Story‐telling for Social Change

As strategies for social change, feminist activities in the area of law and popular education both rely on the oppressed telling stories of their daily lives. Storytelling in these contexts represents different perceptions of reality that are intended as an opposition to established knowledge. Focusing primarily on popular education, the author describes how the uncritical reliance on stories has led to the failure in the classroom to acknowledge the risks taken by various oppressed groups when they attempt to critically reflect and build coalitions. Furthermore, stories have not in fact always been empowering. Without mechanisms to critique the stories, mixed sex, mixed race groups have been unable to identify political strategies and to determine effective political action. In order to speak and to listen across our various subject positions, and ultimately to act, the author argues that critical pedagogy has to pay attention to how we know, hence the context in which we tell and hear stories.