What is Public Narrative?
Public narrative is a way of linking the power of narrative to the work of leadership by learning to tell a story of self, story of us, and story of now. Leadership is defined as “accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose under conditions of uncertainty.” Narrative is a way we can access the emotional resources embedded in our values to transform threats to which we react fearfully into challenges to which we can respond hopefully and engage. Narrative is grounded in specific story moments in which a protagonist is confronted with a disruption for which s/he is not prepared, the choice s/he makes in response, and the resulting outcome. Because we can identify empathetically with the protagonist, we experience the emotional content of the moment, the values on which the protagonist draws to respond. The “moral” of the story we learn, then, is in this emotional experience, a “lesson of the heart” rather than only a cognitive “lesson of the head.” We can thus call on this experience as a “moral resource” when we must face disruptions endemic to the human experience.
Marshall Ganz (Rita T. Hauser Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) and his collaborators began developing a pedagogy of this practice in 2006 and since then they have adapted it in online and offline courses at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and in workshops, projects, and campaigns such as the 2008 Obama for President campaign.
About Narratives4Change: some insights into its methodology
In its outgoing phase at the Harvard Kennedy School, Narratives4Change developed two interlinked studies. First, an online questionnaire aimed at mapping and capturing how the public narrative was being used, and evidence of its impacts. Second, and three case studies of campaigns organized or supported either by civic organizations or public institutions that have used public narrative in their implementation. Three were the main criteria for the selection of the case studies. First, having some previous evidence of their impact when using public narrative. Second, cases that make it possible to be studied in light of the field of gender, education, or health. And third, geographical and cultural diversity.
In its return phase at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Narratives4Change conducted research with Roma women member of Roma organizations, and focused on researching on Roma women leadership, and to what extent there were elements of the public narrative framework that could be adapted and capitalized in the leadership development promoted by specific grassroot Roma women civic association in Spain.
This way, in its return phase, Narratives4Change worked with hundreds of grassroots Roma women in Spain, explaining what Public Narrative is, in some cases coaching about it, and also inquiring on what are the specific traits of Roma women leadership.
Note that key aspects of the methodological cuisine of the Narratives4Change project have been explained in detail in the following publication: Aiello, E. & Sordé, T. (2021) Capturing the Impact of Public Narrative: Methodological Challenges Encountered and Opportunities Opened, International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211050160(opens in new window)See more about this in "Narratives4Change Research Brief 1":
https://gedime.uab.cat/narratives4chance/(opens in new window)In the return phase, the work conducted with grassroots Roma women in Spain, most of them organized in civic organizations, enabled to better understand how Roma women leadership work. The type of leadership exercised and promoted by grassroots Roma women organised in civic organizations has “dialogic” traits, as it is constructed and emerged based on egalitarian and intersubjective dialogue among Roma women themselves, and their communities.
These traits are, leadership assumed in a relational way, as a collective responsibility and developed with others; putting the Roma values and shared identity at the core; and with a strong understanding of the need of intergenerational solidarity among themselves as a motor of organized action.
See more about “Roma women leadership”, in the following publication: Aiello, E., Sordé, T., Khalfaoui, A. & Redondo-Sama, G. (2022). Dialogic traits of Roma women leadership. Multidisciplinary Journal of Gender Studies,11(3), 200-232.doi: 10.17583/generos.10784
