patterns of action (adaptation) that vary according to the position of the individual in the social organisation (social status and the sources of knowledge associated with it are the elements that determine the opportunities for achieving a goal by legitimate means). Such a context accentuates uncertainties for two reasons: on the one hand, there is an almost total absence of norms concerning legitimate procedures for achieving “cultural goals”; on the other hand, the same cultural goals are equal for all individuals and are proposed without any real legitimate (that is/i.e., institutionalised) way of achieving them (e.g., the American dream of the self-made man). Negative attitudes are thus favoured by these anomic conditions and take on different forms, which differ according to how individuals resolve the antinomy between the “cultural goals” set by the culture and the “legitimate means” employed to achieve them (adaptation). Every society employs legal or cultural norms to set limits to the fulfilment of individuals’ aspirations and establishes the legitimate means that can be employed to satisfy them. In a stable and well-structured society, these limits are perceived as necessary and just. However, when these normative values change, there is less respect for them and, consequently, more individuals act negatively (deviance). If the norms lose their credibility, more individuals become unwilling to respect them: the state of anomie frames precisely a situation in which the credibility of the norms is lost. In these situations, individuals are particularly uncomfortable because, as normative values no longer have any effectiveness, they lose their points of reference—whether the norms are no longer effective or formally present but meaningless.

2

In sociology, mid-range theories hold an intermediate position between general theories of social systems and detailed descriptions. General theories are too far removed from some categories of behaviour, organisation, and social change to be able to explain what is observed; the latter, for their part, are not generalised (nor generalisable) at all.

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Table 5.1 Types of adaptation to Merton’s cultural values applied to narratives Types of adaptation Conformity

Cultural goals +

Legitimate means +

Innovation

+

–

Touraine’s tripartition Individual, Subject, Actor Subject

Ritualism

–

+

Subject

Retreatism

–

–

Individual

Rebellion





Actor

Functions of narrative Maintaining order

Conjugation between autobiography and culture Conjugation between autobiography and culture Justification and culpability Subverting social order

Forms of change Equilibrium

Redefining of personal experience Redefining the Goals Exclusion from society Transformation of social structures and values

Since their earliest and least organised forms, societies have always tried to maintain a balance between goals and means. However, a real integration—which is what underpins the stability of the social system—between the two values occurs only when people can obtain gratification not only by achieving certain goals but also by using certain means over others. To make Merton’s ideas clearer, it can be argued that since contemporary society is a system based on competition, it is integrated if the emphasis is not only on the object of competition (i.e., the goal) but also on the means through which it is achieved. Such a social system engenders anomic conditions that prompt adaptive behaviours, which takes on different forms (conformity, innovation, ritualism, renunciation, and rebellion) distinguished according to how the antinomy between the “goals” set by the cultural system and the “means” employed to achieve them is resolved. I will now try to apply these types of adaptation to narrative as a social practice (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2008). The latter is reflexive in that it composes facts and originates from these facts (Bruner, 1987). And it is precisely this reflexivity that makes the lives of individuals—with their tripartition of individual, subject, and actor (Touraine, 1995/ 1992)—susceptible to cultural, interpersonal, and even linguistic influences producing individual and/or collective change (Table 5.1). In a stable society, conformity is the most common form of action adopted by individuals because the social order, constituted by the network of expectations, is upheld by the actions of its members who conform to pre-established cultural models. This type of adaptation maintains the balance, thus prompting no need to redefine either “goals” or “means”. In this case, the narrative has precisely the function of maintaining order. Individual interactions—which can take on all aspects of Touraine’s tripartition—are guided by the cultural values defined by society. When, on the other hand, there is a positive orientation towards a goal with little emphasis on legitimate means and a consequent lack of opportunities, this leads to the implementation of alternative action (innovation). In this case, subjects intervene

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in their personal experience and redefine it. I cannot but recall Bruner (1991) when he stated that “stories” do not “happen” in the real world but in the minds of individuals (world-making). The role of narratives is precisely that of resolving this ambiguity by combining autobiography with culture In the adaptation form called ritualism, individuals neither experience an equilibrium of conformism nor are they innovative. They do not redefine their experience but their goals in such a way as to avoid as much as possible negative outcomes of their actions. The key element of this adaptation is that too high ambitions provoke frustration and fear, while lower aspirations prompt satisfaction and security. Again, the function of narrative is to combine autobiography with culture, reducing subjective and intersubjective conflict by redefining goals (lowering aspirations). This results in action that usually becomes routine (indeed, ritualism is the attitude of those who attach too much importance to form without caring about substance). In these last two forms of adaptation (innovation and ritualism), Touraine’s subject is the main protagonist, that is, that particular unit (individual) who can act on his personal experience also by modifying his or her own goals. The position defined as retreatism is that of individuals who refuse to achieve the cultural goals supported by society and at the same time flaunt the institutional norms. According to Merton, they are “in” society but not “of” society. They can be defined as outcasts (psychotics, drug addicts, tramps, pariahs, etc.), having abandoned the cultural goals defined by society and behaving in such a way as to be also at odds with the norms. Their will to act is bound by a double conflict: the strong moral obligation to adopt legitimate means clashes with the pressure to resort to illegal means (which would allow the goal to be achieved), thus cutting the individual off from society in both cases. Their sense of defeat that—see Touraine’s particular unit (individual)—pushes them away from what are the impositions of society, leaving it to others to achieve the balance between “goals” and “means” or to “give voice” to claims. In this case, narratives can assume a double function: they either justify this condition (exclusion) or engender guilt. Furthermore, they most often side with the social structure, maintaining the existing power hegemony. Rebellion, as a form of adaptation, has a collective rather than individual form. We find here Touraine’s actor, that is, that social form of the individual that is capable of modifying the social context. Individuals thus oriented are pushed out of their social structure. However, this is done with a parallel boost for building a new social structure modified in its general lines. This is the political sphere, where narratives take on the function of subverting or transforming social life by “giving a voice” to those who often lack one (Ewick & Silbey, 1995). The functions of narrative for the two forms of adaptation that delimit the boundaries of this typology (conformity and rebellion) similarly assume a position of opposition: maintenance of order in the first case and subversion of order in the second case. In the other cases, they affect individual changes rather than social ones. Applying Merton’s adaptations to narratives has allowed me—at least from a theoretical point of view—to highlight some forms of social change (both individual and collective) that occur when the balance between “goals” and “means” is broken and a new one is sought. However, I must point out that these responses—even the

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more individual ones such as the redefinition of personal experience or the redefinition of goals—are still to be considered collectively and consciously elaborated because of real social contradictions.

References Adam, B. (1995). Timewatch. The social analysis of time. Polity. Adam, B. (2004). Time. Polity. Arendt, H. (1968). Men in dark times. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Augé, M. (2014/2008). The future. Verso Book (Original work published 2008). Bauman, Z. (1997). Postmodernity and its discontents. Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (2001). The individualized society. Polity. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002/1994). Individualization. Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. Sage (Original work published 1994). Bruner, J. S. (1987). Life as narrative. Social Research, 54(1), 11–32. Bruner, J. S. (1991). Self-making and world-making. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 25(1), 67–78. De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Analysing narratives as practices. Qualitative Research, 8(3), 379–387. de Saussure, F. (2013/1916). Course in general linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). Bloomsbury (Original work published 1916). Dumazedier, J. (1974). Sociology of leisure. Elsevier. Durand, G. (1999/1960). The anthropological structures of the imaginary. Boombana (Original work published 1960). Durkheim, É. (1995/1912). The elementary forms of religious life (K. E. Fields, Trans.). Free Press (Original work published 1912). Ewick, P., & Silbey, S. S. (1995). Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: Toward a sociology of narrative. Law & Society Review, 29(2), 197–226. Giddens, A. (1989). Sociology. Polity. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford University Press. Jodelet, D. (1984). Représentations sociales : phénomènes, concept et théorie [Social Representations: phenomena, concept, and theories]. In S. Moscovici (Ed.), Psychologie Sociale [Social psychology] (pp. 361–382). PUF. Leccardi, C. (2014). Time of society and time of experience: Multiple times and social change. Kronoscope, 14(1), 10–24. Lyng, S. G. (1990). Edgework: A social psychological analysis of voluntary risk taking. American Journal of Sociology, 95(4), 851–886. Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. Harper & Row. Merton, R. K. (1949). Social theory and social structure. The Free Press. Moscovici, S. (2000). Social representations. Explorations in social psychology. Polity. Moscovici, S. (2008/1961). Psychoanalysis: Its image and its public. Wiley (Original work published 1961). Ricœur, P. (1976). Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. The Texas Christian University Press. Ricœur, P. (1984/1983). Time and narrative (Vol. I) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1983). Ricœur, P. (1985/1984). Time and narrative (Vol. II) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1984). Ricœur, P. (1988/1985). Time and narrative (Vol. III) (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1985).

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Rosa, H., & Scheurman, W. E. (2009). High-speed society. Social acceleration, power, and modernity. Pennsylvania State University Press. Simon, H. A. (1983). Reason in human affairs. Stanford University Press. Sorokin, P. A., & Merton, K. R. (1937). Social time: A methodological and functional analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 42(5), 615–629. Touraine, A. (1995/1992). Critique of modernity (D. Macey, Trans.). Basil Blackwell (Original work published 1992). Wallerstein, I. (1976). A world-system perspective on the social science. The British Journal of Sociology, 27(3), 343–352. Weber, M. (1978/1922). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (2 Vols.). G. Roth & C. Wittich (Eds.). University of California Press (Original work published 1922).

Chapter 6

Risk, Social Change and Communication

Abstract Contemporary society appears to be driven by two intertwined features: the spread of the mass media, with the consequent multiplication of information flows, and risk. In interaction, they are both linked to the transformations of the communication forms and, therefore, the modes and forms of narrative. This chapter will provide an in-depth study of this concept, groundwork and premise for addressing the idea of risk according to the two forms that narratives can take (as a mode of knowledge or communication). The focus will be on the cognitive and communicative aspects of the concept of risk. Keywords Risk · Culture · Social problem · Communication · Social Change

6.1

Risk as a Cultural Product and a Social Problem

The adaptation forms applied to narratives (see the previous chapter) cannot be considered mere subjective and individual responses to some form of anomie. They are not the reaction to subjective anomie (Merton, 1949) addressed through patterns of action that vary according to the individual’s position in the social organisation. Instead, these adaptations must be seen as responses collectively and consciously elaborated based on social contradictions that force individuals to predict the future outcome of choices made in the past. As Arendt (1968) stated, individuals must take full possession of their past to be able to create the future. This reappropriation can be done through narratives. The difficult conjugation of past and future creates unbearable uncertainty for human beings—or, rather, what is unbearable are its consequences. The consequences of uncertainty are inextricably linked to the concept of risk. As we shall see, Giddens (1990) argues that the concept of risk develops in a society that wants to “break” with its past. Risk is inexorably intertwined with the mass media and their transformation of the communication forms—and, therefore, the modes and forms of narrative. It is thus necessary to examine this concept together with the related social changes, all the more given the occurrences related to the COVID-19 pandemic (which, at the time of writing these lines in 2021, is still ongoing). To quote Arendt once again, if action is the key to understanding society, it also becomes the key to understanding © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_6

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risk-related dynamics guided by the search for a balance between “goals” and “means”. In the following pages, I will address some issues related to the concept of risk, its symbolic-cultural value, and risk communication. I believe that narrative and communicative processes in general not only influence the construction of social reality but are also paramount for the construction, identification and selection of risks due to the necessity to bridge the inevitable gap between the information possessed and those needed to make a choice. When we talk about risk, we usually refer to conditions that affect the individual; however, a closer look reveals that in everyday life it is firmly linked to society and culture (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1983). Risk studies often ignored this dimension, not considering risk as a problematic aspect of society but rather as an “accident” in the regular course of social events. The existing literature on the topic offers no single definition of risk, nor a single approach to its analysis: several disciplines have dealt with this issue, each basing its contribution on its own peculiarities. In the social sciences, some authors are considered fundamental for the development and analysis of the concept of risk: Luhmann (1993/1991), Beck (1992/1986) and Giddens (1990). To these, I will add Douglas (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1983) for scholars— like me—who prefer an approach more inclined towards cultural and contextual dimensions. The definitions coined over the last 50 years have failed to clarify the concept, which remains ambiguous: on the one hand, individuals are attracted to risk or even fascinated by it; on the other hand, they are cautious and fearful. The concept is highly relativistic, mainly because of issues such as the influence of culture and context, and the indissoluble link with other concepts (danger, uncertainty, trust, security, modernity, globalisation, etc.) The latter feature is the basis for contemporary sociological reflection, starting with Luhmann (1993/1991) who closely links risk to the idea of probability and uncertainty, separating and differentiating it from that of danger. This author delineates two opposite conditions: either the possible damage is seen as a direct consequence of the decision, i.e., it is ascribed to it, and one speaks of risk (risk of the decision, of the choice), or one thinks that the possible damage is due to external factors independent of the human being and, therefore, attributed to the environment (in this case, one speaks of danger). I cannot, therefore, speak of risk when the result of an action is certain, which is why primitive cultures had no knowledge of this concept. Hence the view that risk is typical of modernity and should not be confused with chance or danger. Rather, it refers to risky choices that are actively pursued in view of future possibilities. Risk is widely used only in future-oriented societies, which see the future as a territory to be conquered or colonised. Risk presupposes a society actively engaged in breaking with its past (Giddens, 1990). Of course, what is considered risky (practices, environments, etc.) depends on what Beck (1992/1986) called “relations of definitions”. In other words, each society, in a given era, establishes a hierarchy of risks, but perceptions (on which such hierarchy is based) do not always correspond to objectively measurable risks, nor do they stem from individual decisions. For Beck, risks presuppose decisions and evaluations of (particularly techno-economic) benefits. The

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consequences of risks differ from those of wars in that they are born in the centres of rationality with the approval of the guarantors of law and order. For example, the failure of some states to implement the Kyoto Protocol or the Treaty of Paris, both of which provided for the reduction of harmful emissions into the atmosphere, increased environmental risk. They also differ from pre-industrial catastrophes in that they are the product of decisions that are never really made by individuals, but by (political) organisations and associations. Individuals delegate their risk-related decisions because the attention of the community has shifted towards needs related to the quality of life, due to both the influence of the mass media and the increase in general well-being. This change outlines the reciprocity between the life-world and the social system and is the crucial moment in which attention is paid not only to the individual as the recipient of decisions but as a “subject” and active participant in decision-making processes. There is thus a shift from an approach that tends to reduce risk to economic aspects alone to one that pays attention to the overall interactions between economic aspects and other social, cultural and interactional variables. In this perspective, the concept of common sense, which for Garfinkel is an “institutionalized knowledge of the real world” (1967, p. 53) is paramount for the construction of social reality. When individuals experience situations in which they are involved, they mobilise that “embedded knowledge” typical of common sense understood as a cultural system. This process also applies to risk-related situations: the idea of risk is neither stable nor common to all societies; individuals represent it in different ways and consider it acceptable according to their everyday life experience. Changes in individual attitudes towards risk and risk management result from the combination of the psychiatric component and the broader understanding of the context within which the subjects act. The latter stems from the constraints and pressures by the context and human actions on it—understood as history, relationships and collective transformations. The idea of risk evolves alongside contexts and societies: everyone elaborates an idea and a representation of what “risk” and “risky” mean. While risks are presented as objective, they are in fact highly relative as they are closely linked to culture and contexts—see Thompson’s symbolic axis (1995), globalised diffusion versus localised appropriation. In other words, the relationship between how and what individuals think about risk, and how they perceive it, is part of the cognitive activity of categorising, which enables the organisation of information from outside and inside (body signals). The social reality associated with risk arises from the social meaning attributed to certain situations, but also from those produced by the subjective world. The reality that individuals construct through their everyday activities and socialisation processes (Dubar, 1991) is characterised not only by learning and internalisation but also by externalisation and objectivation (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Applying the socialisation process to risk, the outcome is twofold. In the externalisation phase— consisting of two (delimited and successive) time frames—individuals first form their knowledge base and define expectations in relation to their idea of “risk” (first time frame), then recreate attitudes and lifestyles by virtue of their knowledge (second time frame). In the objectivation phase, individuals perceive the

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Fig. 6.1 Elements, connections and relationships involved in the construction of risk as a social problem

consequences of their actions, i.e., they understand that risk, too, is in part determined by their choices and practices, thus achieving the conjugation of action and culture—Bourdieu’s habitus (1985/1979), which becomes a way of life once attitudes and choices (in this case concerning risk) become unified in different environments. Risk is a reality that surrounds individuals, starting with the relationships they establish with others, revealed through their everyday roles. In general, risk can be considered a social problem (Spector & Kitsuse, 1977) because, being the relationship between a “fact” and a “structure”, it results from an interpretation process and is, therefore, a cultural object (Griswold, 1994). And it is precisely insofar as it is culturally defined (interpreted cultural object) as a social problem that the shared representation of risk increases or decreases over time also according to its narratives. In such a scenario, the representations of risk express both the subjective sense attributed to this category and the cultural and social frame of reference available in a given time and space (Schütz, 1967/1932): the construction and representations of risk are present both in the micro- and macro-institutional scene. In some of my previous contributions (Mangone, 2018, p. 60, 2020, p. 150) I adapted Griswold’s “cultural diamond” (1994, p. 15) to better explain the dynamics and connections of the elements involved in sociocultural phenomena. Similarly, I will present here a new adaptation that describes the connections and relationships triggered in the construction of risk as a cultural object in its form as a social problem (Fig. 6.1).

