Why choose stories as a starting point for this research? Is this simply because stories are nice to hear, stories are told everywhere in the world and so forth? In this section I will try to give some more arguments for why and how stories in particular can play an important role in the dialogue on environmental conservation at an intercultural level.
First of all it is important to give a definition of what I mean by ‘stories’. Stories in fact include here all kinds of genres varying from fiction stories, such as fairy tales, to non-fiction life stories that relate concrete happenings in the past. As I will explain in chapter 5, there are many categories that are a mixture of the two extremes of fact and fiction. Because of this wide and undefined range we could say that in fact every monologue can be called a story. With this supposition I link up with the ‘narrative paradigm’ as developed by Fischer (1987). This paradigm implies that human communication should be viewed, historically as well as situationally, as stories or accounts competing with other stories or accounts purportedly constituted by good reasons. Communication is rational when the stories satisfy the demands of narrative probability (among others the consistency of characters and actions) and the narrative fidelity. Moreover, the stories inevitably act as moral inducements (p. 58). Fischer proposes that human beings are inherently storytellers who have the natural capacity to recognise the coherence and fidelity of the stories they tell and experience (p. 24). People can thus be seen as homo narrans (p. 63). With this, Fischer opposes the rational-world paradigm
that has existed since Aristotle, presupposing that humans are essentially rational and decisions are made on arguments referring to a world that is a set of logical puzzles that can be solved through analysis (see p. 59). Besides confirming what has been said about indirect communication in the previous section, the narrative paradigm is particularly interesting for intercultural communication since it does not limit itself to a thinking elite that is able to develop philosophies, but it includes all (sub)cultures, whether folk or scientific, since all persons understand their own lives in terms of narratives. Traditional rationality (based on Aristotle) could thus be seen as only a part of the narrative rationality.
Although the narrative paradigm may be a good counterweight for the rational hegemony, the danger is that it can lead to an extreme form of postmodernism. However, I do not believe that all stories have the same value with respect to reality. For understanding and dealing with reality, in particular with problems such as those related to the environment, one needs a combination of good stories and rational argumentation. As explained in chapter 1, I
story. To provide a context, in chapter 4 some information will be given about the situation of ethnic groups and their history in Cameroon.
prefer a moderate form of postmodernism, which means that not all arguments should simply be called ‘stories’.
However, for methodological reasons it may be helpful for this study to interpret stories in a wider context. This means in the first place that, apart from pure tales, the narrative paradigm also includes similar forms of expression such as songs, riddles and proverbs. In narratology (see also next section), theoretical support is found for this approach. Proverbs and metaphors are called mini-narratives by Bal (1997) since one word may evoke or present a whole story. On page 35 we read:
“The interpretation of metaphor as a mini-narrative yields insight, not into what the speaker means but into what a cultural community considers acceptable interpretation, so acceptable that they are not considered to be metaphorical at all and certainly not narrative.”
For practical reasons, however, I have not done extensive research on these categories (see chapter 3). The same applies to written literature. On the difference between oral and written texts much has been said in the literature (e.g. Finnegan, 1988). I will come back to this later in this section. The fact that alternative forms such as songs and proverbs are not prominent in this research, however, does not mean that theoretically the definition of stories excludes these categories. Wherever available and useful in this dissertation, examples will be given of these alternative forms of stories.
A more important consequence of using a broad definition of stories is the inclusion of the global environmental discourse in the realm of storytelling. In other words: it makes it possible to talk about supra-local stories when referring to statements and ideas that show up in the environmental discourse. Although, as stated before, not all stories have the same status with respect to reality, for methodological reasons the term stories is used here for all accounts with a temporal-causal logic in them. For practical reasons, to make a distinction between stories as units as they could be told by, for example, bards in Africa, and stories as a wider concept covering all sorts of accounts including the environmental discourse, I prefer in this dissertation to use the term ‘narrative’ for the latter. With this term I link up with earlier literature about supra-local narratives, among others I refer to Roe’s (1991, 1995) development narratives, to Fairhead & Leach (1995) and Stott (1999) who calls them environmental narratives. It could be remarked that compared to stories in general, these narratives are characterised by being extremely truth-claiming. Having made this distinction between story (either local or supra-local) and narrative, let me first concentrate on the narrow concept of local stories.
Stories as part of the oral tradition of practically all cultures have always been a favourite subject for social scientists. It might be interesting to follow for a while the history of the study of stories in anthropology. In much ethnography in the past stories have been collected and analysed. Initially this was done in the school of structuralism, mainly inspired by Levi- Strauss. He carried out in-depth studies on the significance of each story element for ritual
and social life (e.g. Levi-Strauss, 1974a). Although there is a lot to say about his research, I confine myself here to one general characteristic of his approach: in his studies, myths (as a particular type of story) were considered to be isolated texts, studied outside the storytelling context. Different versions were compared in a continuous attempt to develop schemes to mythologize separate story elements, and to relate form and content of a story. Levi-Strauss’ analysis referred to symbolic and psychological explanation of unconscious fears, taboos and dreams of a certain group of people4.
