Collective Storytelling in Literature & Literary Theory

Collective Storytelling: Etymology/Term, Meanings and Concept

Etymology/Term:

The term “collective storytelling” is derived from the fusion of “collective,” referring to a group or community, and “storytelling,” the art of narrating tales. The combination implies a collaborative and communal approach to crafting and sharing narratives.

Meanings and Concept:

• Collaborative Narrative Creation: Collective storytelling involves multiple individuals contributing to the creation of a narrative, pooling diverse perspectives and ideas.
• Shared Authorship: It embraces the notion that every participant in the collective shares authorship, blurring the lines between storytellers and listeners.
• Oral Tradition Influence: Drawing from oral traditions, collective storytelling emphasizes the dynamic and evolving nature of narratives within a community.
• Interactive and Iterative: Often interactive and iterative, allowing for ongoing adjustments and contributions from various participants.
• Cultural Preservation: Used as a means of preserving and transmitting cultural values, history, and traditions within a group or society.
• Digital Platforms: In the contemporary context, collective storytelling extends to digital platforms, enabling global collaboration through online spaces.
• Enhanced Engagement: Fosters a deeper engagement with the narrative as individuals become active participants, influencing the direction of the story.
• Community Building: Strengthens community bonds by fostering a sense of shared identity and collective imagination.
• Diversity of Perspectives: Celebrates the diversity of perspectives within a community, enriching the storytelling experience with a multitude of voices.
• Adaptability: Allows for adaptability and evolution as stories respond to the changing needs and dynamics of the community.
• Empowerment: Empowers individuals within the collective, providing a platform for expression and creativity.

Collective Storytelling: Definition of a Theoretical Term

Collective storytelling is a theoretical term that refers to the collaborative and communal process of creating narratives within a group or community. It involves multiple individuals contributing to the construction of a shared story, blurring traditional distinctions between storytellers and audience members. This approach emphasizes the dynamic, interactive, and often iterative nature of narrative creation, fostering a sense of shared authorship and cultural preservation within the collective.

Collective Storytelling: Theorists, Works and Argument

Theorists:

• Howard Rheingold: Known for exploring virtual communities, Rheingold has discussed the role of collective storytelling in online spaces and how digital platforms facilitate collaborative narrative creation.
• Henry Jenkins: Renowned for his work on participatory culture, Jenkins has examined collective storytelling as a crucial aspect of modern media, emphasizing the democratization of narrative creation.

Works:

• “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution” (Howard Rheingold): In this book, Rheingold delves into the concept of collective action in a digital age, touching upon the role of collective storytelling in shaping social movements.
• “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide” (Henry Jenkins): Jenkins explores the blurring boundaries between producers and consumers in media, discussing how collective storytelling contributes to the convergence culture.

Argument:

• Democratization of Narratives: The theorists argue that collective storytelling democratizes the narrative process, allowing diverse voices to contribute and challenge traditional power structures in storytelling.
• Cultural Resilience: Collective storytelling is seen as a means of cultural resilience, preserving and evolving cultural narratives within a community through shared authorship and active participation.
• Digital Facilitation: The theorists contend that digital platforms provide a unique space for collective storytelling, enabling widespread collaboration and engagement on a global scale.

Collective Storytelling: Major Characteristics

Characteristic	Definition	Literary Examples
Collaborative Creation	Multiple individuals contribute to the narrative, blurring authorial lines.	1. “Exquisite Corpse”: A surrealist technique where each participant adds to a collective story without seeing the prior contributions.
Shared Authorship	Emphasizes that all participants share ownership and influence over the story.	2. “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer: Pilgrims contribute tales, showcasing shared authorship within the narrative.
Oral Tradition Influence	Draws from oral storytelling traditions, emphasizing dynamic, evolving narratives.	3. African Griot Tradition: Involves communal storytelling, passing down histories and traditions orally.
Interactive and Iterative	Allows ongoing adjustments, interactions, and revisions to the narrative.	4. “Choose Your Own Adventure” Books: Readers actively participate by making choices, influencing the story’s direction.
Cultural Preservation	A method of preserving and transmitting cultural values, history, and traditions.	5. “One Thousand and One Nights” (Arabian Nights): Framing narrative preserving cultural stories within the main story.
Digital Platforms Extension	Extends collective storytelling to digital spaces, fostering global collaboration.	6. Wikipedia Edit-a-thons: Collaborative editing and creation of content on Wikipedia.
Enhanced Engagement	Encourages active engagement with the narrative, making individuals active participants.	7. “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre” by Keith Johnstone: Illustrates how improvisational theater involves collective storytelling.
Community Building	Strengthens community bonds by fostering a shared sense of identity and imagination.	8. “The Moth” Podcast and Live Events: Features real people sharing personal stories, building a sense of community.
Diversity of Perspectives	Celebrates diverse viewpoints within the community, enriching the storytelling experience.	9. “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio: A collection of stories told by individuals escaping the Black Death, offering diverse perspectives.
Adaptability and Evolution	Allows stories to adapt and evolve based on the changing needs and dynamics of the community.	10. “Urban Legends”: Folk narratives that evolve over time, adapting to different cultural contexts and technological changes.

Collective Storytelling: Relevance in Literary Theories

• Postmodernism: Collective storytelling aligns with postmodernist literary theories by challenging traditional authorship and embracing the decentered, collaborative nature of narrative creation.
• Reader-Response Theory: In the context of reader-response theories, collective storytelling emphasizes active reader participation, as individuals engage in the co-creation of the narrative.
• Feminist Literary Criticism: It resonates with feminist literary criticism by providing a platform for diverse voices and challenging patriarchal structures within storytelling, fostering inclusivity and representation.
• Cultural Studies: Collective storytelling is relevant in cultural studies as it becomes a medium for the preservation and transmission of cultural values, histories, and traditions within a community.
• Narratology: In narratology, collective storytelling challenges traditional narrative structures by incorporating multiple perspectives and allowing for interactive, iterative storytelling experiences.
• Digital Literary Studies: The extension of collective storytelling to digital platforms is of particular relevance in digital literary studies, exploring how technology influences collaborative narrative creation.
• Postcolonial Literature: In postcolonial literary theories, collective storytelling provides a means for marginalized voices to reclaim and reshape narratives, contributing to decolonization efforts.
• Psychoanalytic Criticism: From a psychoanalytic perspective, collective storytelling can be seen as a manifestation of the collective unconscious, where shared symbols and narratives reflect universal human experiences.
• Critical Race Theory: It aligns with Critical Race Theory by offering a space for marginalized communities to share their stories and challenge dominant narratives, contributing to a more inclusive literary landscape.
• Ecocriticism: In ecocritical perspectives, collective storytelling can serve as a tool for environmental advocacy, fostering a shared narrative that highlights humanity’s interconnectedness with the natural world.

Collective Storytelling: Application in Critiques

1. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer:
   • Collaborative Creation: Chaucer’s work exemplifies collaborative creation as various pilgrims contribute their stories during the journey, showcasing a communal effort in storytelling.
   • Shared Authorship: The diverse tales and perspectives underscore shared authorship among the pilgrims, challenging traditional hierarchical structures in medieval literature.
   • Cultural Preservation: The Canterbury Tales serves as a cultural artifact, preserving the social, moral, and cultural values of Chaucer’s time through a collective narrative.
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez:
   • Interactive and Iterative: The novel features a complex, multigenerational narrative that encourages readers to actively engage with the text, unraveling the intertwined stories of the Buendía family.
   • Community Building: The Macondo community in the novel fosters a shared sense of identity, and the narrative reflects the collective history and destiny of the community.
   • Diversity of Perspectives: Márquez employs magical realism to incorporate diverse perspectives, enriching the storytelling experience and offering alternative viewpoints on reality.
3. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino:
   • Reader-Response Theory: Calvino’s novel plays with reader expectations and involvement, engaging them in the act of storytelling and challenging conventional reader roles.
   • Adaptability and Evolution: The narrative structure allows for adaptability, with each chapter presenting a different story, showcasing the potential for storytelling to evolve based on reader engagement.
   • Postmodernism: The novel embodies postmodernist tendencies by deconstructing traditional storytelling forms and embracing a fragmented, non-linear narrative.
4. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio:
   • Cultural Preservation: Boccaccio’s work, set during the Black Death, captures the collective storytelling of ten individuals sharing tales to cope with the devastating reality, preserving cultural expressions during a challenging time.
   • Feminist Literary Criticism: While The Decameron is rooted in medieval patriarchal society, the tales within it often provide spaces for female characters to challenge gender norms, reflecting an unintended feminist critique.
   • Narratology: The structure, with one hundred stories shared over ten days, challenges traditional narrative structures and explores the variety of human experiences in a collective manner.

These critiques demonstrate how the principles of collective storytelling can be applied across diverse literary works, enriching the analysis of narrative dynamics and thematic elements within each text.

Collective Storytelling: Relevant Terms

Term	Definition
Polyphony	The presence of multiple narrative voices.
Dialogism	The interaction and interdependence of various voices in a text.
Intertextuality	Connections between texts and their influences on one another.
Collaborative Creation	Joint efforts in crafting a narrative.
Reader-Response Theory	Emphasizes the role of the reader in interpreting and co-creating the narrative.
Cultural Resilience	The ability of narratives to preserve and adapt cultural values.
Deconstruction	Critical analysis that exposes the instability of language and meaning.
Folklore	Traditional stories and customs passed down through generations.
Metafiction	Fiction that self-consciously addresses its own nature and conventions.
Communal Identity	The shared sense of belonging and identification within a community.

Collective Storytelling: Suggested Readings

1. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Perseus Books, 2002.
2. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York University Press, 2006.
3. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Edited by Jill Mann, Oxford University Press, 2005.
4. Márquez, Gabriel García. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Harper & Row, 1970.
5. Calvino, Italo. If on a winter’s night a traveler. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
6. Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn, W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.