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Two aspects differentiate my model from Griswold’s: the attribution of a “directionality” of connections and the reference to the “life-world” (Lebenswelt)—defined as the “kingdom of original evidence” (Husserl, 1970)—instead of the “social world”, “by which we mean the economic, political, social, and cultural patterns and exigencies that occur at any particular point in time. Cultural sociology centers, first and foremost, on the relationship between cultural objects and the social world” (Griswold, 1994, p. 15). In other words, the starting point will be common sense, i.e., those things that need no further explanation. They are those aspects of knowledge that Garfinkel (1967) well defined as indexical expressions, i.e., those expressions that are linked to a meaning that depends on the situation in which they are uttered (situational contextuality). All the above gives us the premises for any reflection and cognitive insight in everyday life within a cultural and relational system. Referring to social relationships allows us to consider also the life-world of life and the social system because the relationships are substantiated in reciprocal action with an autonomous connotation that transcends those who enact it (Donati, 2021). However, at the same time, a relationship is situated within a framework of symbolic meanings (culture) and represents both a resource and a constraint for the social system. Meanings and representations, as well as all other connections, stem from the lifeworld. In the model, going counterclockwise, the first connection is with the subjects who create “meaning” through a “hermeneutic” (Ricœur, 1974/1969) that allows the construction of reality. Between the life-world and the subjects, understood as creators, there is a reciprocal connection that allows for the recognition of the other. This reciprocity is crucial for the identification and selection of risks since the idea of otherness refers to extraneousness and the unknown, which entails distrust and uncertainty: what is not recognised in the pre-established cognitive order of society becomes a social problem. Hence, the connection between subjects and the life-world: to reduce the uncertainty. Furthermore, since subjects are constantly searching for a psycho-social balance, they are somehow forced to relate to the world around them, and consequently to others. The “creators” of risks can be individuals or collective subjects. Collective actions are those actions carried out by a certain number of individuals who agree among themselves and develop common strategies. I find myself in disagreement with Durkheim’s idea (1995/1912) that cultural objects (the system of culture) are an exclusively collective product: individuals, precisely because they are parts of a collectivity, are continuously involved in processes of meaning construction (through socialisation and integration). The “creators” are in reciprocal connection with the “receivers” because, regardless of their role in the process of cultural production (creator or receiver) or their number (individual or collective), they are related to each other as parts of the same system—that, I must point out, presents both similarities and differences. Through this process, we arrive at the third element of the model, namely the risk as a “cultural object”. The latter “may be defined as shared significance embodied in form. In other words, it is a socially meaningful expression that is audible, visible, or tangible or that can be articulated. [. . .] Notice that the status of the cultural object results from an analytic decision that we make as

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observers; it is not built into the object itself” (Griswold 1994, p. 11). While this definition is clear on who produces cultural objects and how, it does not emphasise enough that the “products” differ according to the source of production, and this is crucial in the processes of communication and narrative. In everyday life, the processes that take place within cultural systems generally transform events and things into cultural objects, giving them a specific meaning that differs together with the culture. Similarly, certain social phenomena are considered significant and transformed into cultural objects or, more specifically, into social problems because they are the focus of the concerns of citizens and institutions. On this, Lupton (1999) identifies six major categories of risk: environmental risks, lifestyle risks, medical risks, interpersonal risks, economic risks and criminal risks. Some of these prevail over the others as they are perceived as social problems (for example, in recent years, the climate emergency), having acquired a widely shared meaning within their cultural, economic and political context. Awareness and knowledge of risks affect subjectivity and social life, shaping how individuals live their daily lives. In other words, first the identification and then the selection of risks is fundamental for the functioning and order of society, but also the culture and the processes of identification of individuals. This link explains the last reciprocal connection of the model (cultural object, risk and the life-world). The reciprocity is because the life-world contains all the cultural objects, whose construction and production is influenced by the life-world itself, which, in turn, relates the subjects. Finally, we come to the fourth element of the model. Like all cultural objects, risk also has its own recipients (receivers), who are also individual and/or collective, and who may or may not coincide with the “producers” or “creators”. The receivers should not be considered a “passive public”, since they too are producers of meanings that refer to life-worlds. And so, the construction cycle of cultural objects closes with the return to the “life-world”. This adaptation of the “cultural diamond” should be considered merely a support tool to provide some social processes as examples useful to highlight the relevance of the cultural dimension and the interactions that individuals experience in their everyday lives in “co-constructing” and “producing” “risks” as cultural objects, and in “selecting” them as social problems. This conceptual framework is the necessary premise for dealing with the concept of risk according to the two forms taken by narratives (as a mode of knowledge and as a mode of communication). In the following sections, I will pay attention to the cognitive and communicative aspects related to the concept of risk.

6.2

Risk and the Problem of Knowledge

The above shows that the concept of risk in contemporary society has changed—and is still changing—following the changes in society itself. The shift from local to global brought with it the idea of “global risks”, which in turn led to the claim that today’s is the “risk society” (Beck, 1992/1986). In such a complex scenario, it is

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necessary to distinguish between the various dimensions of sociological analysis (Collins, 1988). In what follows, I will refer to meso range theories that connect—or at least try to connect—the social system with the life-world (the set of meanings and representations of culture). This last dimension is the one that best captures the predominant role of relationships (at different levels) in social phenomena and how they characterise the processes of social construal1 or collective construct of risk (Mangone, 2017). Therefore, it will be the main feature of the path I will outline in the following pages. Having clarified that risk factors belong not only in nature but also in the conduct and relationships of human beings in their social and associative life (Ewald, 1993), I will now try to describe the links between risk, knowledge and communication. Culture is a core dimension of everyday life and, as such, it is necessary to understand it in the different situations in the social world, including those considered “risky”. Adopting culture as a lens through which to look at phenomena can point out paths for improving the relationships and forms of interactions between individuals and between them and the other elements of the social organisation. Indeed, both relationships and forms of interaction derive precisely from culture. Culture is not static; on the contrary, it is constructed and re-constructed following a continuous process of definition that allows identifying shared values and attitudes that support structure and actions. After all, the manifestations of human action are culturally determined and filtered through the approval of the group of belonging. Culture contains the tools (language, symbols, signs, etc.) that confer meaning, because they are shared within a context that must then validate the action, including decision-making on situations considered “risky”. Culture is crucial for individual action, as it contains both the rules that govern the group and the characteristics that distinguish it from others. On the one hand, culture enables legitimisation; on the other, its intrinsic value is independent of whether or not it is usable. These peculiarities characterise the functions of the cultural system, enabling individuals to “survive” the external environment, promoting integration within the community of belonging and reducing the anxiety that can be triggered by unforeseen or changing situations. The symbolic systems used by individuals to exchange meanings and knowledge with others are a constitutive element of the social context of reference because they are rooted within the culture and specific linguistic codes. The development of further knowledge can only descend from a system of symbols and meanings shared by a culturally determined community that, inevitably, thinks of itself and the surrounding world precisely through symbols and meanings. Ricœur (1959) repeatedly stressed the importance of symbols, stating that they “give rise to thought”. Symbolic-cultural systems are an unparalleled source for the acquisition and construction of knowledge that allows individuals to build an interpretive space for the meanings of the reality experienced with others. This initial reading of the

1

Referring to how individuals perceive, understand and interpret the world around them (Douglas, 1997).

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relationship between risk and culture draws a complex scenario, in which the world and the individuals who are part of it are configured as a boundless network that can often be dissonant (Festinger, 1962). Everyday events allow, through the definition and processing, to reproduce “sense” through “symbolic mediation” that allows not only for the interpretation but also the construction of reality. The dynamics connected to communicative and narrative processes are important because it is through these that knowledge is transformed into models of reality—understood as symbolic mediation between the private and public spheres of human beings in their everyday lives. Social reality—and, therefore, also the construction, identification and selection of risks—springs not only from the social meanings attributed to a certain phenomenon (cultural object) but also from the products of the subjective world of individuals. On these premises, Mary Douglas (1985) states that culture is a “mnemonic system” that helps individuals to calculate risk and consequences and shifts the centre of gravity from the individual idea of risk to the collective one. Douglas’s cultural theory of risk should be encased in the broader framework of her studies on primitive thought and taboo (Douglas, 1966), some of which are developed by relating the latter to the behaviour of modern humans in situations of risk and danger. Underlying her interpretation is the principle that in every place and age the universe is interpreted in “moral and political” terms (Douglas, 1992), for which the concept of risk becomes crucial. This leads us to narrative-related concepts introduced by Ricœur (1984/1983) and Arendt (1958). The first asserted that hermeneutics, which is a hermeneutics of the self, should support individuals in discovering relationships with human experience (narrative) that produces differences in moral life based on the interpretation of social reality (mimesis). The second claimed that the capacity of individuals to act jointly for a public (political) purpose is actualized through words and that, therefore, it must be continuously fed by the production of actions and discourses of individuals. Douglas’s symbolic-cultural analysis is not just an attempt to explain the influence of culture on the concept of risk. In her essay Risk and Culture, co-authored with Wildavsky, a political scientist (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1983), she also deals with the problem of knowledge. Above all, she highlights the fact that risk-related knowledge is never complete—see Simon’s (1983) bounded rationality. She poses four risk-related problems which intersect the degree of knowledge (certain/uncertain) with that of consensus (complete/contested). These connections birth four types of problems concerning the evaluation of consequences in facing a risk (Technical, Informational, (dis)Agreement, and Knowledge and Consent). The first three can be solved with specific actions (Calculation, Research, and Coercion or Discussion), but, according to Douglas, the last one (Knowledge and Consent) remains unsolved. In the first situation, if the knowledge is certain and the consensus (among “nonexperts”) complete, the problem is technical. Its solution lies, trivially, in the Calculation of the probability of the event which allows one to choose the alternative with the greatest positive effects. If the knowledge is uncertain but the consensus is still complete, the problem is linked to “information” and, therefore, the solution is

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the search for further knowledge. Finally, if the knowledge around an event or phenomenon is certain but there are forms of contestation, one is faced with a problem of disagreement that must be overcome through either coercion or discussion. The last situation (Knowledge and Consent) details both uncertain knowledge and a dispute on the part of “non-scientific” individuals (non-experts). In this case, it is no longer a question of expanding knowledge, but of how to create consensus around it, given that risk perception is a social process that depends on the combination of “trust” (Garfinkel, 1963) and “fear” (Bauman, 1997). In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, this was particularly true and manifested itself so dramatically that Bauman’s statement “We live today [...]in the atmosphere of ambient fear” (1997, p. 22) became hard truth. Being faced with a further problem concerning the policies to be adopted—or that were adopted in the past—there is no solution to the problem of uncertain knowledge and lack of consensus. The symbolic-cultural approach can show how community consensus in selecting certain risks is guided by the public interest according to the strength and direction of social criticism. It also shows how this selection changes alongside the community or social organisations in general, and how individuals in different social organisations are willing to take some risks rather than others. Douglas and Wildavsky write, “in risk perception, humans act less as individuals and more as social beings who have internalized social pressures and delegated their decision-making processes to institutions. They manage as well as they do, without knowing the risks face, by following social rules on what to ignore: institutions are their problem-simplifying devices” (1983, p. 80). Individuals, in their everyday actions, try, quite obviously, to avoid harmful events. To this end, however, they do not base their reasoning on precise economic or probabilistic calculations, but rather on conditions that allow them to overcome the crisis while identifying tangible and flexible objectives. Furthermore, they often delegate this function to social organisations, including public institutions. As this is a model, such distinct situations will not be found in real life; still, it contributes to the understanding of the complex process of construction, identification and selection of risks. Different social organisations produce different ideas of the world and cultural systems of reference become the different frames (Goffman, 1974) within which to interpret attitudes towards risk and the attribution of responsibility. Although this approach is static, it allows defining, through the general cultural theory, the conceptual boundaries (Tansey & O’Riordan, 1999) within which to review and redefine the processes of social construal to add other pieces to the mosaic of description and interpretation of the reality of risk-related social dynamics.2 In summary, the cultural approach helps to understand how “non-experts”

2 The four questions that Douglas (1992) posed as the starting point for a comparative study of risk perception remain of primary importance: (a) the influence of risk on the goals of the individual who perceives it; (b) the community of reference is part (integral or not) of the goals of the individual; (c) understanding the influence on the individual or collective good of community-dependent risk;

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perceive risk by offering a systematic view of the wide range of goals that the individual seeks to achieve. In other words, risk cannot be seen as a technical problem, but rather as a problem of everyday life that must consider the political implications and the positions of individuals on goals (both individual and collective). Applying this multidimensional vision to risk means observing institutions and individuals, but above all the relationships between them, overcoming the traditional visions that kept these levels separate along with the different elements involved in the processes of social construal of risk. Risk studies must combine the system with individuals, i.e., they must be able to combine the objective aspects with the subjective ones, taking into account all the dimensions, levels and factors involved in the social process of construction, identification and selection of risk. These processes are, therefore, knowledge work that does not end with the implementation of actions. While it is important to represent the risk, know it, and make hypotheses, it is even more so to redirect the course as we go along, because the relationship with reality is never given and at every moment new possibilities may ask to be explored. These definitions and reflections on risk mean that its analysis must take into account its multidimensional and multifactor nature. This approach privileges the spaces of social relations within the processes that develop in society. Those relating to risk are not excluded from this dynamic, since all social phenomena and the attitudes and actions towards them are constructed in a sphere with its own places, times and symbols, paramount for the cognitive processes of self-signification activated by individuals—a sort of hermeneutics of the self (Ricœur, 1992/1990)—for the construction of social realities in their everyday experience. If these are the general foundations of the social relationship, the risk as a descriptive model following this perspective has some peculiarities. Among others, as a dimension of everyday life, it is a neutral category. It is based on that “insecure security” introduced by Bauman (1999) whose outcomes, positive or negative, will result from the type of balance established between “resources and challenges”—or, as I argued, between “goals and means”. Risk is a “normal” fact stemming from the pressures of the social structure on its members. If one recalls, once again the two elements that constitute the social system according to Merton’s theory (Merton, 1949), one can better understand the origin and directions of these pressures. The first is the cultural structure, the second is the social structure formed by statuses and the role functions related to them. It follows that the possibility of taking a risk is greater the fewer are the legitimate opportunities to achieve the proposed goal. The adaptations undertaken by an individual or a collectivity take different forms, which are distinguished according to how the antinomy between the “goals” set by culture and the “means” employed to achieve them is resolved—or, to follow Douglas’ symbolic-cultural theory, between knowledge (certain/uncertain) and consent (complete/contested).

and, finally, (d) classifying communities based on the support, commitment, organisation and boundaries set by their members.

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To find oneself in a risky situation, in other words, means facing the limitation of one’s knowledge and skills, the difficulty of finding a clear “sense” of what is happening and the feeling that the choice is, in any case, a leap in the dark because it remains fundamentally impossible to fully unfold the interweaving of the elements. To try to unfold the unknown, individuals rely heavily on narratives, regardless of their source (it is worth remembering that narratives are expressed in two ways: knowing and communicating. Hence the recently emerging tendency in communication studies to look mainly for the effects of communicative events on the construction of individual and collective knowledge as well as on the representations of reality. It is what Iyengar and Kinder (1987) called “framing effects”. Communication influences both the content and the forms and modalities through which individuals and groups attribute meaning to reality and exchange these meanings in a constructive and interpretative way regarding risk.

