Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2022
Special Issue: "Let me tell you a story" - Anthropological Encounters with Narrative
Edited by Barbara Götsch and Monika Palmberger with contributions by Götsch, Palmberger, Kamal, and others.
Negotiating a Project Request: Narrative and Intersubjective Understanding at Work
Barbara GÖTSCH
pp. 46-71
Abstract
This article engages with an extended ethnographic vignette that centers on negotiations between a Moroccan educational association and a UN agency over a possible future project collaboration. After a phase of meandering in the conversation, a “polished” story told by the NGO team leader marks a turning point in negotiations and manages to convince agency representatives. The article discusses the use of such polished stories in relation to other, less polished and arguably more authentic narrative practices, that is, stories that gradually emerge when collaborators make sense of the past or coconstruct visions of the future. It adopts the concept of the community of practice with its focus on social learning and the constant negotiation of meaning among participants in combination with recent approaches in the interdisciplinary study of narrative practices that argue for the productive coexistence of different narrative activities in the same event. In the case at hand, different narrative practices in concert served the sharing of knowledge and ultimately persuasion, while increasing intersubjective understanding between participants in the meeting.
Table of Contents
The Nexus of Anthropology and Narrative: Ethnographic Encounters with Storytelling Practices
Barbara Götsch, Monika Palmberger
pp. 1-22
Storied Answers to Questions about Interethnic Marriage in Multiethnic Qinghai Province, PR of China
Monika Kolodziej
pp. 23-45
Negotiating a Project Request: Narrative and Intersubjective Understanding at Work
Barbara Götsch
pp. 46-71
Noura Kamal
pp. 72-90
Monika Palmberger
pp. 91-108
Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto
pp. 109-128
Duygu Doğru
pp. 129-154
Duygu Doğru
pp. 129-154