Respect for non-western cultural narratives
The Hero’s Journey, marked by struggles turned into life lessons, difficult enough to make an impact but not devastating enough to not be overcome, often conquered single-handedly, all before one returns home with newfound knowledge. Victorious. Sounds familiar? Well, some of us cannot return home. Some of us experience profound and insidious persecution, continuously pushing us to migrate between borders-borders of spaces that we can never fully call our home. For some, home and land were pulled apart and lie disentangled. Our stories weave plots and themes foreign to our audience, as foreign as we ourselves have been viewed throughout our journey.
Every society has its own shared broad narrative, and culture informs us of our possible story frames. What stories do people like and what do they pay attention to versus dislike and/or ignore? Within Western, especially North American, contexts the redemption story, one that features struggles but concludes with a much-anticipated happy ending has been found to be most liked. Furthermore, experimental research has shown that storytellers who close with a happy ending also gain more social rewards than those who do not. This can put minoritized folk who have experienced accumulative oppression which they have not been provided resolution or reparation for in a vulnerable position.
Psychological research has found that people are rated against a prototypicality gradient ( a standard that determines how typical of a member someone is within a group). Individuals who are perceived to deviate from the desired prototypicality may enjoy less support from the group, further perpetuating social harms. Before these stories are told or shared, future audiences should be educated about the impact that culture has on storylines and power implications associated in the narrative process. For example:
- Stories from different cultures would have been already shared and consumed so that peers and leaders have some familiarity with a variety of story templates before the storyteller shares their story.
- Ongoing communication from leadership that emphasizes the importance of diversity to the collective identity of organizational members is also crucial before storytellers take the stage. Ideally, the organizational culture has already been built on the importance of maintaining heterogenous identities amidst a shared organizational membership.
- Leaders should ensure that foundational education and communication has taken place and that a situational assessment has been conducted to gauge members’ reactions and feedbacks to these practices.
- Consult the pdf guide shared in the storytelling intro post for additional questions/points to consider.
Psychological research has found that the previously-mentioned prototypicality gradient that may be utilized to ostracize atypical members is less powerful in collective spaces that have formed a shared collective identity that appreciates the uniqueness of members and allows them to make contributions to the shared experience (inductive social id article). This relates back to the point of making the storytelling cycle as participatory as possible and allowing for voices originating from multiple corners of the organization to enrich the planning and process early on.
In addition, people should be able to volunteer to be audience members, knowing ahead of time the themes that the storyteller will touch upon. This will ease any potential friction, as audience members who hear the story will have shown interest in being a part of the experience. This will also reduce any potential traumatization of audience members who may be triggered by the experiences shared by the storyteller.
In addition, having an audience with diverse identities and experiences present is a necessity. If collective spaces are overwhelmingly homogenous in that most members share privileges that the storyteller does not, then this is likely not a platform that minoritized folks will be able to safely utilize until representation of diverse voices improves, especially for those who originate from the organization itself. In that instance an external speaker can be considered instead, albeit the process of informed consent and transparency should be adhered to. A spotlight should illuminate and not signal potential opportunities for targeting. Dangerous instances of tokenism due to leadership neglect can result in a multitude of repercussions that can be difficult to recover from for all parties. This makes it even more important to plan for social sharing in advance and to build a strategy that is participatory and incorporates multiple voices of minoritized folks, rather than burdening one or a few individuals perceived to represent “diversity”.
Now that we are transparent and open to diverse stories, we also need to be aware of structural barriers that may shape someone’s storyline and trajectory. We want to foster a space fueled by empathy rather than comparison or judgement when we hear what may not make us ‘feel good’. Click here for Part 3.