6.3

Risk Communication and Credibility

Contemporary society thus appears to be dominated by two interlocking conditions: risk and the spread of the mass media, which has multiplied information flows. It is no coincidence that the expression risk communication has entered the political and media agendas, to the point of creating (particularly in the UK and US) a specialist branch. The term risk communication generally identifies “the exchange of information among interested parties about the nature, magnitude, significance or control of a risk” (Covello, 1992, p. 359). Subsequent definitions have emphasised other aspects, e.g., the need for a relationship between communicators and stakeholders (Palenchar, 2005), risk management (McComas, 2006), or the need for monitoring ongoing risks (Coombs, 2012). To be effective, risk communication must fundamentally fulfil a preventive function; communication events about and around risk cannot leave anything to chance or they will reach the point of “crisis” and therefore the “breakdown” of the equilibrium. Hribal (1999) set precisely the “preventive” phase as the first stage of risk communication, which aims to change the attitudes of individuals during important decision-making processes. It is followed by the “mastering” phase, with the reduction of damage, and then by that of “repair”, with the identification of responsibilities and the attribution of blame and the possible payment of damages. Finally, there is the “discussion” phase within the public sphere, with the thematisation at the social level. Similarly, there are the evolutionary stages of the risk communication strategy (Fischhoff, 1995) which underwent a major change following the September 11 attacks in New York in 2001. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the Atlanta Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States developed the “Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication-CERC” model (Reynolds et al., 2002), bound to the space and time dimension of the here and now following eventual potential anthrax contamination hazards. In the 2014 edition of the manual, named after the centre, the cover reads: Be first. Be right. Be credible, which are the basic principles for a risk

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communication strategy (Reynolds & Seeger, 2014). Although this model applies mainly to medical and health risks, it can be applied to crises in general as the five phases (Pre-crisis, Initial, Maintenance, Resolution, and Evaluation) of its lifecycle provide a wide range of strategies and suggestions for communicating risk in different settings. The first phase is the so-called Pre-crisis, in which activities are mainly oriented to health promotion and risk communication to educate citizens about potential dangers and try to reduce those attitudes holding negative effects. In the Initial phase, the communication needs to change and so do the strategies towards the various target groups. The time pressure is greater and it is necessary to communicate promptly, especially to those who may be directly involved in the events. Moreover, communication must address the general public, which must receive essential information to guarantee a basic understanding of what is happening or may happen soon. During the Maintenance, it is essential to provide information on how to reduce the risk and where to turn in case of need, to try and relieve individual anxiety to prevent people from getting in the way of controlling or securing the situation. The phase defined as “post-crisis” is marked by two moments: the Resolution and the Evaluation. The former, the threat now overcome, directs communication towards what has been learned from the event to better understand risk and define adequate interventions to reduce future risks; in the latter, instead, the actors involved (institutions, citizens and media) evaluate the possible errors and/or responsibilities related to the management of the process as a whole. This cycle overcomes the differences between risk communication and crisis communication. The former includes care communication (all those forms of risk communication in which the dangers and the relevant precautions to be taken have been well defined by experts—science—and enjoy consensus for most of the public opinion), and consensus communication (prompting of a confrontation between different stakeholders to decide on the management of a given risk situation). The latter concerns those communication forms that occur in the event of sudden danger, such as a natural or technological disaster or a pandemic. The cycle thus integrates the two types of communication (Reynolds & Seeger, 2005) with the sole purpose of producing information/messages aimed at activating specific actions of the addressees through the massive use of mass media. Risk-related communicative processes express a problematic action, which often leaves little room for reciprocity or equality in the relationship between subjects. Risk communication focuses specifically on knowledge to persuade its addressees (a function of narratives), and, for this reason, the communication strategy must necessarily start from a mastery of the social and cultural characteristics of the context. I now find it appropriate, if not even necessary, to make a further distinction: that between the communication of the risk and communication for the risk—referring not only to contents but also to relationships. The two prepositions (“of” and “for” the risk) emphasise our guiding principle: “of” is a specification of the object of the communication, while “for” specifies its recipient. To simplify, one can make an artificial distinction of the communicative event referring to the risk by identifying two moments: the first informative (communication of the risk, informative process)

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the second persuasive-preventive-participative (communication for the risk, communicative process). Each of them affirms and reinforces some of the functions of communicative events typical of interpersonal communication (West & Turner, 2018) since in situations that produce anxiety or states of danger, individuals tend to seek sharing to reduce the state of crisis due to these perceptions. The integration of these two moments promotes the participation and empowerment of social actors, be they citizens (individual and/or collective) or institutions. Risk communication, i.e., communication around the object (risk) is difficult from a strictly methodological point of view since there is no universally accepted definition of risk—it is a social construction and, therefore, a cultural product (see previous sections). Information on risk stands alone when it represents the effect of certain actions; alternatively, it has an instrumental value when it can contribute to decision-making on the action to be taken. Since the struggles that marked the Western countries in the 1960s and 1970s, those in positions of political management have tried to define an information system capable of guaranteeing the participation of citizens (at least formally), even if only to broaden the consensus around the decisions taken or to be taken. The relationship between information and participation is no longer a mere principle, it is a cause-effect relationship; there can be no effective participation without information, and there is no meaningful information without participation. After all, the main target of participation is the aspiration to make our presence felt in the choices that affect us. The focal point remains the fact that the actors involved (institutions and citizens) build a very complex relationship, which is part of a relational network characterised by increasing changes in each of its elements. The relationship between the institutional part and the citizens continues to show asymmetries due to the communicative behaviour of the institutions, which increases the dominance of the latter over the choices of the citizens, also regarding “taking” or “not taking” a risk. There is no need to highlight again the crucial role played by information in the practice and knowledge of risks: no effective decision can be taken without prior correct information (a problematic aspect). Conversely, it is quite difficult to reach an agreement on “information” as a concrete expression of the activities carried out, since the word “information” has very different meanings. In the specific case of risk, the most appropriate reference seems to be that provided by Bateson (1972, 1979), who considered information as a difference that produces a difference. In other words, information is the perception of a difference and this, regarding risk, means that above all the constitution of the hierarchical scale of risks is constructed on differences. The second term of the reflection, i.e., communication for the risk, is based on two levels: the content and the relationship. Not only it conveys information on the object, but also on the information itself, i.e., further indications on how to understand and interpret what is verbally received. Much has changed and is still changing in society, but what has undergone the greatest transformation is perhaps the way of communicating risk actions. Furthermore, within the risk communication system, the relationship between the institutional component and civil society is also undergoing profound changes. The institutional component of the relationship often

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clearly dominates over the citizens—see, for example, the health sector.3 To reduce these problematic aspects, it is necessary to strengthen an approach in which the process of signification is constructed in a sort of negotiation with the communicative interaction (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). The construction of the meanings of risk (health or otherwise) is developed through a communicative relationship centred on a process of interpretive cooperation. It is, therefore, essential that risk communication is configured through the persuasive function of narrative. Risk communication must take the form of a secondary socialisation process that enables citizens to be empowered, not only by acquiring information, but also by being educated, oriented and trained to broaden their knowledge to attain a greater critical and analytical capacity for problems, so that they can become autonomous subjects responsible for their own choices. For these reasons, it is fundamental that the communication processes of/for risk be configured as participatory processes that take into account the positions of the various senders and receivers of the message, as well as the different contexts (concrete space in which a given communication event takes place, including its environmental and physical components) and situations (resulting from the combination of different elements and meanings of a social, relational and psychological nature that act on the communication event) in which the communication takes place ( frame). The power of communication over the change and transformation of lifestyles lies in its symbolic action. The enhancement of communication paths that promote the centrality of citizens and their autonomy is thus of primary importance. It is even more so when they encourage citizens to be responsible for the use of resources, particularly when these are scarce and may not be sufficient for future generations (e.g., environmental issues). For a communication strategy to produce its positive effects, it must be characterised by expressiveness, credibility, legitimacy and assertiveness. All these integrated aspects must bring about communication events aimed at achieving risk management objectives, based on facts and not on opinions (pragmatics), clear and free of influences that can be traced back to values (transparency) and, finally, centred on listening and feedback (support). If the reduction of uncertainty, necessary for more responsible decision-making, is achieved through a higher degree of knowledge, the latter is very much linked to what individuals remember or have already experienced. In today’s society, where

3 Freidson (1970) well illustrated the dynamics occurring in the relationship between the health system (health professionals) and citizens by distinguishing these actors in two communities. On the one hand, there is the community of subjects who respond to non-professional norms (“profane world”); on the other, the professional community that responds to professional norms (“sacred world”). To make the distinction simpler, we can refer to “laymen” and “experts”. Each of these communities is a stranger to the other, the social relationship is fundamentally established between bearers of different interests and norms that often slip into the non-sharing of objectives and, in extreme cases, into conflict. Risk communication, particularly in health care, is conceived in a unidirectional form: a single source, the expert, to a plurality of subjects who are considered essentially passive.

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the oral transmission of knowledge is almost non-existent (Ong, 1982), it is very difficult to process and interpret information based solely on memory. It is, therefore, necessary to redefine the communicative processes of/for risk towards the activation of communicational strategies that integrate formal and informal aspects between citizens and institutions, as well as between the institutions themselves. On the surface, this may appear as depersonalisation, but this is not the case. The reciprocity between the actors involved in decision-making or risk management processes is important. The communicative process, in these cases, does not take the form of the simple transmission of news or data (elaborated and interpreted depending very much on the context and the situation that arises), thus entailing the possibility of a change in the behaviour of the subjects involved (citizens and institutions, or laymen and experts). Consequently, it is possible that the “communicators”, with their actions, influence the behaviour of the individuals, in the sense of encouraging positive behaviour and the acquisition of lifestyles more appropriate to the maintenance and improvement of their life quality, but also that the behaviour of the individuals can influence the communicator, in the sense that with their requests they orient the communicator in one direction rather than another. This leads us to a crucial problematic aspect in the narrative processes of risk, namely the “credibility” of what is communicated, which is not an intrinsic characteristic of the source but rather an intrinsic characteristic of the relationship. It often happens that a source considered credible by one or more recipients may not, for the very same reasons, be so for others. In general terms, credibility comes in two forms (de Certeau, 1981). The first is believing what the source says, believing in the content, a persuasion linked to the technical competence of the source (expert); the second is believing in the source, based more on authority and a trusting relationship with the source. The aspects of credibility that become relevant when reflecting on risk communication are informational credibility and normative credibility (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). The former has as its object the external world, i.e., social reality. The credibility is attributed (or denied) to the source that communicates something about how reality presents itself; since this is a form of knowledge, it is mostly credited to scientific knowledge and, therefore, to “experts”. In this case, the individual is influenced by other social actors who take on the function of mediators between what happens or could happen (in the case of risk) and the reality of the everyday lives of individuals. The second, normative credibility, is more complex as, in this case, communication entails a value aspect. In other words, it presents an array of values and models of behaviour that are also closely linked to membership to a specific social organisation (e.g., the environmental movements, whose campaigns not only seek to present a vision of the world that is more in keeping with respect for nature and humanity but also propose lifestyles that follow this social reality). In short, the credibility of a source “constitutes a fundamental criterion of relevance by which to judge what is important and what is not; it brings out the objects of our attention from the background of the obvious and taken for granted. In other words, it contributes decisively not only to knowledge, but also to our ‘engagement’ with reality” (Gili & Colombo, 2012, p. 372).

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I could mention many other critical points of risk communication in addition to those presented here. However, a core point remains: this network society (Castells, 1996) always active and functioning—now transformed into a platform society (van Dijck et al., 2018)—has modified the forms of communication, also transforming how individuals construct social reality and, therefore, the way of constructing, identifying and selecting risk situations.

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Part III

Social Reality, Narratives, and Future Research Perspectives

Chapter 7

Social Reality Between Global and Local

Abstract Knowledge, through its first form (social representations), influences not only the construction of reality but also the construction processes of the Self. Starting from the idea that these processes take place through communication, this chapter will examine the dynamics connected to communicative events—including as narratives. Communication dynamics have changed with the spread of the new mass media and their new dimension lies between global and local. Communication, which conveys narratives, is nothing more than the construction of social reality. A large part of the knowledge and social representations that individuals share originates precisely from communicative events and media-type narratives—even that knowledge that appears personal. In contemporary society, constructing and reproducing social reality as constituting the self implies, therefore, interpreting the flow of information and knowledge that are transmitted by the media and bringing them back within the boundaries of everyday sociality. Keywords Social reality · Social Representation · Communication · Media · Self

7.1

Representations and the Construction of Social Reality

The reading key proposed here opens the door to a complex scenario in which the world (in its entirety) and the individuals who are part of it are configured as an endless network of interactions based on communicative acts that intersect, overlap, determine themselves, and are, sometimes, dissonant1 (Festinger, 1962). The global society is a communicational society, ready to disseminate and circulate knowledge. The continuous communicative acts in everyday life allow, through the information that is then processed and interpreted, the reproduction of meaning through the symbolic mediation that allows individuals to interpret and construct social reality. That reality is the quality belonging to the phenomena that individuals recognise as

1

The term dissonance indicates a discordance between cognitive elements, with the latter constituting every single element of knowledge, opinion, or belief that an individual or group has about itself or the world around it. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_7

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being independent of their own will and that they construct daily through socialisation processes characterised not only by learning and internalisation but also by externalisation and objectivation (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). These processes make explicit the conjugation between action and culture that Bourdieu (1985/1979) defined as habitus—understood as the set of durable dispositions formed in the practical experience of social life that, at the same time, present themselves as structured determinations because they are the result of the historical action and interactions of individuals. It is precisely through these durable dispositions that individual and collective practices and representations are generated and organised (Durkheim, 1953/1895), which make it possible to demarcate, in different social contexts, the limit of the effective possibilities of thought and action of each person. This first theoretical framework leads to one on the social representations (Moscovici 2000, 2008/1961) that shape so many of the social explanations and interpretations that individuals use to justify their own and others’ actions. The social sciences—particularly social and cultural psychology—have long shown that individuals are constantly immersed in a system of relationships that strongly contribute to defining their actions and characteristics. Social representations are formed, consolidated and circulated in the flow of everyday life. They can be understood as theories of common sense that take shape in everyday interactions and refer to social objects or phenomena. They do not arise from single individuals but are socially generated and shared by all members of a group. They should be understood as systems of interpretation that underpin individuals’ relationships with the world and other people, and guide and organise behaviour and social communication. As cognitive phenomena, they link the social belonging of individuals to the affective and normative implications, or, in other words, to the internalisation of experiences, practices, and socially transmitted models of conduct and thought (Jodelet, 1984). This definition should not be confused with that of common sense, since the latter consists essentially in the capacity of individuals and groups that have elaborated them to correspond an image to a concept and vice versa. Representations express both the subjective sense and the social and cultural frame of reference available in a given time and space (Schütz, 1967/1932). The construction of social representations takes place both in the micro-daily scene and in the macro-institutional scene. Social reality, therefore, arises not only from social meaning but also from the products of the subjective world of individuals. The patterns of action and interactions of individuals are constructed according to the meaning they attribute to everyday existence; individuals find a world of meanings and events that become real for them as perceiving and conscious social beings. Over time, and especially since the second half of the last century, new “means” emerged in the interactive processes between individuals, making inter- and intrapersonal relations more complex. While individuals tried to maintain their autonomy, the cultural, social and normative frameworks that regulated interactions have lost their traditional definition due to continuous transformations. Face-to-face interactions are no longer the cornerstone of the system of relationships, as they have been supplanted by other forms of communication that transformed the arena

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into a space without boundaries. The notions of “place” and “space” are very often considered similar, but this is not the case: “‘Place’ is best conceptualised by means of the idea of locale, which refers to the physical settings of social activity as situated geographically. In pre-modern societies, space and place largely coincide, since the spatial dimensions of social life are, for most of the population, and in most respects, dominated by ‘presence’—by localised activities. The advent of modernity increasingly tears space away from place by fostering relations between ‘absent’ others, locationally distant from any given situation of face-to-face interaction” (Giddens, 1990, p. 18). Technological innovations in the field of communication have transformed information flows and communicative events themselves. I am speaking not only of the proliferation of mass media but also and above all the software networks that have reduced distance and time, such as the internet or the various platforms—the so-called FAMGA (van Dijck et al., 2018). In the past, what happened at a local level was also interpreted and processed in a local dimension. The consequent constitution of reality was shared only by the community of reference and in a precise period of time. Today, what happens in the most remote corner of the universe is immediately known around the globe. The internet and/or mass media break down all spatial and temporal barriers and, in doing so, they build a highly mediated reality. Reality no longer results from the interpretation and elaboration of everyday experiences circumscribed in a given space but is an appendix provided by the media, ready-made, already elaborated and interpreted. The contents of social knowledge objectified in public representations through the media are a non-negligible part of those “cognitive prostheses” that individuals use every day to make sense of reality and to guide their social actions. It is now necessary to reflect on how the contents of the communication are appropriated as “cognitive prostheses”. If communication and information are increasingly diffused on a global scale, the symbolic contents transmitted are received by individuals located in a specific place and time—global diffusion vs. local appropriation (Thompson, 1995). This symbolic axis represents the condition defined as glocal (Robertson, 1992), characterised by the acquisition of information, images, knowledge and other artefacts in ways that are typical of the globalised society. These pieces of information are then interpreted and processed in the single places where individuals live and carry out their everyday tasks—usually aiming at the consolidation of values and beliefs: “The conceptual framework of time-space distanciation directs our attention to the complex relations between local involvements (circumstances of co-presence) and interaction across distance (the connections of presence and absence). In the modern era, the level of time-space distanciation is much higher than in any previous period, and the relations between local and distant social forms and events become correspondingly ‘stretched’” (Giddens, 1990, p. 64). It is, therefore, paramount to verify the impact on the construction of the social reality of global dissemination of information vs. a local appropriation of its products. The more this condition is accentuated, the more the symbolic distance from the spatial and temporal contexts of everyday life increases. “The appropriation of symbolic materials enables individuals to take some distance from the conditions of their day-to-day lives—not literally but symbolically,

