Ken Plummer 
Narrative Power [PDF ebook] 
The Struggle for Human Value

Narratives are the wealth of nations: they animate life, sustain culture and cultivate humanity. They regulate and empower us, bringing both joy and discontent. And they are always embedded in ubiquitous power: stories shape power, and power shapes story.

In this provocative and original study, Ken Plummer takes us on a journey to explore some of the key dimensions of this narrative power. His main focus is on what he calls ‘narratives of suffering’ and how these change through transformative narrative actions across an array of media forms. The modern world is in crisis, and long-standing narratives are being challenged in five major directions: through deep inequalities, global state complexities, digital risks, the perpetual puzzle of truth and the ever-emerging contingencies of time. Asking how we can build sustainable stories for a better future, the book advocates the cultivation of a narrative hope, a narrative wisdom and a politics of narrative humanity.

Narrative Power suggests novel directions for enquiry, discusses a raft of innovative ideas and concepts, and sets a striking new agenda for research and action.

Table of Content

Prologue: Going Backstage

OVERTURE: In the Beginning

1 Narratives of Suffering: Six Stories in Search of a Better World

ACT I Setting Scenes: Narrative Power as a Way of Seeing

2 Narrative Actions of Power

3 Narrative Power as a Struggle for Human Value

ACT 2 Locating Tensions: The Fragility of Narrative

4 Narrative Inequalities

5 Narrative Digitalism

6 Narrative States

7 Narrative Wisdom

8 Narrative Contingencies

ACT 3 Moving On: Acts of Narrative Hope

9 Caring for Narrative Futures: Towards a Politics of Narrative Humanity

Notes

References

Index

About the author

Ken Plummer is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex.