ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to question that alliance. It suggests that the insistence that survivors `tell their stories' is a culturally particular approach that can become problematic if applied universally. I believe that tell your story can become an imperative rather than a self-directed action. This results in a set of practices and assumptions that inculcate themselves into relief operations in many locations, ignoring and potentially interrupting culturally particular modes of mourning, coping or crisis management. And in being a popular framework for social theatre, simplistic demands for storytelling can be in danger of having a similarly problematic impact on this range of local practices.
