See Loren’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A.
See Part 2 of this Q&A.
See Part 3 of this Q&A.
See Part 4 of this Q&A.
Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 5):
Q: In your experience, how does storytelling help build community?
A: On the most basic level, storytelling builds community by identifying “us” as family, clan, neighborhood, village, religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc. The fundamental kinds of story that exist in every culture — myths, hero tales, trickster stories, humor/jokes and stories of the spiritual — offer us models of who we are, who “they” are, how we think, act, believe, live, etc.
Beyond that the four kinds of storytelling — personal stories, oral histories, metaphors and rituals — that exist in every organization from families to clubs to businesses, invite us to identify and share beliefs, values and behaviors with each other. The thing is the same stories and mechanisms for storytelling that bind us together can also exclude.
So once again I come back to the issue of consciously identifying, shaping and telling our stories. If we want to build strong inclusive communities, we need to be intentional in the stories we tell and the way we tell them. This requires more time, focus and resources than many of us are willing to commit without support from the “powers that be” and then we wonder why there is so much distrust and lack of understanding. Lakoff says that whoever frames the argument controls the argument, and I say that if we want to build a healthy community we need to expand the “us” without necessarily having to demonize “them” in the totality of the stories we tell.