ABSTRACT

Narrative, Political Violence and Social Change is a call for engaging actively and critically with the ontological, epistemological, and methodological implications of narrative in the study of political violence and terrorism.

Building on a basic framework of three modes of narrative – as lens, as data, and as tool – the chapters in this book demonstrate how the study of political violence and terrorism benefits from narrative inquiry as an interdisciplinary endeavour, in particular as regards diverging perceptions of social reality, the meanings of belonging, and the human drive for change. They showcase the substantial advances that scholars have made in this field to date and identify promising avenues for further research.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.