Page 154 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

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Narrative A narrative is a story or ordered sequential account of events. However,
narratives are more than a simple record of occurrences for they offer us frameworks
of understanding and rules of reference about the way the social order is
constructed. That is, narratives supply answers to the question, how shall we live?
Narrative theory concerns the form, pattern or structure by which stories are
constructed and told. Since texts tell stories, whether that is Einstein’s theory of
relativity, Hall’s theory of identity or the latest episode of The Simpsons, narrative
theory plays a part in cultural studies.
Though stories take different forms and utilize a variety of characters, subject
matters and narrative structures (or ways of telling a story), structuralist theory has
concerned itself with the common features of story formation. According to
structuralism, narrative minimally concerns the disruption of equilibrium and the
tracing of the consequences of the said disruption until a new equilibrium is
achieved. For example, an established soap opera couple is shown in a loving
embrace as a prelude to the later revelation that one of them is having an affair. The
question posed is, will this spell the end of the relationship?
Not only can one generate theory about narratives, but also theory can itself be
understood in narrative terms. That is, theory can be grasped as narratives that seek
to account for perceived occurrences. Since knowledge is not merely a matter of
collecting facts from which theory can be deduced or against which it can be tested,
so no amount of stacking up of empirical data produces a story about our lives
without theory, that is, narrative form.
While narratives are rationales for courses of action and meaning they are also at
the heart of self-identity. That is, identity is understood as a story of and about the
self. Given the fractured or multiple character of identity, what we think of as our self
– the ‘I’ of dialogue – can be grasped as a post hoc narrative we construct for and about
ourselves. Further, though we may feel our personal narratives to be highly particular,
they are not simply matters of individual interpretation. Rather, they are always
already a part of the wider cultural repertoire of narratives, discursive explanations,
resources and maps of meaning available to members of cultures. The requirements
for telling an intelligible story about us are culturally moulded; that is, to possess an
intelligible self requires a borrowing from a cultural repository of narrative forms.
Links Identity, meaning, multiple identities, soap opera, structuralism, theory

National identity A national identity is a form of imaginative identification with the
nation-state as expressed through symbols and discourses. Thus, nations are not

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