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imaginatively, vicariously. Individuals are able to gain some conception, however partial, of ways of life and life conditions which differ significantly from their own. They are able to gain some conception of regions of the world which are far removed from their own locales” (Thompson, 1995, p. 175). This phenomenon, accurately described by Thompson, is not, however, the only aspect of local appropriation of information that deserves attention. The integration of the appropriation processes with other local complex practices can consolidate, in certain aspects and certain forms, relations of power and dependence. In these processes, narratives play a pivotal role. It follows that the localised appropriation of the media products of narratives may lead to tensions and, in borderline cases, conflict (internal and/or external to the local context) as the information and knowledge disseminated may clash with or contradict those already constituted by individuals. When individuals share a representation, they interpret their own and others’ behaviour according to this form of knowledge, and the action takes on the same meaning and significance for both actors and spectators. In other words, the social reality expressed by social representations guides the actions of individuals and groups in such a way that they can be understood unambiguously by all. Conversely, where representations are not shared (e.g., between groups of different cultures) the misinterpretation gives rise to misunderstandings that can, in extreme cases, generate conflict. Individual behaviour depends to a large extent on the social reality that the individuals themselves construct of things, people, or facts, the interpretations of their past and present actions, and their expectations. They construct their patterns of action on the meaning they attach to their daily existence within a limited context (local dimension). They find a world of meanings and events disseminated and transmitted by the media (global dimension) that become real for them only because they are embedded in the local context. When juxtaposing the global and local dimensions for constructing the social representations, the perceptive process of categorising2 is crucial because it allows organising the content of outside information according to certain modalities. Hence the importance of communicative actions (Habermas, 1984/1981, 1987/1981) in their hermeneutic and rational components. The former allows for the construction of social reality, in and from the everyday world, through a continuous process of interpretation and definition of situations, which are also constructed and reconstructed through the attribution of meanings. the latter allows individuals to presume the reasons that others might present to justify the validity of their interactions and actions. As Scott and Lyman (1968) state “to justify an act is to assert its positive value in the face of a claim to the contrary” (p. 51). The above prompts the re-appropriation, from a sociological perspective, of the study of social representations. Indeed, to better read this book, one should use the 2

Categorisation allows for information to be organised. The process tends to eliminate certain differences between single events or single objects, just as similarities are ignored if not useful for the purpose. The function of categorisation, therefore, consists in the systematisation (simplifying the information processing procedures) of the physical and social environment aimed at what should be the action.

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phenomenon of social representations as a descriptive tool to understand the processes and mechanisms of the construction of social reality. Contemporary society is experiencing a major paradox that the current in-depth studies still do not seem to fully capture. In the face of the globalisation of markets and communications, there are more and more cultural and political differences and divisions, as shown by the increase in ethnic and religious conflicts. Many of the conceptual categories previously considered cornerstones of the cultural and political order (people, nation, community, etc.) are being called into question because social representations of the same phenomenon can take on completely different images and meanings depending on the culture of reference and the forms of narration adopted. In this last activity, once again, the mass media play a crucial role. After all, there is a direct relationship between narratives and the construction of reality: over time, continuous exposure to specific media content (and the images of social reality they convey) helps to structure interpretive schemes and provide iconic and conceptual material on which individuals will come to share certain social representations rather than others.

7.2

The Effects of the Media on the Construction of Social Reality

Much of the knowledge and social representations shared by individuals originate from communicative events and media narratives. Indeed, even seemingly personal knowledge is often conveyed by the media. This easy accessibility (Lister et al., 2003) makes the media particularly flexible, so much so that they are highly pervasive in the subjective everyday experience and images of the world that individuals possess. At the same time, however, the media often represent the only source of information for individuals, making them dependent on the ideas and images they form of reality. Individuals cannot select information at the source, they have no choice but to operate the remote control to opt for one TV channel or another, to buy one newspaper rather than another or to follow one web channel rather than another, but they cannot select information upstream. These considerations underpin the latest growing trend in sector studies: research on the media must mainly look into the effects at the level of construction of individual and collective knowledge and representations of reality, which they help to build and convey. The aim is to understand how the mass media influence both the content and the forms and modes through which individuals and groups attribute meaning to reality and exchange these meanings in a constructive and interpretive manner. As Luhmann (2000/1996) stated in the opening sentences of his essay The Reality of the Mass Media, “Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media. This is true not only of our knowledge of society and history but also of our knowledge of nature. [...] On the other hand, we know so much about the mass media that we are not able to trust these sources” (p. 1). The mass media are the main means through

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which individuals acquire information. At the same time, however, they raise strong doubts, especially given the media’s potential for manipulation and differentiation. Beyond these doubts related to freedom of expression—which seems to be strongly compromised—and the substantial exercise of the principle of democracy—which has become almost inapplicable—however, one cannot but consider the media as a tool through which knowledge and representations can be built up, shared and, above all, reinforced. The effects of the media highlight one of the “Ws” (what effects) of Lasswell’s model (1948), thus representing the most contrasting field of study of the theory of mass communications—which, indeed, still sees the ongoing clash between “apocalyptics” and “integrated” (Eco, 1994). The former group argues that the immediate and most serious effects concern the massification of culture,3 the homologation of values, the sensationalism and superficiality with which content is treated. The latter, instead, claims that the media are a relevant part of contemporary culture and even allowing for “perverse effects” (Boudon, 1982/1977) they have contributed to the dissemination of knowledge and its quantity (they reserve their judgement on the issue of quality). By “effects” I mean the possible impact (positive or negative) and consequences of media messages on the individual and/or the community and the construction of reality. The history of mass communication studies has been marked by the development of analyses of effects, which can be distinguished into four phases. The first one considered the direct and immediate effects of the media, in the sense that the big media were considered able to influence the masses by guiding them towards the homologation they proposed, first in the political field and then in that of consumption. Indeed, in those years, dictatorships amply used the media for their regime and war propaganda. The second phase saw a strong opposition to the previous approach by emphasising that media consumption is not mass- but group-based (with groups differing particularly based on the social class of belonging) and that the “receivers” are far from passive. On the contrary, they possess a critical and evaluative capacity that enables them to select the impact and meanings depending on their opinions and knowledge and to use their social context of reference to discriminate in decoding the messages. The third phase can be identified with what Castells (1996) defined as the network society, in which, without denying the “receivers” the right to be active, scholars choose to emphasise again the weight of the media, particularly in the long term, on an undifferentiated homologation of the meanings and sense attributed to reality. The long-term perspective distinguishes this approach from that of the first phase. Finally, the fourth phase, which is the current one, sees the transformation of the network society into a platform society (van Dijck et al., 2018). In other words, the canonical places of discussion, formerly physical realities, are now virtual places 3

The massification of culture was a particular concern of the founders and members of the so-called Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, as well as Fromm and Lukacs, to name but a few). These scholars also promoted research inspired by the critical theory of society. This theory accompanied the analysis of phenomena and institutions with a continuous reflection on its foundations and conditioning, questioning its very assumptions.

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(the platforms) that create a new ecosystem—to the point of defining a wholly new perspective: that of media ecology (Strate, 2004). This phase leads us to what some scholars define as Web 3.0 (Castells, 2009) and it simultaneously approaches innovative forms of democracy or technologically driven forms of opinion-crushing (Berman & Weitzner, 1997; De Blasio & Sorice, 2019). The various platforms and the Internet as a whole are places in which to exchange communicative practices, forms of being together and participation in public life, as well as technologies that allow both individuals (citizens) and institutions to engage and achieve their aims. While I agree with this approach, I must also emphasise that the effects of the media must be considered only one of the components of the more complex process of knowledge and construction of meanings in the everyday lives of individuals and groups. We should keep very clear in our minds the key to interpreting socio-cultural processes, remembering that it is not simply centred on the medium but considers the relationships between micro and macro aspects of social life that are interconnected through the digital media. Starting from the approaches of the theories of mass communication, particularly those that emerged in the last decades, one can distinguish two main strands of analysis on the effects of the mass media: the first relates to the contents of knowledge, the second to the ways of interpreting experience. As regards the content level, one should undoubtedly consider the dynamics of dissemination and circulation of knowledge, namely the ability, typical of the mass media, to endlessly replicate mental (Vygotsky, 1978) and cultural (Levy-Bruhl, 1970) representations. Mental representations are tools created by cultures to guide and facilitate the cognitive work of individuals; cultural representations are defined as the law of participation that implies constant mystical participation of individuals with the world. The tragic 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York is a case in point: the image of the planes crashing into the towers was reproduced and broadcast thousands of times, as was the collapse of the towers themselves, fixing in the minds of millions of television viewers scattered across the globe the scenes of anguish, pain and despair of that population, becoming a fragment of shared knowledge. The amplification and multiplication of specific events—also due to the self-referentiality of the mass media, which tend to take up the contents already shared by other media—have strongly influenced the social representations and consequently the actions of millions of individuals. On the topic of how experience is interpreted and, therefore, meanings are constructed, it is necessary to remember that the mass media construct representations of reality. These representations are not just the object of interpretative processes but become instruments of such processes. Knowledge objectified into public representations through the media constitutes a significant part of those “cognitive prostheses” with which we try to make sense of social life. In his studies on social representations, Moscovici (2008/1961) identifies three levels of incidence of communication. First, the emergence of representations, in which the dissemination of information by the mass media relating to the very object of representation is not homogeneously received by groups. Indeed, groups only emphasise those aspects they are interested in, related to their position in society.

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Second, the formation of representations (anchoring and objectification)4 in which perceptual processes are transformed into cognitive processes. Third, the dimension of representations, related to behaviour and conduct, which is in turn strongly influenced by mass media communication. Mediated communication has several communication systems that are often underestimated or even neglected in analyses of social reality. First, dissemination (e.g., the case of the Twin Towers) aims at making a given object, event or situation known to allow the formation of the opinions of individuals or groups. Second, propagation aims at integrating information into an already existing system of judgement and reasoning (it is linked to attitudes). Messages are addressed to a specific group characterised by its own values and objectives. Finally, propaganda is developed in conflictual contexts to manage and order a body of information by taking a position for or against someone or something (social stereotypes). There is, therefore, a reciprocal exchange between representations and communication, causing a perpetual reconstruction of social reality. While they differ from one sphere to another (public vs. private) and from one society to another (different cultures), representations have specific contents and meanings that guide individuals on a daily basis in selecting, defining, interpreting and, if necessary, judging and taking a stance on the various aspects of social life. They are important precisely because of the emergence and transformation of this content. How individuals think is closely connected to what they think (Farr & Moscovici, 1984). In the past, as in the globalised society, the media user is always a social actor who finds himself in a particular situation and engaged with other actors whose possible reactions he must consider given the information and knowledge he possesses or manages to obtain to better understand and interpret the circumstance as a whole.

7.3

Media, Narratives and the Construction of the Self

This body of knowledge provides individuals with the necessary information for their actions. However, for this purpose, it is necessary to have an adequate store of knowledge that derives from the communication system available and usable in the social system in which they live. From this body of knowledge, each individual draws the inferences to build and re-construct his Self, or rather his life project in relation to the world around him. As Mead (1934) pointed out, the Self is determined by the conjugation of self (I) and hetero-referentiality (Me). It derives from a social process of self-interaction, in which individuals point out to themselves the dynamics existing in the situations in which they act, while the resulting action is linked to

4

Anchoring is the process of bringing something foreign and disturbing about individuals in their particular system of categories and confronting it with the paradigm of a category that is deemed suitable, while objectification saturates the idea of unfamiliarity with reality, transforms it into the very essence of reality.

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the interpretation of those dynamics (Mead, 1970). This process of constructing the “social person” becomes significant when the Self allows the individual, together with other individuals, to give shape to the idea of reality to be able to direct his conduct towards changing both the behavioural and the social structure. The process of shaping the Self has been radically transformed by the development of the media: “For most individuals, the formation of the self was bounded by the locales in which they lived and interacted with others. Their knowledge was ‘local knowledge’, handed down from generation to generation through oral exchange and adapted to the practical necessities of life. The horizons of understanding of most individuals were limited by the patterns of face-to-face interaction through which information flowed [...] These various conditions are altered fundamentally by the development of communication media. The process of self-formation becomes increasingly dependent on access to mediated forms of communication—both printed and, subsequently, electronically mediated forms. Local knowledge is supplemented by, and increasingly displaced by, new forms of non-local knowledge which are fixed in a material substratum, reproduced technically, and transmitted via the media” (Thompson, 1995, p. 211). Horizons of understanding have expanded exponentially; they are no longer limited to face-to-face interaction but are instead shaped by the (increasingly expanding) mediated communication networks. The social space within which the subject has to place himself becomes wider and wider by the day; the modern social actor who wants to be informed has to know (or should know) what is happening in remote places and about phenomena not directly related to his daily life. The resulting vision of the world (and therefore of social reality) has undefined boundaries and is fragmented into several areas that are not always well defined and comprehensible. Every day, individuals have to process and interpret information to construct their own idea of reality on which to base their everyday actions. In essence, the mass media not only influence the construction of social reality (macro dimension) but also the biographies of individual subjects (micro dimension), who find themselves daily inundated with information and knowledge, transmitted in real-time and coming from the most remote parts of the universe. Such a body of information is excessive and at the same time insufficient for a circumscribed aspect of reality: it is not enough for the more specific aspects of the phenomenon but is surprisingly accurate in the value elements of the phenomenon itself and its possible positive or negative effects. The gap between the information possessed and that which is actually needed to arrive at a personal, analytical and precise construction of a phenomenon—to allow for the construction of a specific idea and position on it—becomes increasingly unbridgeable. Living in a mediated world means having at one’s disposal an almost infinite number of narratives that enable “the self, understood as a reflexively organized symbolic project, has become increasingly unconstrained by its location in the practical contexts of day-to-day life. While still situated in these contexts and organizing much of their lives in terms of the demands arising from them, individuals can also experience distant events, interact with distant others and move temporarily into mediated microworlds which, depending on one’s interests and

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priorities, exercise varying degrees of holding power. As these mediated experiences are incorporated reflexively into the project of self-formation, the nature of the self is transformed. It is not dissolved or dispersed by media messages, but rather is opened up by them, in varying degrees, to influences which stem from distant locales” (Thompson, 1995, p. 233). Social reality determines the meaning and significance of actions and events; it also defines experience by identifying limits, meanings and types of interactions (construction of the self) through the reduction of the ambiguity of information and the differences of everyday life. It makes the meanings of actions unambiguous, thus clarifying what is to be explained and what is the explanation itself (effects and causes) through an established order within which individuals can interpret and understand their material and social worlds, becoming active subjects of social life. In modern society, this process is extremely problematic, since cognitive processes and the construction of reality are both strongly influenced by narratives that act as symbolic mediations and media representations (which themselves become narratives) that affect the elaboration and interpretation of everyday experience and knowledge, directing not only the construction of reality but also that of the self. We cannot fail to acknowledge that this world in which we all live is a paradox. While information, knowledge, images and symbols are being disseminated globally, affecting all fields of social life (from the economy to communication, just to name two), they are being appropriated and processed locally, thus accentuating cultural differences and divisions. The experience of individuals is now “mediated” by the mass media, which also become the instrument through which narratives come to life and circulate. In the past, experiences were “situational” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928),5 meaning that they depended on individuals and on the place with and within which they acted from day to day. Today, individual biographies are strongly influenced by what happens in “empty space” (Giddens, 1990). This entails the uprooting and displacement of certain elements of social life from their original context to different ones so that the meaning of the single elements and their relations to the whole change. To sum up, two aspects characterise social reality in contemporary society: (a) the construction of social reality and also the definition of an individual’s self occurs through narratives and what the media convey (information, knowledge, etc.); (b) social reality, which in contemporary society is almost totally “mediated”, is a partial reality in that events are narratives with accurate value elements (positive or negative effects) dependent on the narrator (the source) and not on the receiver. We can thus suggest that individuals, as social actors, living in a context in which individualisation is increasingly accentuated, which, in turn, leads to a decline in the moments of exchange of experiences, run the risk of conforming mindlessly,

Significantly, “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928, p. 572). Therefore, the actions of human beings only make sense if one is aware that all meanings are constructed based on the information and knowledge through which individuals organise and interpret experience.

