Duisburg - 13 May 2015
The workshop ‘Building Stories – Building Cooperation: The Role of Narrative and Fiction as Constitutive Elements in Politics’ focused on narrative and fiction as a critical, albeit under-researched, element in the social sciences. Despite increasing interest, and the so-called linguistic turn in social sciences, the role of fiction and narrative in explaining, expressing, and representing identities, frames, and in giving meaning to political practices has been largely absent. This workshop therefore brought together different disciplines to explore the analysis of storytelling and the blurring of fact and fiction in major events related to global cooperation.
The workshop was guided by the following key questions:
- What are the narrative modes through which the factual is being communicated, constructed and shared in the fields of global cooperation and international relations?
- Who uses which kind of stories and why?
- Are there differences in the ways we can analyze data from different media; and if so, what are they? Can these differences really be generalized?
- Are the problems of global cooperation linked to weak plots and boring stories by uncreative political storytellers?
The workshop organizers, the Centre's Research Units 2 and 4, hope to foster a fruitful discussion and amplify debate on narrative and fiction in the social sciences while encouraging alternative forms of academic journal writing.
Time: 10.00-17.30 h
Venue: KHK/GCR21, Schifferstraße 44, 47059 Duisburg
