Narratives and the Member’s Perspective: Toward an Inter-Narrative Approach to Social Collectives

Abstract

The notion that a common narrative constitutes the meaningfulness of groups and other social collectives has been put forward by both philosophers and social scientists. In this view, the constitution of collectives is linked to the coherence internal to narratives—a paradigm herein dubbed the “intra-narrative” approach. Though elegant, this approach has inbuilt limitations. Focusing on philosophical arguments advancing the intra-narrative view, this essay contrasts this model with an “inter-narrative” approach premised on the meaningful connections interactants draw amongst a plurality of narratives and offers the phenomenon of “second stories” as an inroad to an inter-narrative theory of social collectives.