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yielding to the models and representations offered (or “imposed”) by media narratives. The excessive mixing of “real” and “fictional” life in the media means that the self and reality are continually reorganised. For individuals, this situation translates into models of reference and behaviour that are increasingly blurred and rapid in their transformations, and into a lack of identification with well-defined groups with their own well-defined value models. In the last statement, I cannot but mention Bauman’s metaphor (1996): the individual in modern society is a pilgrim who has turned into a tourist. Pilgrims were those who, touching many places, sought, through learning and experiencing the new, a destination that would give meaning to their choice of life. They were individuals full of uncertainties but aware of wanting to reach the end of their journey because this meant that they had managed to build their own reality and self through a continuous elaboration and interpretation of experiences, which, brought to unity, meant a well-defined individual and collective identity. Conversely, tourists today are those who, overwhelmed by media consumption, move from one place to another without a final destination because they are distracted by the ephemeral (hic et nunc) and the social reality that is influenced both by the media and by the communication itself in the form of narratives. Today, constructing and reproducing social reality, just as constituting the self, implies interpreting the flow of information and knowledge transmitted by the mass media and bringing them back within the confines of everyday sociality. It would be necessary to return to that “ordinary knowledge” of which Maffesoli (1996/1985) spoke, understood as the rediscovery, of the habitual, of everything that is everyday, of what is not seen—of what is obvious, in Schütz’s terms (1967/1932)—because it is under everyone’s eyes and we take it for granted. Novelty, then, lies in the discovery of the non-new, the usual.

References Bauman, Z. (1996). From pilgrim to tourist. Or a short history of identity. In S. Hall & P. Du Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 18–36). Sage. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Penguin Books. Berman, J., & Weitzner, D. J. (1997). Technology and democracy. Social Research, 64(3), 1313–1319. Boudon, R. (1982/1977). The unintended consequences of social action. Palgrave Macmillan (Original work published 1977). Bourdieu, P. (1985/1979). Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Routledge and Keagan Paul (Original work published 1979). Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Blackwell. Castells, M. (2009). Communication power. Oxford University Press. De Blasio, E., & Sorice, M. (2019). E-democracy and digital activism: from divergent paths towards a new frame. International Journal of Communication, 13, 5715–5733.

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Durkheim, É. (1953/1895). Individual and collective representations. In É. Durkheim (Ed.), Sociology and philosophy (pp. 1–34) (D. F. Pocock, Trans.). Cohen & West (Original work published 1895). Eco, U. (1994). Apocalypse postponed. Indiana University Press. Farr, R. M., & Moscovici, S. (Eds.). (1984). Social representations. Cambridge University Press. Festinger, L. (1962). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford University Press. Habermas, J. (1984/1981). Theory of communication action. Reason and the rationalization of society (Vol. 1) (T. McCharty, Trans.). Beacon Press (Original work published 1981). Habermas, J. (1987/1981). Theory of communication action. Lifeworld and system (Vol. 2) (T. McCharty, Trans.). Beacon Press (Original work published 1981). Jodelet, D. (1984). Représentations sociale: phénomènes, concept et théorie [Social Representations: phenomena, concept, and theories]. In S. Moscovici (Ed.), Psichologie Sociale [Social psychology] (pp. 357–378). PUF. Lasswell, H. B. (1948). The structure and function of communication and society. In L. Bryson (Ed.), The communication of ideas (pp. 32–51). Harper. Levy-Bruhl, L. (1970). Theory of primitive mentality. Journal of Anthropological Society, 2(1), 1–36. Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Kelly, K., & Grant, I. (2003). New media. A critical introduction. Routledge. Luhmann, N. (2000/1996). The reality of the mass media (K. Cross, Trans.). Stanford University Press (Original work published 1996). Maffesoli, M. (1996/1985). Ordinary knowledge: An introduction to interpretative sociology. Polity (Original work published 1985). Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. University of Chicago Press. Mead, G. H. (1970). Self as social object. In G. P. Stone & H. A. Farberman (Eds.), Social psychology through symbolic interaction (pp. 383–386). Xerox College. Moscovici, S. (2000). Social representations. Explorations in social psychology. Polity. Moscovici, S. (2008/1961). Psychoanalysis: Its image and its public. Wiley (Original work published 1961). Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization. Social theory and global culture. Sage. Schütz, A. (1967/1932). The phenomenology of the social world (G. Walsh & F. Lehnert, Trans.). Northwestern University Press (Original work published 1932). Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33(1), 46–62. Strate, L. (2004). A media ecology review. Communication Research Trends, 23(2), 1–48. Thomas, W. I., & Thomas, D. S. (1928). The child in America. Alfred A. Knopf. Thompson, J. B. (1995). The media and modernity. A social theory of the media. Polity. van Dijck, J., De Waal, M., & Poell, T. (2018). The platform society. Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.

Chapter 8

Social Reality and Narratives Between Interpretations and Metaphors

Abstract This chapter aims to summarise and link the many variables and problems that narratives entail basing the analysis also on the transformations of the forms and means of communication. Narratives become the means to push both the individual and the collective to action because—it is worth recalling—narratives are very often configured according to Merton’s two “mottos”: “We do not know whether what we say is true, but it is at least significant.”, and “This is demonstrably so, but we cannot indicate its significance.” (Social theory and social structure. Free Press, 1949, p. 140). For this reason, it can be said that narratives, with all their implications, rely on these mottos—and in these narratives, those who construct the story often coincide with those who recount it. The question that follows is: What is narrated? Who constructs the story? And, above all, who tells it and how do they tell it? I will try to answer these questions with the support of two case studies of narration of socio-cultural phenomena (the COVID-19 pandemic and the migrations across the Mediterranean Sea). Keywords Social reality · Narratives · Metaphor · Interpretation · Representation

8.1

Social Reality and Narratives: Theoretical Framework

Except for the last few decades, the cultural dimension has often been neglected in social studies. Indeed, in contemporary Western society, where individuals are forced to perform at ever-higher levels and they are often reduced solely and exclusively to their productivity, the problem of “meaning” is eliminated. And yet, in a broader vision, it remains crucial. The multidimensionality and multiplicity of factors that influence the attitudes and actions of individuals show that the concept of social reality is highly subjective, also considering the very dynamics of its construction. The construction of social reality allows individuals to continuously create, through their actions and interactions, a common reality experienced as objectively factual and subjectively significant. The construction of social reality is closely linked to a handful of important defining aspects, among which two stand out: on the one hand, the influence of culture and its expressions through communication and narration; on the other hand, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_8

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the indissoluble link with the individual’s biography. Social reality is not “constitutive” but a “quality” belonging to phenomena that individuals recognise as independent of their will (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) and deriving from the historical forms with which they relate the social system and the life-world (Lebenswelt). Social reality is neither stable nor common to all individuals. Everyone represents “the world” in a different way, a diversity stemming from individual everyday life experience and socially derived knowledge that is transformed into socially approved knowledge as “it becomes an element of the relatively natural concept of the world”, because it is recognised and accepted not only by those who possess it but also by others “although the source of such knowledge remains entirely hidden in its anonymity” (Schütz, 1946, p. 478). Social reality encompasses the social meaning attributed to certain situations, but also those produced by the subjective world of individuals. Actions, behaviours, and attitudes are constructed according to the meaning people attribute to their everyday existence. Individuals are confronted with a multitude of meanings and narrated events that become social reality only because they are social beings. Reality is a socially constructed system to which individuals accord a certain order and sequence of events, i.e., a reality that contains both subjective and objective elements. Subjective elements testify to the signifying reality of individuals, objective ones refer to the social order or the institutional world as a human product (Wallace & Wolf, 1980). Interacting individuals constitute and re-produce social phenomena which, for this reason, continually construct and re-construct everyday social reality through processes of signification that also take place via narratives. The social reality that individuals construct with their everyday activities through socialisation opens up, by means of narratives, a dialectical and dialogical process (Ricœur, 1986) between the individual within the social world (idem) and the singularity of the individual (ipse). This process allows individuals to be influenced by reality not for what it is, but for what they believe it to be. Different cultures may or may not represent the same situation as a social problem, and this process of reality construction depends on the interpretation by the culture (Geertz, 1977), particularly common sense. Some studies link the creation of a social problem with what Griswold (1994) calls the cultural object. In this regard, Sahlins (1985) states that the very creation of a cultural object can be considered as the result of a process of interpretation involving different actors. The content and specific meaning of these interpretations differ both from one sphere to another (public and private) and from one society to another (different cultures). Furthermore, they also differ within the same society due to the different experiences and biographies of the members of the community (Hannerz, 1996). As such, they are important for the birth and transformation of the content. Society is considered a real arena in which situations that can be defined as social problems compete (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988). These situations share specific characteristics: they can be narrated and dramatised, they deal with themes rooted in a culture, or they are linked to powerful stakeholders. In this way, the function of narratives is twofold: on the one hand, they “reduce” social distances because, as Meyrowitz (1985) stated, the map of spatial relations has been altered; on the other hand, they can overexpose certain facts

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(or social phenomena) compared to their real scope, promoting a distorted representation of reality (Gerbner et al., 2002). How human beings perceive the world is a traditional element of Western thought, because of its anthropological relevance and, above all, the importance of the question itself. It combines problems relating to the world—an external reality and independent of the individual—and to the individual who perceives1 this world. The relationship between how individuals think about social reality and how they perceive it is a complex process of interaction in which narratives are a form of objectification of human expressiveness and symbolic mediation. Narratives are inherently highly rhetoric—undoubtedly further accentuated by the forms of communication adopted—yet they promote debate. However, this debate does not affect all socio-cultural phenomena that can be considered social problems and certainly does not occur everywhere. Narratives are inescapably part of social life, as is their conceptual ambiguity. Narratives mobilise globally but are appropriated locally: “The globalization of communication has not eliminated the localized character of appropriation but rather has created a new kind of symbolic axis in the modem world, what I shall describe as the axis of globalized diffusion and localized appropriation” (Thompson, 1995, p. 174). Individuals construct their scheme of action based on the meaning they attribute to their everyday existence. They find a world of meanings and events (experienced and narrated) that become real only because they are perceived and conscious social beings in dialectical relationship with society. Such a relationship is historically determined because it changes over time and during the life of the individuals themselves. In the continuous flow of social events, individuals cannot always have a direct and immediate experience of said events. Often, this experience is provided by the media, which can represent some parts of the reality of which individuals do not have direct knowledge (McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Thompson, 1995). The media can, in some cases, contribute to the formation of ideas and typified images by selecting events that, if inserted in the production processes, are “transformed” into the news—newsmaking (Hess, 2008). It is also true that in the dynamic flow of everyday life, there are events (and problems) that claim their uniqueness and importance in the social context. In the following pages, I will try to summarise and connect the many variables and the problematic objects identified, with the support of some concrete cases of narration of socio-cultural phenomena. I will be basing the analysis also on the transformations of the forms and means of communication. Narratives become the means to push both the individual and the collective to action because—it is worth recalling—they are often configured according to Merton’s two “mottos”: “We do not know whether what we say is true, but it is at least significant”, and “This is demonstrably so, but we cannot indicate its significance” (1949, p. 140). It can be

1

Perceptual processes, which Luhmann (2003/1980–1989) defines as the psychic acquisition of information, in the sense of indicating perception as the primary type of information, can also be described as an adaptation to change or as the initiation of change.

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said that narratives, with all their implications, rely on these mottos and that those who construct the story often coincide with those who recount it The questions that follow, then, are: What is narrated? Who constructs the story? And above all, who tells it and how do they tell it?

8.2

Narratives in Contemporary Society: Two Case Studies

In contemporary society, narratives are mainly conveyed by the mass media and take on various functions in the balance between cultural goals and legitimate means (Merton, 1949). However, their influence on opinion leaders remains undisputed, being paramount for the construction of social reality and in attributing meaning to events and situations that can be defined as crises or risks. The ways in which the mass media filter news to the public, the choice of expressions and images with which the news is presented and, finally, the frame proposed for the description and interpretation of events all contribute to spreading stereotypes and attitudes in public opinion that often translate into a sense of generalised alarm—or moral panic (Cohen, 2002). These processes shed light also on the complex and fundamental role of the media and the narratives they produce in reducing or amplifying the sense of uncertainty. The media are not mere “messengers” but play an active role in the construction, identification, and selection of social problems and risks. It is no coincidence that the expression “risk and crisis communication” has entered in the political and media agendas, leading (particularly in the UK and US) to the creation of a specialist branch of communication (Palenchar, 2005). Beyond risk communication, one should consider also those often unwanted (or, at the very least unforeseen) “framing effects” (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987) that can further exacerbate or even create ex-novo crisis situations to be managed. It should also be pointed out that: (a) the source of information for individuals is no longer only the set of those with whom they interact and implement a symbolic exchange, but all those instruments (old and new media) that generate a mediated and continuous symbolic exchange; (b) the new means of communication, particularly the computer, that, especially with the advent of the Internet, have created a continuous flow of information that can be used anytime and anywhere, provided, of course, that one has a network connection. The changing forms of communication have also transformed how individuals construct social reality. It is mainly through media narratives that individuals construct their idea of the world (understanding their surroundings). Similarly, it is through them that individuals construct their identity and plan their life biography by making choices. In support of the above, I will now present two case studies of narratives of events affecting contemporary society: the COVID-19 pandemic and the migration phenomenon in the Mediterranean Area. I will highlight the dynamics that allow individuals to construct an idea of what surrounds them, which then prompts them to act.

8.2 Narratives in Contemporary Society: Two Case Studies

8.2.1

157

The Narratives of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Metaphors of War and the Enemy

On 8 December 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) ascertains the first case of a patient infected with a new virus, similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. SARS was widespread in late 2002 and early 2003 and represented the first major global epidemic threat to the Western world in the 21st century. This new virus caused severe respiratory failure and pneumonia, and, at the time of its discovery, knew no treatment or vaccine. It will then be referred to by the scientific name of the disease it causes (COVID-192). A few months later, the news emerged that the so-called “patient zero” in the Hubei province was not the first case: the virus had probably been circulating in that region of China since November. When the alarm was raised in China, on 27 December 2020, hundreds of thousands of people were already infected and the diffusion of the virus in that province had already taken the form of an epidemic. Nevertheless, the alarm was underestimated. After a few months, the virus reached Europe, with the first European (Italian) patient certified on 20 February 2020. Despite the thousands of infected people, the deaths, and the ease with which the virus can spread, the WHO did not declare a pandemic until 11 March 2020, by which time the countries involved numbered 114 worldwide. The reality that emerged in the first months of the virus’s spread suggests that there was no clear awareness of the problem in terms of the pandemic emergency and the health risks for entire countries. Only after the virus showed up in Europe did the authorities acknowledge the need to tackle the problem decisively by directing communication and narratives towards containing the contagion. It was but natural for the media to react with an infodemic3 (Debanjan & Meena, 2021). This sensationalist information (in the best of cases) about the pandemic tended to blame the sick (who were considered “anointers”)4 or to circumscribe the problem to certain categories or social groups. In such a situation—highly emotional and with major involvement of values and socio-cultural resources—narratives must avoid moral panic (Cohen, 2002) and instead promote attitudes and lifestyles useful for reducing the risk of contagion. The media narrative has also become the narrative of the single experiences of the pandemic. The scenario outlined has taken on the characteristics of a full-scale clash, drawing from the semantic and metaphorical sphere of war and the enemy

2

The name derives from the initials of the words coronavirus (COVI) and disease (D), followed by the last two digits from the year of its spread (2019). 3 The term generally refers to the circulation of an excessive amount of information, most often from unverified sources, that makes it difficult for individuals to find their bearing and adopt a stance on a specific topic. 4 “Untori”, or “anointers”, were those suspected of propagating contagion during the plague in Milan in the seventeenth century. The term derives from the poisonous ointments to which the folklore ascribed the contamination of people and objects and hence the spread of the plague

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Fig. 8.1 il Fatto Quotidiano, February 23, 2020 [Virus, Northern Italy under siege], and Il manifesto, March 18, 2020 [The siege]. Source: Author’s composition

(Martinez-Brawley & Gualda, 2020). As Ricœur (1984/1983) makes clear, metaphor is mimesis, i.e., it is the imitation of an action (a metaphor for reality). In particular, what he calls mimesis2 concerns the narrative function of integrating information acquired from the external world and transforming it into the world of the text (or the verb) by composing different and multiple events. Furthermore, as stated by De Fina and Georgakopoulou (2008), understanding narrative as a social practice always implies paying attention to different levels of analysis, starting from the local level of interaction (community) as a place of articulation of phenomena that can nevertheless still find their explanation and understanding beyond it. The SARS-CoV-2 virus-related emergency appeared a problem of social order and control. However, it was also the testimony of a dramatic human condition experienced by both health workers and the population (obviously in a different manner) which, once inserted into the narrative circuit, can provoke emotional reactions in the public opinion. At the same time, it can draw attention to issues of more general interest (for example, public health, community, responsibility, etc.). This emergency is thus doubly framed and interpreted (Goffman, 1974): on the one hand, there is the daily narrative of the evolution; on the other hand, the wording and framing of the issue may have contributed to the popular idea that the emergency could be considered a “war”. The former refers to individual and collective (public) health, the perniciousness of the virus, engendering in public opinion a greater recognition and perception of themselves as being at risk. The latter, through expressions such as war, enemy, siege (as, for example, many Italian newspapers have done, see Fig. 8.1)5 has fuelled a climate of fear and insecurity and, more generally, a sense of distrust towards others. The latter, in particular, was already ripe 5

In Italy, the COVID-19 issue bloomed on the evening of 20 February 2020, when the news of the first infected with the new virus started circulating. Italy becomes the first European country to record the infection of a native citizen.

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due to “conspiracy” theories (Douglas, 2021), fed by the fake news (Orso et al., 2020) that the virus was engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, the Chinese city in the Hubei province whence it then spread. These elements have proved to be crucial around the globe. Indeed, observers have noticed “clear commonalities among different countries and political leaders when resorting to the war metaphor to serve their respective causes. Political leaders all became concerned about infodemic, as an expression of a globalized culture. While disinformation and disinformation have been around in all wars, the ease with which they can be spread now is unmatched. There is a fundamental challenge for all leaders to control this harmful new development. Most people were familiar with the disinformation of the old wartime of human spies, but this new menace of ‘fake news’ is more ubiquitous and elusive to combat” (Martinez-Brawley & Gualda, 2020, pp. 269–270). The media representation (Páez & Pérez, 2020) of the emergency is linked to the more general problem of uncertainty. In this case, uncertainty may have contributed to accelerating a sense of insecurity and generalised alarm (Cohen, 2002), going so far as to widen the socio-cultural distances between individuals seen as “potential troublemakers”—e.g., the hate-fueled attacks on runners or dog owners when they were seen out and about in apparent violation of lockdown rules. If one can take a neutral view of the nature of the emergency, its narrative has been far from that. It was clearly impossible to physically identify an “enemy” to fight, and yet, precisely because of its invisibility, said enemy is pervasive. It is everywhere and, at the same time, it cannot be perceived nor seen. It cannot even be confined outside one’s own home because it is brought inside by the family members themselves, albeit unconsciously (if asymptomatic). The classical concept of the “face of the enemy” is typical of humanity and can be producing symbolic meanings even in the absence of face-to-face contact. The construction process of the idea of “enemy” is highly complex. It involves several different dimensions of reality (social and psychological) and is, therefore, easily influenced by knowledge acquisition processes. Hence the need to understand and explain the meaning and role of social representations in the dynamics that lead to modify the orientations (positive and/or negative) associated with the construct of the “enemy” and to explore how these may differ depending on how knowledge is perceived and acquired. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the narrative focuses on labelling something (to wit, the virus) as “the enemy”. One cannot but recall a specific aspect of social irrationality: the scapegoat (Girard, 1986/1982). As René Girard argued, any community in the grip of violence or oppressed by some disaster it is unable to solve, willingly engages in a wild hunt for a scapegoat (Girard, 1977/1972). “Scapegoat hunting” has been precisely the narrative style that the media, as well as individuals, have adopted regarding the pandemic. This kind of interpretative dynamic highlights the ambiguity that drives individuals to give irrational social explanations for their attitudes. The attribution of (false) responsibility to a subject or a group defined as “enemy” is perfectly in line with this logic—see the discriminatory and often violent actions against individuals of Asian origin, considered virus spreaders, and, more generally, the rampant anti-Chinese racism that surged amidst COVID-19. The process of

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assigning blame reveals aspects of the social pact underpinning a community and the strategies implemented to defend it from internal and external enemies. The ritual procedures adopted are an indicator of the social and political structures of a community, and narratives have been the instrument that helped in the construction of the “invisible enemy” to be fought: “Claiming to be bolstering safety yet feeding fear, politicians cite a vast threat from an invisible enemy. As in actual war, they deem collateral damage to be unfortunate but inevitable” (Tisdall, 2020). Crises are above all social crises and, therefore, one is pushed to explain and interpret them through social causes as a war to be fought against an enemy. The narrative of the pandemic has been characterised by the obsessive search for someone to blame, developing a climate of persecutory violence (as happened with Chinese people or runners). The search for justification aims at validating one’s interactions and actions (Scott & Lyman, 1968). The appointed enemy, who generally belongs to categories particularly exposed to the risk of persecution (for example, religious and ethnic minorities), had, in this case, no tangible body. Despite this, projecting onto an “invisible enemy” the aggression stemming from the social crisis allows for strengthening the collective representations: the collective anguish and frustrations find an outlet against a designated victim (the runner, the dog owner, the smoker who went out to buy cigarettes, etc.). The narratives constructed around the COVID-19 pandemic (by both the media and individuals) are descriptive tools for understanding the processes and mechanisms of functioning and construction of the category of “invisible enemy” (Sowden et al., 2021). Words, images, videos, and everything else used for storytelling influenced the construction of shared representations as they produced a symbolic mediation that provided identification models on which to base social interactions and actions. The overall perception and interpretation are of a state of imperceptible, but constant, alertness and fear. Analogously, the statements of political leaders (Donato, 2020) aimed at drawing public attention to the threat of the dissemination of the virus. The spread of the contagion is considered a threat first and foremost to health but also individual freedom, given the restrictions on personal movement6 (with no exception, from children to the elderly). The general picture evoked suggests a scenario in which the perception of a state of continuous tension is very strong and the effects of narratives influence the perception of reality and a social problem such as health risk.

On this issue, see the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben on the “state of exception” (2005/ 2003). This theory had already been used to analyse the response to the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 (Patton, 2011). Agamben published an initial polemical article, in the daily newspaper il manifesto on February 26, 2020, and then continued regularly to publish short pieces that were subsequently collected in two volumes (2020a, 2020b). 6

8.2 Narratives in Contemporary Society: Two Case Studies

8.2.2

161

The Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean Sea and the Role of Narratives

All the considerations about the COVID-19 pandemic of the previous section can be almost seamlessly transposed to what happens across the Mediterranean Sea with the migration flows. The starting point is the same: attitudes towards individuals depend largely on the idea that others construct of them, the interpretations of their past and present actions, and the predictions of what they will do in the future (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Attitudes (positive or negative orientation) towards something or someone are guided by one’s perception of them (Mangone & Marsico, 2011): social reality arises not only from social meaning but also from the products of the subjective world of individuals. Following René Girard, I can say, once again, that the communities in the grip of violence or oppressed by some disaster they are unable to solve willingly engage in a wild hunt for the enemy (Girard, 1977/1972). When an individual or group places the responsibility for their critical conditions and/or suffering on another individual or group, the resulting situation attributes false blame to a person or group recognised as the scapegoat (Girard, 1986/1982). Attributions of responsibility suggest solutions to social problems, while rules determining the truthfulness of explanations can function either to contain or increase violence and/or to control the social order. This last aspect is particularly important given the capacity of media narratives (Page, 2015) to propose to the public opinion social representations on which to base and reshape social interactions and actions. For example, the news stories concerning migrants act as a sounding board for certain social issues and problems related to crime and the protection of the welfare of individuals or collectives (communities). Indeed, the problem of migration has been on the agendas of European and Mediterranean politicians for some years. The narratives proposed by the media can convey images and information capable of reducing socio-cultural distances, or of widening them by reproducing representations that reinforce in individuals an oppositional attitude towards migrants. Migrants are represented according to different interpretations depending on the proximity to the phenomenon. Indeed, the problem of migration is addressed differently in southern European countries (directly involved in Mediterranean migration flows) than in continental or northern ones (Pece & Mangone, 2017). This twofold way of “looking” at the migrant can thus be influenced by the forms through which the narrative is conveyed, by the type of language that the media choose for the construction and representation of an event and by the interpretation keys provided to public opinion. These, in particular, much too often perpetuate stereotyped or overly generalised images. Migrants are now the perpetrator of criminal acts, now the protagonists of dramatic events; this interpretative dichotomy can be associated with the different “positioning” of the media in the treatment and presentation of an event to its target audience.

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Frames (Goffman, 1974) describe the social environment hosting not only the communicative practice but also the interpretation of what is transmitted, with the relative construction of meanings. It is a socially defined reality (itself the result of a previous modified situation) whose level of controllability cannot be defined a priori due to multiple causes (co-presence of issuer/receiver, number of issuers and receivers, interpretation and/or representation, problem of experience and knowledge). In the context of mass communication, it sometimes refers to the agendasetting by the media (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), the simple thematic or ideological framework, or how the information is presented, the choice of the point of view to provide. If one refers strictly to media narratives, Tuchman’s (1978a) definition is particularly interesting. Tuchman understands the frame as a “window on the world” through which individuals can learn about themselves and others, about the way of life of other nations and peoples. Narratives can also be an opening that allows one to see the reality that lies outside the “knowledge at hand” that, according to Schütz (1962), allows individuals to understand and control everyday experience because it acts as a frame of reference. What is actual seen, however, is only a “portion of reality”, i.e., delimited by the frame itself. While the concept of “window on the world” can know different interpretations, here we are interested in the role of negotiation of meanings conveyed to the public, especially about the contents of narratives. The discourse on framing7 recalls a psycho-social perspective stating that individuals change their judgments (and attitudes) when a theme is presented within a specific framework. This not only prompts them to confront that theme but also changes their attitudes. Iyengar and Kinder (1987) define “framing effects” as changes in judgements generated by subtle alterations in the definition of a judgement or the selection of the social problem. It is almost an act of persuasion over various audiences. Framing, therefore, allows audiences to reconstruct social reality according to media-filtered content: a two-way process in which individuals are “stimulated” by the information conveyed by narratives. In the case of prejudice towards others (in this example, migrants), narratives can compete with stereotypical representations of otherness (Mannarini et al., 2020) also constructed in personal interactions, the work environment, or the peer group. Narratives can help in bringing different cultural universes closer together—or, conversely, they can push them further apart. While it is true that the perception of the other may appear distant and that the news may reduce this distance, it is also true that frames, by delimiting a precise image of reality, may impose a careful organisation of the concepts and arguments within them that, from a macro perspective, define the “worldviews” in which the narratives are set. Consequently, the issue is linked to the conception of culture and, therefore, of potentially pre-existing cultural frames that are stimulated and activated. The framing process thus consists in the

7 In Goffman’s (1974) theoretical architecture, frames can be generated through two important “primary transformations”: framing and keying. The former consists of adding or removing frames to one reality to obtain another; the latter refers to the process of transposition that allows another reality to be obtained at the same level.

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emergence of these sets of meanings through references and “cultural resonances” (Gamson, 1992). It follows that the cultural dimension is paramount for the processes of production of meaning. The frame is a multidimensional concept that can be described as the set of oral, visual, and symbolic contents, which, reorganised within a text, constitute a relevant moment in the construction of the meanings (Reese, 2003) of public life. By way of example, I will now analyse the media coverage of an event that came to the forefront of the world’s news concerning the tragedy following one of the many “journeys of hope” that crossed the Mediterranean Sea. I will examine the transformations of the lexical categories adopted by one of the most widely circulated Italian newspapers. Before proceeding, it is worth remembering that Italy, due to its geographical position in the Mediterranean, is the first European Union (EU) country involved in the arrivals of migratory flows. I will address the case of the Syrian child, Aylan, who was found dead on a beach in Turkey while he and his family were trying to escape the war and find refuge in a welcoming country. The “Aylan case” exploded on 3 September 2015, when more than forty European and international newspapers devoted ample space to the story on their front pages (particularly newspapers). The photo of the lifeless body of the child dragged by the sea on the beach aroused strong interest from all the media, emotionally shaking the public opinion. From a comparison of the front pages of the newspapers (Pece & Mangone, 2017) of that day, it seems that Aylan’s story is told mainly by the photo, which is independently able to represent the news. The accompanying captions are limited to the bare essential. The photo of Aylan’s small body lying face down on the sand had a strong dramatic charge, suggesting and upholding the specific representation and interpretation of the story. On it, the narrative, while manifesting a sort of “modesty” towards an event that shook public emotions, drew readers’ attention to a social problem concerning the need to regulate asylum seeker policies in EU countries. With their narratives, the main European newspapers of the time8 directed public opinion not so much towards what the photo itself and what it showed, but towards what the photo represented, i.e., a real problem (the management of migratory flows) that requires intervention and action from a common front (Europe, precisely). Some of the headlines drew the public’s attention to the EU’s responsibilities regarding the emergency of landings and migrant reception policies. The headlines’ content, as well as their narrative, was directed at the inadequacy of the social system and the political world (especially the European one) in offering guarantees and protections to migrants. They highlighted the “fragmentation” of politics: The Times, for example, headlined, “Europe divided”, while The Guardian focused on the crisis (“The shocking, cruel reality

8

The newspapers used in the research (Pece & Mangone, 2017) are Il Corriere della Sera—Italy, Le Monde and Le Figaro—France, El Pais and El Mundo—Spain, The Guardian, The Independent and The Times—the United Kingdom. We should point out that in 2015 the UK was still a member of the European Union, withdrawing at 23:00 on the 31 January 2020.

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of Europe’s refugee crisis”), which calls for a response and a common and cohesive intervention among the various member states. Aylan’s dramatic event is the expression of social reality that, when included in the media circuit, had a twofold output. On the one hand, it provoked emotional reactions; on the other, it brought back at the centre of the public debate crucial issues on the management of migratory flows. In the narration of this event, one can glimpse two different framings. On the one hand, the personalisation of the news, whereby Aylan is not “a child who died during a sea crossing”, but the child who seems to embody and bring under the spotlight all the migrants’ dramatic stories of life (but above all, death). The distance between “us” and “them” is shortened, allowing for glimpsing a new perspective based on positive attitudes towards others and social inclusion. On the other hand, Aylan becomes the symbol for a not-sosubtle j’accuse towards a socio-political system incapable of facing an emergency. Social changes can also contribute to generating profound mutations in the lexicon of a language. In some cases, the change is linked to the emergence of a new social sensibility, theme, or problem that is brought to the attention of public opinion in such a way as to contribute to modifying the forms and ways of looking at social reality. Although the object of reference remains unchanged, the lexicon may undergo variations suggesting new perspectives of meaning. It is equally true, however, that lexical changes often translate into a mere rhetorical exercise (politically correct language) unable to delve deep into the social reality they describe or transform how individuals relate to others or things. In the case of migration, it is still unclear whether the lexical variations on the representation of the issue can be ascribed to a real change in attitude (or opinion) on the part of individuals, or generically to a temporary “trend”. In other words, in the case of migrants, it is still unclear under which categories the individuals who land on the coasts of Italy with makeshift means hoping to improve their living conditions—despite being fully aware of the high risk of dying at sea—are framed. On the issue, I analysed the frequency of occurrences of the different categories used to indicate migrants in the articles of one of the most popular9 Italian newspapers for a 30-year period (1990–2019). The research (Mangone, 2020) shows a marked variation in the terms used (Chart 8.1). The narrative modalities and the uses of some categories (and words) by the Italian media on migration and its protagonists appear, for some aspects, to have changed over time. It is, however, not possible to state with certainty whether a variation in the language corresponds to a real (or partial) change in the narrative and, therefore, in the public opinion’s point of view towards the migration phenomenon and its protagonists.

9

The choice of the newspaper is motivated by the following reasons: la Repubblica is one of the most read newspapers in Italy, it has a free consultation archive, and its site is the most popular among national newspapers. See https://it.semrush.com/blog/quali-sono-siti-notizie-piu-visitati-initalia-ricerca-semrush/ (retrieved on January 6, 2020). The terms of the categories were as follows: “apolidi” [stateless persons]; “clandestini” [irregular migrants]; “extracomunitari” [non-EU migrants]; “immigrati” [immigrants]; “migranti” [migrants]; “profughi” [evacuee]; “richiedenti asilo” [asylum-seekers]; “rifugiati” [refugees]; “sfollati” [displaced persons].

