Political narratives / narrations of the political: an introduction

Abstract

This introductory essay outlines a perspective on political narratives that moves beyond a narrow understanding and highlights the reception of political narratives in everyday contexts and conceptualizations of political spheres in everyday narratives of the political. It offers distinct perspectives of (1) narrative as practice and ontology, that is, the view that telling and receiving stories are universal modes of mediating (political) views; (2) narrative as strategy, that is, the intentional or automatic use of narrative to further relatively specific goals; and (3) narrative as method, that is, as an analytic approach to sociopolitical realities in academia. The essays in this issue show how political narratives are interpreted, modified, and coconstructed in everyday stories and as part of popular narratives, and how political processes and structures are framed in everyday narratives.