Joosse, Sofie
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2024Peer reviewedOpen access
Joosse, Sofie; Westin, Martin; Mockel, Fanny; Keasey, Holly; Lorenzen, Soenke
In the last decade, storytelling has been popularised as a method for societal sustainability transformations. With this growing popularity, there has also been a rapid increase in those identifying as storytellers. Perhaps because storytelling for sustainability has an innocent ring to it, it has not yet been studied from a power perspective. However, as it is fast-spreading and has explicit change purposes, it is important to clarify assumptions about knowledge, power and change. This article offers a first step towards understanding and evaluating the wide variety of applications behind the label of storytelling for sustainability. We perform a frame analysis of how storytellers describe their storytelling for sustainability. Our findings demonstrate that the label of storytelling for sustainability encompasses fundamentally different ideas about whose knowledge counts. The article raises critical questions that can help assess the legitimacy and appropriateness of different applications of storytelling for sustainability.
storytelling; sustainability; power; reification; stories
Journal of Environmental Planning and Management
2024, Volume: 67, number: 9, pages: 1909-1927 Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD
SDG13 Climate action
SDG17 Partnerships for the goals
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2023.2258276
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/126862