23

11

1990/1999

2000/2009

2010/2019

980

2561

660

Clandestini [irregular migrant]

546

1663

481

Extracomunitari [non-Eu migrant]

3869

5234

1270

Immigrati [immigrants]

4037

653

15

Migranti [migrants]

1541

355

339

Profughi [evacuee]

825

157

12

Richiedenti asilo [asylum seekers]

1133

353

144

Rifugiati [refugees]

Chart 8.1 A three-decades comparison (1990–2019) of terms in the Italian newspaper la Repubblica. Source: Author’s elaboration

Apolidi [stateless people] 5

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

52

31

16

Sfollati [displaced persons]

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8 Social Reality and Narratives Between Interpretations and Metaphors

The research sheds light on an interesting aspect of these media representations: the change in the categories employed. Between 2000 and 2009, La Repubblica spoke of “immigration”, associating this term mainly with the words “immigrant” (immigrati), “irregular migrants” (clandestini) and “non-EU migrants” (extracomunitari). Over the years, the newspaper kept using the term “immigrants” but, at the same time, it increasingly added the term “migrants”, which has a broader perspective. There is a difference in meaning between these two categories. According to the Glossary of the European Commission (European Commission, 2017), “migrant” indicates a condition, or status, according to which individuals move and, therefore, migrate (voluntarily or forcibly) from their country of origin to settle in another. However, the same Glossary uses “migrant” also to refer to people who “move” for reasons related to their profession (labour migration). The “migrant” is, therefore, in continuous movement, a condition that suggests an ongoing action and that may imply, as in the case of migrant workers, an existing link with their country of origin. For its part, “immigrant” indicates someone who has left his or her country of origin to settle permanently in another country. Although the terms are often used interchangeably in everyday language, it is not only a nuance of meaning that distinguishes them but also an element linked to the temporal dimension, i.e., the duration of an individual’s presence in a given country. “Migrant” become “immigrants” when their stay becomes stable and long-lasting. If the data show an oscillation in the use of certain categories, this does not exclude that the narratives of the migration phenomenon and its actors may have remained roughly constant. Although some studies have found that the migration phenomenon has been associated with the binomial emergency-security, it is equally true that the role of media frames can contribute (or not) to creating new interpretative frameworks of a given phenomenon or reinforcing existing ones by proposing to the public themes and social issues on which to construct (or de-construct) its own perception or social representation (Ganz, 2011). The linguistic component, therefore, is intrinsic in the construction of media frames as frames of meaning for social reality and, as such, they draw individuals into their worldview (Lakoff, 2004). As cultural products, they mediate the relationship of individuals with reality, whereby images of reality and practical experience itself are formed within contexts transmitted by culture, which is closely linked to communication, both as information conveyed by the media and as narratives. The dramatic episode of Aylan’s death and the transformations in the Italian lexicon regarding the categories to indicate migrants offer examples of a media representation of the immigrant that includes both a positive and a negative perspective. The former builds on the concept of inclusion, welcome and integration of the other; the latter, instead, consolidates stereotyped and negative images, based on the juxtaposition “migrant-criminal” towards which public opinion turns hostile. Although a homogeneous information coverage emerges (above all, for the “Aylan case”), both examples confirm, once again, that there is no unique or single narrative on the migration phenomenon. It is especially true for Europe, whose differences depend on territorial realities, which determine not only the definition of the political agendas of different countries—creating disparities based on the

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proximity to the problem—but also promotes stereotypes in public opinion that lead to negative or “closed” value orientations towards others.

8.3

Narratives as a “Deforming Mirror” of Social Reality

Given the new tools and forms of communication, to explain and understand sociocultural phenomena, it is necessary to investigate the relationship between knowledge and social life. Mannheim maintained that “there are modes of thought which cannot be adequately understood as long as their social origins are obscured. [...] Nevertheless it would be false to deduce from this that all the ideas and sentiments which motivate an individual have their origin in him alone, and can be adequately explained solely on the basis of his own life experience” (Mannheim, 1954/1929, p. 2). it can be argued that this also applies to the evolution of the system of thought about risk and migration (the two cases considered). In the 1960s and 1970s, in the wake of the social movements of that time, the dominant system of ideas (or ideology if this term is understood in the real sense of historical-social meaning identified by Mannheim) was focused on “emancipation” (diversified in Western countries and scarcely present in other geographical areas). Today, it seems, we are faced with a system of ideas that is almost “reclamation”. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, many voices condemned the restriction of personal freedom—see Agamben’s “state of exception” (2005/2003). In the case of migrants, the reference is to personal and community safety. The narration of the two cases presented here is inherently highly rhetoric (Phelan, 1996), a feature accentuated by the communication forms adopted and the widespread use of the media. As I already mentioned, narratives inevitably produce conceptual ambiguities and “perverse effects” (Boudon, 1982/1977). As Ricœur stated regarding the interpretation of the “symbol [that] gives rise to thought” (1959), and Thompson argued on the local appropriation of information (1995), narratives are affected by a conflict of interpretation. Transposing the symbolic axis of global diffusion vs. local appropriation to the two cases presented above, one sees that it is characterised by the acquisition of information and other artefacts (images, videos, etc.) in ways that are typical of the globalised society to be then interpreted and processed in the specific places where individuals experience their daily lives—usually aiming at the consolidation of pre-existing values and beliefs, as well as cultural models. In the analysis of narration (production, dissemination, appropriation), the dimensions of space and time cannot be overlooked. The world of narratives is always temporally and spatially situated. After all, humanity, in the era of technology (Gehlen, 1980) and the current global society, has changed the meanings of both actions and the objects on which said actions, together with their consequences, are reflected. “No previous ethics had to consider the global condition of human life and the far-off future, even existence, of the race. These now being an issue demands, in brief, a new conception of duties and rights, for which previous ethics and metaphysics provide not even the principles, let alone a ready

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doctrine” (Jonas, 1984/1979, p. 8). But what are the mechanisms that promote social change? Knowledge enables the development of systems of ideas, communication their dissemination. It is, therefore, easy to see how narrative (in its two modes of knowing and communicating) is paramount for societal transform. Quite probably, there is not necessarily a constant opposition (ideology vs. utopia), as defined by Mannheim.10 Rather, these two processes merge or, in some cases, an ideology emerges from a “utopian” attempt. If we apply to this situation Merton’s (1949) two “mottos” the narration of social problems is closer to the first one: “We do not know whether what we say is true, but it is at least significant” (1949, p. 140). Both the cases presented are nowadays pervasive issues. However, this is not the only problem since—as we have seen—there is also great difficulty in agreeing on terminology. Furthermore, in the case of migration, language changes according to the policies adopted by the country of reference (Mangone, 2022). If these phenomena are so pervasive and bring with them some conceptual ambiguities, it is also because the narratives, conveyed mainly by the mass media, have constructed them in this way, misrepresenting the phenomena to a significant extent both in terms of the amount of coverage that is dedicated to specific related events and the univocity of the narrative frames. The narration of these phenomena—but, in truth, narratives in general—can often be considered a “deforming mirror” of social reality as it operates a selection on the culture typical of the social environment in which it is disseminated. It emphasises certain themes, concepts, or mental categories and forgets others (and makes them be forgotten). It does not merely reflect the existing values in society but, while not creating new ones, it modifies the relative hierarchy of those already in place, reinforcing those it promotes and emptying of meaning those it ignores. To further explain, I will borrow the concept of “symbolic annihilation”, first used by Gerbner (Gerbner & Gross, 1976) to indicate that the absence of representation or the under-representation of events or certain groups in the media is a means of maintaining social inequalities. Tuchman (1978b) later took up this concept and applied it to media criticism in the field of feminism to describe how media messages about women or queers promote stereotypes and deny specific identities. This approach—articulated in omission, trivialisation, and condemnation—not only vilifies communities of identity but actively works to make their members invisible through explicit lack of representation in all forms of narratives or by turning them into scapegoats for society’s problems. In the case of migrants, for

Mannheim promoted the overcoming of relativism by arriving at “relationalism”, basing this passage on knowledge. He believed that it was possible to relate the styles of thought with the worldview of the strata in which they develop allowing what he called “unmasking” (1954/1929). With the concept of “ideology”, Mannheim referred to the beliefs and ideas of the dominant groups, which—in many cases—hid the real state of society through its conservative function. Conversely, the concept of “utopia” determined an opposite condition: some subordinate groups that are so committed to the distribution and transformation of a given social condition that they can see only those elements they oppose. In both cases, social groups are incapable of making a correct diagnosis of the society they refer to.

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example, these are often represented in roles linked to security stereotypes (criminals, thieves, and/or rapists). In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is enough to mention once again the accusations of “spreaders” to runners or dog owners. Narratives not only produce symbolism that contributes to the self-construction of identities; they also provide objective and relational models of identification on which to base interactions. Although I am aware that my contribution to the studies on framing effects is tiny, beyond the existence or otherwise of effective schemes for explaining the consequences of narratives on social change, it is clear that we need to be more sensitive to the (often stereotypical) models of behaviour that are proposed daily through the different forms of narration because they participate in the production of values, languages and reference models that need to be conveyed in a less conflictual and more equal direction. To summarise, the narratives of the COVID-19 pandemic and the migratory flows in the Mediterranean highlight two orders of issues to be addressed: hypermediation and immediacy. The first refers to the use of different types of media that integrate different communication plans and languages (film, icon, text, sound); the second refers to the immediacy of the news, that is, the (immediate) response that the mass media try to offer to various audiences, conveyed in ways that allow the communicator to come into direct contact with public opinion. These two issues contribute to the creation of moral panic: a greater “closeness” to the events narrated corresponds to a greater identification, which can turn into a perception of threat and danger to one’s safety. The case studies presented have once again shown how much in concrete terms, narratives can influence public opinion and, therefore, the daily life choices of individuals.

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Chapter 9

Narrative Analysis and Future Research Perspectives

Abstract Narratives not only produce symbolism that contributes to the selfconstruction of identities, but they also provide objective and relational models of identification on which to base interactions. At the same time, they can be a “deforming mirror” of the very social reality they construct. For narrative analysis, it is, therefore, necessary to consider an integrated interweaving of factors, disciplines, and methodologies, because it opens new horizons to study the construction processes of both identity and social reality and, consequently, the motives behind the actions of individuals or groups. The narrative analysis allows us to understand how individuals use different ways of narrating to attribute meaning and sense to events and experiences. Therefore, although narrative analysis (with its different models) has been slow to take hold in the social sciences, it is to be hoped that its future developments will affect not only the private but also the public sphere of the individual. Keywords Narrative analysis · Integral method · Methods · Research perspectives · Narratives

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Models of Narrative Analysis

Narratives can be a “deforming mirror” of social reality because they do not present neutral accounts (i.e., they do not reproduce the event or events as they happened), but interpretations. It is not my intention to argue what is “truth” (classical philosophy)—and yet, I must acknowledge that, as stated by Maddalena and Gili, this concept has been strongly rethought: “Throughout the twentieth century, [...], the concept of truth itself was subjected to a progressive critique and dismantling. This second development has played a fundamental role in the emergence of post-truth” (2020, pp. 46–47). The concept of post-truth, which should be considered in its definition of: “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping political debate or public opinion than appeals to emotion and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Mangone, Narratives and Social Change, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94565-7_9

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personal belief”1 (OED, 2020), brings the discourse back to Merton’s two mottos (Merton, 1949). Merton fails to provide a definitive answer to the question of the influence of the social structure on knowledge—that is, finding a common ground between positions ranging from the idea that the genesis of thought has no necessary relation to its validity to extremely relativistic ones in which “truth” is only a function of the social or cultural base. However, he does propose the only possible answer: all culturally accepted theories have the right to be considered valid on a par with any other theory. This means that even if opinions (ideas about things) are contradictory, they are at the same time equivalent (all true). This condition, however, does not prevent them from being modified. Obviously, such modification cannot aim at the truth, since all opinions are equally true, but must go towards the enhancement of private or public utility. And here I inevitably return to classical philosophy, since making people understand the usefulness of things was precisely the task of sophists (who were paid for it). Their arts for achieving this (modification of opinions, persuasion) were rhetoric and dialectic—both characteristics of narrative. So, I chose not to get into the age-old controversy of “What is truth?” Rather, I want to muse on what underlies this debate: “What is social reality and how do human beings know it?” and, above all, “What is its connection to the actions of individuals?” If we start from the assumption underlying Thomas’ theorem—“if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928, p. 572), i.e., that human actions only make sense if we are aware that all meanings are constructed on the information and knowledge through which individuals organise and interpret experience—then narration fulfils its function of interpretation. Moreover, as Hannah Arendt (1961) stated, narrative re-actualises the past in a future perspective because it preserves the memory of actions over time, allowing them to become models to be imitated and/or overcome. If I recall Mills (1959), as Riessman did (1993, 2005), narrative analysis creates connections between personal biography and social structure (the personal and the political), resulting in the plurality of praxis (action) that characterises all political life (Arendt, 1958). Individual lives cannot be understood without understanding society and vice versa, so Mills argued. He also claimed that individuals, and therefore also social researchers, need a quality of mind that helps them achieve a lucid synthesis of what is happening and what can happen to the individual and the world. He called it the sociological imagination, which “enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions. Within that welter, the framework of modern society is sought, and within that framework the psychologies of a variety of men and women are formulated. By such means the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the

1

OED Third Edition, June 2003; latest version published online December 2020.

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indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues. The first fruit of this imagination—and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it— is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances” (Mills, 1959, p. 5). In other words, the sociological imagination allows scholars to move from one perspective to another, grasping what is happening in the world and, at the same time, understanding what is happening to themselves and individuals as intersections between their personal biography and the history of society. The narrative analysis thus requires an integrated mix of factors, disciplines, and methodologies of investigation. Ideally, it would be a single integrated system of knowledge that pays attention to all aspects of the transformation of society in a holistic sense (personality, society, and culture) including the reflexivity on the activities of the researcher himself (Merton, 1980). Given the increasingly complex current scenario, in which the definition of the territory to which the actions of individuals are directed is less and less precise (also due to the pervasiveness of the mass media and the effects of globalisation processes), one could rightfully assume the need for a continuous increase in knowledge. In a nutshell, narratives represent ways of knowing and communicating (Hinchman & Hinchman, 1997) and range from oral narratives of personal experiences or social narratives of events involving entire communities, to media narratives. The very peculiarities of narrative phenomena push researchers to use certain methods and research tools rather than others. Indeed, “Narrative analysis rarely provides strict guidelines for researchers that tell them where to look for stories, how to identify them, how to obtain them, or what aspects of them they should investigate” (Esin et al., 2014, p. 206). The difference often lies in the type of processing and treatment that is carried out on the information thus obtained. It is not my intention here to identify the tools with which to carry out narrative studies and analyses, but to emphasise that for this type of analysis quantitative studies should be left out—at least in part—due to the specific nature of the object of study: interactions cannot be reduced exclusively to numbers or tests. Instead, it is necessary to identify what the interactions mean to individuals in terms of attitudes, lifestyles and cultural patterns. From the point of view of methods and techniques, the identification of these meanings may well entail ethnographic studies—that turn into netnographic studies (Kozinets, 2010, 2015). They may aim at observing the social interactions of parts of populations within different cultures or different subcultures within the same social system, or, for a shorter range, to study restricted social contexts (e.g., some closed social communities). Needless to say, the choice depends on the researchers’ discipline of reference, their research hypothesis, and the funds available. However, all these conditions disregard the fact that some issues can only be studied through a qualitative methodology. Riessman (2005) describes the models of analysis of the narratives of personal experiences as thematic, structural, interactional and performative analysis, later recast as thematic, structural, dialogic-performative, and visual analysis (Riessman, 2008). These models are neither hierarchical nor exclusionary. In general, all of them

