The study of narrative, peace, and conflict is more than the study of stories as standalone objects. It is the study of narrative as a process, one through which peace is built and justice is pursued.
Narrative approaches can take many subjects a their focus, including interpersonal dialogue, political rhetoric, public and private testimony, legal and policy discourses, multimedia communication, and works of art.
However, regardless of the subject of study, narrative approaches start from a common understanding that human relationships and meaning-making are fundamentally narrative processes, and so to understand peace and conflict means understanding the narrative dynamics of human society.
Narrative at the Carter School
Like the broader field of peace and conflict studies, the study of narrative as a human phenomenon draws from a wide variety of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, philosophy, communications, cultural studies, media studies, and even the natural sciences, especially as relates to the study of the brain.
In the field of peace and conflict studies, the Carter School community has played a crucial role in facilitating and expanding the narrative turn.
Sara Cobb, the Druscilla French Cumbie Professor at the Carter School, has been a leading figure in developing the theory and practice of narrative conflict resolution. Her 2013 book, Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of Narrative in Conflict Resolution, puts forth a critical narrative theory of conflict that sees conflict as a function of narrative-based meaning-making processes. From this understanding, it becomes possible to bring an “aesthetic” ethics to conflict resolution practice, one that takes storytelling processes seriously and allows for the crafting of “better-formed” stories.
Solon Simmons, a sociologist and associate professor at the Carter School, has also made critical contributions to the study of narrative and peace. His 2020 book, Root Narrative Theory and Conflict Resolution: Power, Justice and Values, advances understandings of the narrative structure of political and social power. Root Narrative Theory (RNT) argues that four broad worldviews—securitarian, libertarian, egalitarian, and dignitarian—shape how we understand abuses of power and how we try to rectify them.
At the Carter School, then the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR), the Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution was established in the early 2010s to serve as a hub for research and practice around the narrative dynamics of conflict and its resolution. Directed by Sara Cobb, CNCR also included a team of affiliates from across the Carter School’s faculty, including Solon Simmons, Leslie Dwyer, Susan Hirsch, Rich Rubenstein, and Carlos Sluzki.
Until it was retired in 2020, CNCR offered workshops, consultations, research seminars, and conferences around narrative and conflict resolution. Leading voices on narrative, peace, and conflict resolution from outside the Carter School also became part of the CNCR community, including John Winsalde, Samantha Hardy, Tobias Greiff, and Gregory Pirio.
CNCR was also dedicated to advancing scholarly knowledge on narrative and conflict resolution. In 2013, CNCR established a peer-reviewed journal, Narrative & Conflict: Explorations in Theory and Practice, running six open-access issues that included insights and findings from narrative research and practice in peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
Most importantly, CNCR served as a hub for students at the Carter School to receive in-depth instruction in narrative and conflict resolution. CNCR offered space for Carter School students not only to take narrative-focused classes, but also to find support for their own narrative-based research and practice.
New Directions: The Narrative Transformation Lab
In 2020, the Carter School launched its Peace Labs initiative to serve as a space for faculty, researchers, practitioners, and students to create and test peacebuilding and conflict transformation technologies, tools, and concepts.
In 2022, The Narrative Transformation Lab was established by Solon Simmons to further the Carter School’s contributions to the deep study of the narrative dynamics of peace and conflict.
TNT Lab is a hub for research, practice, and reflection on the opportunities and challenges posed by narrative approaches to conflict transformation.
Its goal is to facilitate the building of ties between individuals of all types who want to learn more about how good stories can help us do good in the world.
As a university-based laboratory, TNT Lab draws on the best of what an academic setting has to offer.
It provides a space for deep reflection on well-established, over-looked, and new ideas about how narrative shapes human relationships, meaning-making, and action.
It also serves as a meeting point for students of all levels to find the resources and mentorship they need to follow their curiosity, answer burning research questions, share their own unique insights and experience around narrative transformation, and build critical skills that will seed their future work as narrative transformers.
Finally, TNT Lab strives to be an open community where the important, and sometimes difficult, work of imagination is taken seriously. TNT Lab’s approach starts from the understanding that all humans do narrative. As such, TNT Lab is a space where individuals from a wide variety of sectors and industries—including the non-profit and for-profit sectors, media and entertainment, activism and advocacy, and government and policy—can come together to have meaningful, critical, and expansive conversations about the way we tell stories to change the world.
Stories have serious impact. If we want a more peaceful and just world, we must take storytelling, and storytellers, seriously.
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