Narrative Spices: An Invitational Guide for Flavorful Human Rights

By Fund for Global Human Rights (FGHR), Lucas Paulson

Contents

Introduction

This “invitational guide” by Lucas Paulson offers a different way to think about and approach narrative work in human rights. Rather than talking about formulas or specific strategies, it focuses on “spices”—different elements and entry points that human rights practitioners can explore, mix, and “cook” with.

Instead of taking the prescriptive messaging guide approach to narrative change research, Narrative Spices is an invitation to self-reflection and creative practice.

Rather than lay out a new set of rules for narrative change work, author Lucas Paulson invites practitioners to form their own unique, context-specific approach to narrative work through the personal and organizational processes that facilitate and nurture growth, exploration, and change.

“The question we’re asking now is not: What are more effective narratives about human rights?,” says Paulson. “Instead, we’re asking: How do practitioners, capacity-builders/accompaniers, and funders work together to create conditions that encourage one another to reflect on, re-examine, and experiment with how we do our work?”

Paulson presents six critical elements of narrative practice (or, as he calls them, spices).

Problem Spaces – Shifting how we think about change
Creativity – A mindset and a habit
Visioning & Imagination – Exploring the dreams of your movements
Hope, Values, Emotions – Moving people and modeling change
Experiences & Relationships – Creating new, unexpected ground
People – Who’s it with, who’s it for?

Through a combination of case studies, interviews, and deep reflection, he demonstrates how human rights practitioners can mix and match these elements (or spice blends) to create powerful, personally informed approaches to social change. But more than that, Paulson explores how practitioners can cultivate personal curiosity, exploration, and growth—habits that are key, he suggests, to re-examining the way you work and embodying your narrative.

Who This Document is for

This document is for anyone who works in, funds, or supports social change rooted in a more compassionate, more just vision of the world.

Our context focuses especially on the practice of human rights, though these lessons certainly extend beyond people who define their work as such. Most of the participants in this work were lawyers, communications staff for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and campaigners.

We hope this document will be useful to you, whether you’ve heard about narratives or not, and whether you are a passionate believer in narrative strategies or if the language and ideas confuse and frustrate you.

Maybe one of the deeper narratives we need to embrace is the idea that a better world requires each of us to be willing to be changed by the possibilities of joy and the experiences of suffering that we encounter in one another. – pg. 11