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must be able to answer the following four questions: “(1) how the concept of narrative is used; (2) how data are constructed into text for analysis with attention to language and form, if present; (3) the unit of analysis (or focus) in each investigation; and (4) the investigator’s attention to contexts, local to societal (micro and macro)” (Riessman, 2008, p. 54), all while keeping the “stories” intact for interpretative purposes. However, determining the boundaries of stories can be difficult for them to function socially to create belonging and group actions such as, for example, the collective actions of social movements. The thematic analysis emphasises the “What”, i.e., on the content of the narrative, be it oral, textual, or visual. It does not consider the “How” of Kipling’s model; language is both the protagonist and the instrument through which the meaning of the event being told is conveyed. Thematic analysis is suitable for a wide range of narrative forms; it can be applied to stories engendered by the interactions between two or more individuals or to those found in written documents. It should be remembered that narratives’ effects go well beyond their meanings for individuals (narrators and/or spectators) by generating collective identities (group membership) and collective actions. Structural analysis shifts the focus from what is told to the way of telling it—or, in a way, from the narrator to the narration itself, particularly to the form of its content. An event (what happened) can be narrated in many different ways, especially if the aim is persuasion, which profusely uses symbolic expressions: “First of all, there is a prodigious variety of genres” (Barthes, 1975/1966, p. 237). Lobov and Waletsky tried to sketch a structural model of narratives (particularly for oral ones) based on a specific sequence: (1) Abstract; (2) Orientation; (3) Complicating action; (4) Evaluation; (5) Result; (6) Coda—since narratives are “one method of recapitulating past experience by matching verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events that actually occurred” (Labov & Waletsky, 1997/1966, p. 12). This model fits literature well but is less appropriate for the theoretical question of life as a narrative because it has difficulty focusing on both local and social contexts (power relations and cultural discourses that contextualise the whole narrative). The dialogic-performative analysis, “is not equivalent to thematic and structural, but rather a broad and varied interpretive approach to oral narrative that makes selective use of elements of the other two methods and adds other dimensions. It interrogates how talk among speakers is interactively (dialogically) produced and performed as narrative. More than the previous two, this one requires close reading of contexts, including the influence of investigator, setting, and social circumstances on the production and interpretation of narrative” (Riessman, 2008, p. 105). The two previous types of analysis (thematic and structural) focused on “What” and “How”, respectively. This type, instead, turns to purposes and, therefore, to “Who”, “When” and “Why”—Lasswell’s (1948) three remaining Ws. Narratives are spatially and temporally situated, and they are linked to the specific historical and cultural context of an individual or group. It is the individual himself, through his daily interactions, who constructs social reality and his very identity—as per the teachings of phenomenology and its two branches of symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. In every situation, individuals “stage” a representation of the self (Goffman, 1959)

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through continuous negotiations that take place through communication. Indeed, Goffman argues that “What talkers undertake to do is not to provide information to a recipient but to present dramas to an audience. Indeed, it seems that we spend more of our time not engaged in giving information but in giving shows” (1974, p. 508–509). In other words, identities are situated and realised with the audience in mind and the resulting performances are all set up for others. The spectators’ response, therefore, (whether listeners or readers) is involved in the art of storytelling itself. Interpretation takes into account the historical and cultural context, the audience of the narrative, and the changes in the position of the interpreter. Intersubjectivity and reflexivity are in the foreground as there is also a dialogue between the researcher and the object/subject of the research. The research relationship becomes an “account” (Orbuch, 1997) with readers as the audience, who shape meaning through their interpretations: as narrative sociology emphasise, sociologists are “storytellers” (Merton, 1980). This, however, implies that researchers need to be explicit about their working methods, i.e., how they arrived at certain interpretations (rather than others) from the characteristics of narrative and context. The evolution of communication systems—starting with the introduction of the so-called old media (especially television)—has also introduced extra-textual experiences (photographs, performance art, videos, and other media). Narrative genres have increased, now including iconic ones whose images can transform feelings into passions to the point of nullifying the critical spirit of the individual. This has broadened the scenarios of narrative research, which was previously limited only to spoken and written discourse and is now also open to other forms of communication, including those realised through images—and, therefore, to visual analysis. The methods are the same as the other forms of analysis with the difference that, in this case, they are applied to images that are interpreted together with the spoken and written text, providing—as in the case of dialogic-performative analysis—a wide interpretive spectrum. Visual narrative analysis is developing rapidly, hence the need for some precautions when carrying it out, to avoid naive interpretations. Interpretation is a constant process and in the case of images, just as with text or speech, there are multiple interpretations, all spatially and temporally situated since they refer to a fragment of experience. In the process of recomposing social events (correspondence between an image and an idea, and vice versa)—understood as narration—images lose their immaterial character by acquiring an independent physical existence: images become real factors rather than factors of thought. The narrative analysis opens new horizons for studying the construction processes of identity and social reality and, consequently, the motives behind the actions of individuals or groups. It allows us to understand how individuals use different ways of narrating to give shape (narrative), sense and meaning to events and experiences. Even though narrative analysis has been slow to take hold in the social sciences, I strongly hope for major developments in the analysis of these relationships that concern not only the private but also the public sphere of the individual.

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Towards an “Integral Method” for Narrative Analysis

Narrative research can be strengthened through cross-discipline connections, hence the crucial search for a “transdisciplinary” perspective—by which I do not mean a super-discipline but a new interdisciplinary approach that can raise knowledge to higher stages. This new over-arching perspective would not merely achieve reciprocal interactions between specialised research but situate these connections within a single system without stable borders between disciplines (Piaget, 1972). The multidimensionality of everyday problems and the rapid transformations of society urge researchers and scholars to re-compose the different viewpoints and perspectives and start a real cooperation. It is necessary to open a dialogue that overcomes the “formal” disciplinary and terminological barriers, which in the case of narrative studies are very pronounced. For this reason, I agree with Lazlo’s statement that different “Disciplines in science are artefacts; they are artificial. They are often necessary, but not always a satisfactory limitation on the number of observations and the number of facts that one takes into account. There are no boundaries in nature that correspond one to one with the boundaries of disciplines. For example life is not necessarily limited to biology, it’s also obviously evident in sociology and psychology. It also appears in the cosmos. The way we can think about evolution is not limited to one kind of system. It appears from the big bang onwards all the way up to the evolution of consciousness, the evolution of the whole cosmos at the same time. So disciplines are a necessary self-restriction in science, but they should be considered as permeable, as transferrable and expandable boundaries that one keeps to as long as they are useful. When we can get over these boundaries, then it’s an improvement when you manage to overcome them” (Marturano, 2013). Only from the permeability and flexibility of the boundaries of the individual disciplines is it conceivable to achieve knowledge free from positivism (principle of causality) and oriented towards understanding the meaning and significance of the actions of individuals. Approaches to the study of everyday life as a narrative, and the related methodologies adopted, must not only be oriented towards the integration of the subjective and objective dimensions but must also consider the transdisciplinary aspects that push towards an integrated system of knowledge. The need to move towards an integrated system of knowledge in the study of social and cultural phenomena is inherent in the very complexity of phenomena themselves. Following the logic of qualitative/quantitative integration (Branner, 2016) means that different methods are not on opposite poles but offer the opportunity to observe from “different angles” aspects of the phenomenon under analysis, thus allowing us to better read it, improving our understanding. True, the analysis of narratives usually veers more towards qualitative methods. However, several reasons support the use of different methods of analysis. First, the very desire to integrate the objective and subjective dimensions of narratives; second, the impossibility of using a single method to be able to study social and cultural phenomena as complex as narratives which, besides culture, intersect with many other variables. Considering the intersection of all these

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different factors in the everyday lives of individuals means abandoning the question of what the single aspects are and shifting the focus to how they allow space for further expressions of identity through narratives. Hence, the need for an integrated methodology for the study of social changes whose consequences and causes cannot be attributed to a single variable, but to multiple interconnected factors (individual, social, and cultural). For the study of narratives, it is, therefore, necessary to consider an integrated interweaving of factors, disciplines, and investigative tools. We should bring together sociological knowledge with that of the other social sciences in a single integrated system of knowledge that must focus on all aspects of the transformation of society without neglecting the reflexivity towards the activities of the researchers. The complexity of the object of study, “forces”, so to speak, researchers to confront themselves with different methods and techniques of investigation that belong to different approaches, but that, once integrated, allow for a more accurate analysis. Having explained the motivations behind the use of an “integral method” for the study of narratives-related phenomena, it remains to be specified that the integration of methods also implies the integration of the tools to be used for the investigation. In some cases, however, it is not possible to use some of the classic tools of qualitative analysis (observation, interviews, documentary analysis, etc.), so it is the very peculiarity of the narrative that prompts researchers to use some research tools rather than others. In this case, the type of data processing and treatment that follows the collection phase is decisive. There are two main systems to collect data and information about a social or individual phenomenon: observation and questioning. However, some cases exclude direct observation, thus leaving the researcher with no alternative but to turn to questioning to explore motivations, attitudes, feelings, perceptions and expectations about the behaviour of subjects. The complexity of socio-cultural phenomena (such as narratives) is not new to the social sciences. Indeed, it was already known at the very inception of sociology (studying the whole and not the parts). It follows that studying narratives implies a shift from the order of explaining (erklären) to that of understanding (verstehen): the search for the why of phenomena should no longer refer to a cause, but to a meaning that can represent the key to understanding the dynamics of the interaction between individuals and society. Researchers, in their narrative analysis, beyond the models and instruments used, cannot overlook two fundamental problems: (1) time and space are constituent elements of the processes of social interaction (temporal and spatial dimensions), but they are also two central categories of and for narrative analysis. The daily experiences of individuals can be perceived both in their continuous unfolding (observation) and in their flowing within the unity of the single experience and situation, which is connected to Goffman’s concept of script and framing (1959, 1974); (2) narrative analysis cannot leave out the three levels of analysis of the social sciences and specifically of sociology (Collins, 1988). These are [differentiated into] (a) the macro-social level, relating to social systems and their forms of organisation; (b) the micro-social level, relating to the individual/society relationship and social actions, i.e., to interacting human beings and their components (body, mind, and soul); (c) the meso-social level, relating to the relationships

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between the social system and the world of life, the latter being understood as the set of meanings (cognitive, values, and norms) and representations of culture (physics and symbolics) that enable human beings to interact. Applying an “integral method” that holds together the three levels of analysis and combines all the variables and factors involved in the phenomenon of narratives implies an intellectual activity that goes beyond discipline-related points of view and methods of investigation (qualitative and quantitative). What holds it all together is interpretation—the process implicit in every narrative—as individuals are agents of interaction in the world of everyday life and organisations (correlation of interpretations). The prevailing empirical content of social science knowledge does not always solve the problem of its practical translatability. Similarly, it does not explain the ambivalent role of the researcher (Valsiner, 2017), who is at the same time actor and observer of the investigated phenomenon—and even more so when the research object is narratives. These aspects prompt the researcher to ask what are the most suitable methods and tools that relate theory and action with the intersection of multiple variables. As Homans stated (1967), research activities are a tool to broaden the capacity to describe, explain and understand phenomena, and then to predict them. An “integral method” does not want to confuse knowledge and action; instead, it bridges the different levels and models of narrative analysis. It is, therefore, necessary to review and redefine the paradigms of sociology and other social sciences towards the integration of the different dimensions (macro, meso, and micro). The narrative turn in the social sciences (Berger & Quinney, 2004; Raine, 2013) has certainly outlined an important moment in this evolutionary phase of social science paradigms. On these latter aspects, it is necessary to keep open the door to free and autonomous scientific reflection, without thinking of drawing conclusions. I do not wish to “enclose” or “pen” it within boundaries (as per the etymology of the verb “to conclude” which derives from the Latin cum and claudere) as I well understand that these terms do not fit in with the reflections presented on narratives and narrative analysis. No discourse on narratives (neither theoretical nor empirical) is being brought to an end; no theorisation is closed or about to reach its final point, far from it. I wish to reiterate the need for an “openness” between different disciplines within the social sciences and humanities, which through dialogue can prompt towards the integration of knowledge systems—from the less complex to the more complex, and vice versa. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the social sciences will soon develop an “integrated method”, without denying the autonomy of the individual disciplines (sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc.) but at the same time abandoning the excessive self-referentiality that pens all knowledge within their individual reference frameworks and paradigms. This new approach should become reflexive knowledge capable of promoting the construction of links in the living environments of individuals and between individuals (individual and collective empowerment).

9.3 Future Research Perspectives

9.3

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Future Research Perspectives

Narratives oscillate between the exchange of information and the symbolic action on the other, thus embodying some ambiguity—indeed observed since its definition. Individual interactions are problematic because individual people’s attitudes and actions are influenced by several multidimensional factors. Among these, the two most crucial are, on the one hand, culture, and, on the other, the indissoluble link with the individual’s biography. We thus switch from an approach to the study of narratives aimed at searching for a cause (causality) to one focusing on the overall interactions between individual, social and environmental variables (relationality). It follows that, as already stated, no theorisation is closed or reaching its endpoint, and the new research designs concerning narratives must be configured as a laboratory for methodological experimentation aimed at developing an “integral method”. Research activities not only contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge on the topics investigated but, as Bourdieu (2013) argues, they must also take on the function of “public service”, accompanying social innovation processes in terms of tools, organisation and governance. It is, therefore, no longer sufficient for researchers to possess only the sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), i.e., that quality of mind that helps them develop a synthesis of what has happened, is happening and can happen. The challenge posed by the continuous changes in society, which is increasingly moving towards globalisation, prompts the identification of a “new sociological imagination” (Fuller, 2006; Solis-Gadea, 2005) that aims at the discovery of human beings as interacting beings. This “new sociological imagination” can be traced back to the “integral method” described above. Interactions trigger symbolic mediation (reflexivity) between human subjectivity and social systems; they also determine the development of that knowledge which leads to the definition and promotion of needs, rights, and duties within a social system. This new perspective requires a knowledge acquisition process that makes individuals and their social organisations adept at identifying and mediating their personal interests, combining “cultural goals” and “legitimate means” (Merton, 1949). In this logic, research activities are developed through different methodologies that can usually be distinguished into qualitative and quantitative. The former methods collect and analyse qualitative data: in-depth interviews, focus groups, discursive interviews with privileged witnesses, ethnographic observation (Dumez, 2016). The latter, instead, work with quantitative data (Maxim, 1999): official statistical sources, surveys, questionnaires, etc. These methods cannot exist one without the other, nor do they necessarily find themselves on opposite poles in narrative analysis. Following one does not mean forsaking the other since both offer the opportunity to look at narratives from different perspectives, allowing scholars to better read their complexity. The inherent complexity of narrative phenomena drives the need to move towards methods that best enable the enrichment of our knowledge about them. The methodology, however, does not stop at the integration of methods—today we speak of mixed methods (Watkins & Gioia, 2015)—but goes far beyond that because the contingent hypercomplexity of contemporary society

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cannot disregard a critical sense of the phenomena. It is particularly poignant in the current historical phase, with its shift from the network society (Castells, 1996) to the platform society (van Dijck et al., 2018). The former is characterised by the consequences of technological innovation and a change in capitalist structures, as well as by cultural transformations based on individual freedom and social autonomy through which to express identity. In the latter, platforms (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet-Google, and Amazon, hence the acronym FAMGA) are the places where narratives are developed because they create a kind of new ecosystem2 that cannot be overlooked in narrative studies. The advent of the platform society has entailed the transformation of one-to-one, or one-to-many, or many-to-many relationships and interactions. Consequently, it also prompted the redefinition of paradigms more suited to study an ever-changing society. The pervasiveness of the mass media—particularly of the computer that, from a mainframe has become first personal, then portable, and then smart—has transformed from an object of study to a communication tool. Such a tool also inspires social research through a variety of techniques gathered under the umbrella term “digital research methods”3 (Rogers, 2013). It follows that these two revolutionary aspects for scientific research in the social sphere (the advent of the platform society and the use of digital research methods) must be considered an essential combination to outline a research design capable of both explaining and understanding social phenomena. After all, every society has brought with it its own way of knowing and communicating (e.g., Positivism), and so does the platform society. Narratives are no longer just an object of study for literary research. They are now of interest for many disciplines, including applicative fields such as work organisations (Czarniawska, 2004). Narrative analysis, while being always carried out through the various models presented above, offers multiple interpretations linked to human experience—be it that of individuals or groups. Beyond the disciplines and approaches adopted, the application of the Kipling method (5W1H) is paramount for narrative analysis because narratives are marked not only by the communicative event itself but also by how individuals or groups communicate and their temporal and spatial dimensions. This allows us to overcome Chatman’s (1975) distinction between “What” and “How”, as well as Ewick and Silbey’s (1995) specific rules on the social organisation of narration (what, when, how, and why). The narrative analysis must aim to understand how “narrators”—individuals or collectives, citizens or institutions—use narratives for the affirmation of their selves, their social position, and their identities, juggling narratives and counter-narratives (which are still narratives but in contrast to the others). In conclusion, narratives are closely linked to agency and are socially constructed by the interaction between 2

These transformations also defined a new research perspective: media ecology (Strate, 2004). It offers an additional key to interpreting narrative phenomena because it does not focus merely on the medium but considers the relationships between the micro and macro aspects of social life interconnected thanks to digital media. 3 This term refers to the set of techniques and methodologies using the web to acquire information, i.e., all those tools that exploit the mediation of the internet for data collection.

References

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interpersonal, social, and cultural relations. They also enable the construction of social reality and, thus configured, give rise to multiple interpretations. The narrative analysis must consider as its unit of analysis not only the story itself but also how it is told (and/or written or translated into images), making sense to both the teller and the listener/reader (or viewer), including the researchers and the research audience (Esin et al., 2014). Clarifying these elements and arriving at one of many interpretations is what characterises narrative analysis.

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