With respect to the question about the origin of stories the same neglect of context occurred. Herein there have been two approaches. The first is historic-geographic, assuming that all stories stem from one original source. The second is the approach of cultural evolution, assuming simultaneous developments. Because of the theoretical presumptions, both approaches were concerned with texts only, out of their social and cultural context, treating “disembodied stuff floating around the map almost by itself” (Bauman, 1998).
In spite of all the valuable insights that formed the basis for further research in that field, it should be concluded that the structuralistic approach is not very useful for the present research. After all, for intercultural communication we need a more practical and flexible approach in which stories are considered as dynamic instruments instead of inviolable and unchanging cultural heritages. The conservative character of the structuralistic approach may be caused by its focus on the text, and in that way it may be related to what Cheney & Weston (1999, p.121) say about the written word as final form of a fixed text:
“The written word turns the world into a passive object for human knowledge and thus focuses our attention on language as a sign system primarily designed to encode beliefs whereas attention should be paid to the performative function of language.”
According to the authors, the western world is visually oriented which makes written words so important. “Originally in oral cultures”, say Cheney & Weston (p.122), “stories pass down the modes of action, which when written down come to be understood as information.”
I think that intercultural communication, because of its performative objective should focus on the performative function of stories, i.e. the appropriate modes of action they
express and the impact of stories on action – both of which are highly contextual.
An interesting approach to the stories, that is of special relevance to the present study, can be found in the work of the French philosopher, Bourdieu. Being a student of Levi- Strauss he dedicated his earlier life to the structural analyses of myth but later turned to ‘praxeology’ or ‘the theory of praxis’. In his theory, Bourdieu (1980, see also Pinxten 1994) introduced the concept of habitus: a system of cognitive and motivational dispositions (or
subconscious schemes) that are the basis of thinking, perceiving and acting. According to Bourdieu, stories are form-given dispositions that are dynamic and regulating. They give
4 In this context Levi-Strauss mentions rituals as strongly related to myth, being the expression of the perceived tension between myth and reality.
meaning to people’s behaviour in the context of time and space. Stories reflect the habitus,
prescribe behaviour and act as a long-term memory. Moreover, they form a safe world in which one can ‘try out’ behaviour that is not according to the formal prescriptions. This can be seen clearly when looking at contrasts in stories, such as a very divergent behaviour of a story character. In many stories, expression of such behaviour finally comes to a negative result, which then confirms the existing norms.
With his praxiology Bourdieu asserts that the subject-object dichotomy, which was characteristic for the anthropological studies of stories so far, is false. Rather an interaction of subjects exists. Fact and data, including stories, are the result of such interactions (Bourdieu, 1980). In praxeology, the focus has thus changed from a one-sided study of stories to a more two-sided dialogue.
After Bourdieu, many other scientists have continued this line. Finnegan (1992) says that the story is a reflection of reality but the story (and thus the storyteller) also creates reality. Cheney & Weston (1999, p. 130) state: “Theories are fully intelligible only when embedded in stories. Stories are the real homes of the so-called thick moral concepts, concepts in which evaluation and description are so intertwined as to be conceptually inseparable.”
Particularly in postmodernist philosophy, stories are brought in direct relation to the concept of culture. In postmodernism, culture is no longer seen as a cognitive structure in the heads of people but as a matter of continuous interpretation, as communication between people through language, music and stories. Or as Geertz (1973) expresses it: Culture is a text that everybody reads in his particular way. These insights imply that the study of culture needs an interpretative approach, in which the signification that people attribute to their behaviour becomes a central point (Aarts, 1998). Or as Van Vucht Tijssen & Van Reijen (1991, p.47) state: “mentality and world vision are interlinked and we need to investigate how.” Stories may help to fulfil this need. They may help to uncover worldviews and the
performative linkage between these worldviews and the way people act.
After having discussed the role of stories in general, let me now focus on their role with respect to the specific topic of this dissertation: the environment.
Stories may thus reflect how people deal with reality and why they do so, including problems that occur in this reality. Environmental problems in particular display a great degree of interpretative openness (Collins & Pinch, 1982). Miller (2000) discusses the importance of how societies choose to frame environmental problems. ‘Framing’ refers here to the particular lenses, worldviews and underlying assumptions that guide communal interpretation and definition of particular issues. Using the concept of framing in the environmental discourse acknowledges that the way societies view the environment is not simply given by that environment but also reflects cognitions and collective moral choices about the myriad intersections of natural and human systems. According to Miller, framing has its influence on assessments of environmental change, including risks and
responsibilities. Although beyond the scope of this research, it would be interesting to see how frames emerge and acquire credibility in particular societies.
