ABSTRACT
Antenarrative is a word and concept I invented (Boje, 2001a) and has been studied by other authors such as Barge (2004), Collins and Rainwater (2005), Dalcher and Drevin (2003), Vickers (2005), and Yolles (2007), and those writing chapters in this handbook. ‘Ante’ refers to “a bet” and “a before.” Therefore, antenarrative is a bet on the future and it’s before narrative cohesion fossilizes the past. It is a bet that in this chapter, I will assert is ‘agential.’ Here is a more precise definition:
Antenarrative is defined as a bet on the future pattern, in (more or less) authentic scenario of event-space. It is also a before narrative that serves as a hypothesis of the trajectory of unfolding events that avoids the pitfalls of premature narrative closure (Boje, 2001a, 2007b, 2008). Antenarratives involve a form of repackaging—where new characteristics are recognized and old characteristics are minimized. This morphological analysis of antenarratives uncovers forms of dissimulation and simulation that mask situational reality. Antenarratives morph and coalesce in storytelling networks. Antenarrative is a prospective sense-making (looking forward), and is in intraplay with now-spective (in the present moment of emergent being), and retrospective (backward looking) manners of sensemaking. The agential aspects of antenarrative are in its intraplay with materiality.
