Introduction
This article, What Makes Narrative Change so Hard?, by Brett Davidson featured in Stanford Social Innovation Review. It discusses the challenges of narrative change in social issues, particularly in access to medicines. It highlights how entrenched systems can undermine efforts to reform policies and perceptions, pointing to the importance of re-framing narratives about medicines as public goods.
Brett delves into key questions and explores how activists must expose unjust power dynamics and envision viable alternatives to drive lasting change.
- …given our human tendency to justify existing systems and resist change, how do nonprofits, activists, and funders working to change deeply held social narratives overcome this inertia?
- How do we make visible the justifying narratives and the unequal power relationships they serve to obscure?
Once new ways of understanding and being in the world take on sensory, visceral and emotional power, they start to seem possible, and even necessary. Just as many of us find it difficult to see the possibilities in a run-down house without the help of trained architects and designers, so we often need help to envision viable alternatives to the current social system. – Brett Davidson
Access Full Article
What Makes Narrative Change So Hard?
Explore Further
- How to Change the Narrative / Story: Guides, Worksheets and Templates
- Framing Issues for Social Justice Impact: Directory of Messaging Guides
- Frame the Debate: Insights from Don’t Think of an Elephant!
- The Common Cause Handbook: A Guide to Values and Frames
- Narrating Change During ‘Psychic Breaks’
- Encouraging Story Sharing
- Transforming Narrative Waters: Growing the practice of deep narrative change in the UK