Like science, narratives are a way of framing, a way of making sense of the world. Narratives emphasise the importance of meaning in the framing process contrary to the emphasis of science on getting the facts straight (Miller, 2000). Different frames, narrative, scientific or others, may operate simultaneously. In other words, one person may be inspired by different stories at the same time. Therefore, framing is a dynamic process and it should be recognised that frames need not be taken as given. This holds for local as well as supra- local frames. With respect to the latter, Fairhead and Leach (1996a and b) show the danger of developing a frame (a story) in one context, a specific place and time, and applying them without reflection to another context. I will come back to this in detail when discussing a specific case in section 6.4.2.
Considering storytelling as framing, as, for example, Millar (1996) does, provides a playing field for dialogue, since local as well as supra-local insights could be considered as narratives of essentially equal status. In order to be successful, for instance, both require a coherence of the narrative, an apparent orderliness of particular clustering of elements. Narrative elements such as settings, plot lines and characterisations cannot be mixed randomly. I would call this the logic of the story. Stories have underlying principles that are corresponding to those in real life. Bremond states in his real-life theory (see Bal, 1997 p. 188) that the narrated universal is regulated by the same rules as those that control human thoughts and actions. Stories are constructed based on the human logic of events. That is what makes them understandable for people. To be meaningful, a story should thus somehow fit into a system of existing logic, which is definitely determined historically and culturally.
However, it should be noted that when collecting stories in Cameroon (as probably anywhere else), one could immediately notice that there are many fantastic or absurd stories that in their literal interpretation do not comply at all with the logic of reality. According to Bremond, this does not mean that there is no reality. On the contrary, the destruction of a reality or the search for alternatives does imply the existence of that reality.5 We could therefore say that stories either fit in or partly ‘play with’ a system of existing logic. Several authors (e.g. Alvarez & Merchán, 1992; Vuorela, 1995) have stated that reality and fiction are no opposites. Fiction (latin: fictio means fabricated) is a way to find and understand
reality. This principle can be found back in fantasy, absurdities and humour (Bal, 1997). The education philosopher Scheffler (1983) says that once the prejudice of fiction as opposed to
5 Related to build up of reality is the use of oppositions in the stories. Oppositions play an important role in narratives. Actors have to continuously deal with ideological oppositions in the world they operate. These oppositions can manifest themselves in different ways, among others in the description of personages (e.g. small versus big), and locations (e.g. high versus low, nature versus human world). The importance of oppositions for cultural studies is illustrated by Bal (1997, p. 217): “the point is not to notice, confirm or denounce oppositions but to confront the oppositions we notice with those we hold ourselves, and to use differences between them as a tool to break their tyranny.”
truth has been removed, it is possible to explain why fiction provides a special kind of knowledge. According to Scheffler, the main point is that, by connecting emotion and cognition, stories expand our experience of reality, enabling us to grasp new relations among things and to enrich our feeling as well as our understanding.
The connection between emotion and cognition in fact refers to the basic principles of modern communication theories (see section 2.2.). The mixture of reality and fiction, and to how deal with this in the interpretation of stories will play an important role in the analysis of local narratives (see also section 6.2).
Although stories refer to real life, we may conclude that they often do so in an indirect way. As can be seen most clearly in fictional stories, a literal interpretation of the text does not bring us to the right conclusions about real life. In a non-fictional story that tells us about what will happen when the world ends, the world is presented as a mat that is finally rolled up by God (see also section 5.6.4). Here the image of a mat is probably used as a metaphor, telling us a lot about life in an indirect way. This means that while looking for stories which have environmental relevance, one should not only look for stories that directly deal with literal environmental elements such as animals or trees. On the contrary, many animal stories, as we shall see, are fables and may merely deal with the human society whereas stories that do not contain any animal characters may include certain information or messages that are important because it motivates certain human behaviour with respect to the environment. Concluding this section, what can we learn from the different theories? Firstly, the narrative paradigm justifies the methodological approach that both local and supra local ways to perceive the environment and environmental conservation are based on stories that do not fundamentally differ in mechanisms that make them reliable or compelling. Secondly, the context of the storytelling, as well as the extra textual elements of a story, is of high importance. We should thus consider a story not as a static text but as a dynamic and performative expression of culture. Finally, stories are reflecting underlying principles of understanding the world. To get more insight into these principles, it is not sufficient to look at the literal story as a whole but it is important to analyse different story elements. For the latter, especially, I now turn to insights from the narratology science, to be discussed in the next section.