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Title Pages

Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of

Narrative in Conflict Resolution
Sara Cobb

Print publication date: 2013

Print ISBN-13: 9780199826209
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.001.0001

Title Pages
(p.i) Speaking of Violence

(p.ii) Explorations in Narrative Psychology

(p.iii) Speaking of Violence

Mark Freeman

Series Editor

BOOKS IN THE SERIES

Speaking of Violence

Sara Cobb

(p.iv)

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Page 1 of 2
Title Pages

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cobb, Sara B.
Speaking of violence : the politics and poetics of narrative dynamics
in
conflict resolution / Sara Cobb.
pages cm.—(Explorations in narrative psychology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–982620–9
1. Conflict management. 2. Violence. 3. Narration (Rhetoric)—
Psychological aspects. 4. Discourse analysis, Narrative—
Psychological aspects. I. Title.
HM1126.C63 2013
303.6′9—dc23
2012050194

135798642

Access brought to you by:

Page 2 of 2
Foreword

Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of

Narrative in Conflict Resolution
Sara Cobb

Print publication date: 2013

Print ISBN-13: 9780199826209
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.001.0001

(p.vii) Foreword
Mark Freeman

It is extremely gratifying to launch the Explorations in Narrative Psychology

book series with Sara Cobb’s extraordinary book. Speaking of Violence is not just
interdisciplinary but omni-disciplinary, ranging across philosophy, political
science, aesthetics, poetics, and more. But it also points toward a much richer,
more inclusive and capacious psychology than the one we currently have. It is a
psychology deeply nested in culture and in the lived reality of people. It is a
psychology that is engaged with, and indeed inseparable from, the ethical realm,
the realm where questions of meaning and value, peace and violence, Eros and
Thanatos, reside. It is the kind of psychology I believe we need and ought to
have.

Of all the excellent books-to-be that will be part of the series, this one deals with
an area of inquiry that I know least well. Indeed, if truth be told, I didn’t even
know the area existed until fairly recently. This is emphatically not a reflection of
the area! On the contrary, it is a reflection of (1) my ignorance, and (2) the fact
that narrative psychology, broadly conceived, continues to find its way into
numerous and ever-growing intellectual spaces. I emphasize the phrase “broadly
conceived.” Here, one might of course ask: Why narrative? In some people’s
eyes, the answer is clear: “narrative” has become one of the buzzwords of our
times, fashionably hot, au courant. Indeed, as a colleague of mine insisted a
while back, it’s just the latest intellectual fad and, as with most fads, will fade
away in due time. Perhaps he was right. But that was nearly thirty years ago,
and here we are, still, seeing in the idea of narrative a central organizing
principle for understanding and depicting some significant dimensions of the
human condition. Again: Why? And what could it possibly have to do with the
kind of violence Sara Cobb addresses in this book? On the very first page, we are
told that “Stories matter,” that they have “gravitas” and “weight” and are

Page 1 of 5
Foreword

“concrete,” serving to “materialize policies, relationships, and identities that

circulate locally and globally anywhere and everywhere.” Shortly after, she turns
briefly to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The Middle East conflict, as a story,”
she writes, “is foundational and mythic, primordial, within both the Arab and the
Western worlds” and “helps to anchor the divisions across the world, between
religions, nations, and cultures.” (p.viii) It is also “toxic to peace everywhere
for this reason.” That is not all. “This conflict, like all conflicts, is a function of
the stories that are told, retold, and foretold about the conflict.”

This is a bold statement. It is also an intellectually venturesome and, indeed,

courageous one. For, if Cobb is right, even the most intractable and vicious
conflicts are embedded within stories; consequently, it is only through
rethinking, reworking, and indeed rewriting these stories that the conflicts in
question may be left behind. This is not to say, of course, that the conflicts Cobb
addresses are only a function of stories. Nor is it to say that the process of
moving beyond them is an easy one or that merely conjuring up new and
improved storylines can do the job. One might think of some of Freud’s ideas on
psychoanalytic process in this context. I am thinking especially of his piece
“Remembering, repeating, and working-through” (1958 [1914]), when he notes
that, in order to curtail the “compulsion to repeat,” one must see in this
compulsion the traces of memories and stories that have not yet risen to
consciousness: “As long as the patient is in the treatment he cannot escape from
this compulsion to repeat; and in the end we understand that this is his way of
remembering” (p. 150). What’s more, “The greater the resistance, the more
extensively will acting out (repetition) replace remembering” (p. 151). The
implication? The patient must

[f]ind the courage to direct his attention to the phenomena of his illness.
His illness itself must no longer seem to him contemptible, but must
become an enemy worthy of his mettle, a piece of his personality, which
has solid ground for its existence and out of which things of value for his
future life have to be derived. The way is thus paved from the beginning
for a reconciliation with the repressed material which is coming to
expression in his symptoms, while at the same time place is found for a
certain tolerance for the state of being ill (p.152).

The process is bound to be painful and difficult and will more than likely intensify the
conflicts at hand. Alongside the ostensibly primitive material that had been manifested
beforehand, there has emerged new material, bringing into further relief their deepest
sources, heretofore operating behind the scenes. It should come as no surprise that
this process can be explosive. The good news is, “If this new attitude toward the illness
intensifies the conflicts and brings to the fore symptoms which till then had been
indistinct, one can easily console the patient by pointing out that these are only
necessary and temporary aggravations and that one cannot overcome an enemy who is
absent or not within range” (p. 152).

Page 2 of 5
Foreword

These ideas do not represent an exact parallel to the kinds of conflict situations
Cobb is addressing. For one, she is concerned more with the interpersonal than
the intrapersonal. For another, although there may well be a good measure of
“repetition” at work in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts, it is not (p.ix)
necessarily to the exclusion of quite conscious memories and stories; indeed,
these often go hand in hand. For another still, the notion that “one cannot
overcome an enemy who is absent or not within range” would appear to be less
applicable in the broader context of conflict resolution, for the “enemy” may in
fact be quite visible and very much within range. It might also be noted that the
idea of “overcoming” the enemy is hardly ideal when it comes to conflict
resolution! But the feared or distrusted or hated Other is not the only enemy to
be considered in the process of conflict resolution. One’s very own storylines—
about the Other, about “one’s own,” and about the relationship between the two
—can also be the enemy. These do need to be “overcome” for any significant
progress to be made. There will likely be resistance, and it will have to be
identified as such. But the task at hand is not only to identify the resistance.
“One must allow the patient time to become more conversant with this
resistance with which he has now become acquainted, to work through it, to
overcome it, by continuing, in defiance of it, the analytic work” (p. 155). Only
then can true progress be made.

Let me stay with Freud for just a few moments longer. Working-through,
although necessary, is hardly sufficient in achieving the desired therapeutic
ends. In addition, there must be reconstruction and renarration: a new story
must be fashioned out of the remains of the old. One may be tempted to frame
this process in purely pragmatic terms, that is, as a process of fashioning a
better, more serviceable story than the one that had been there before. If only
the process was this simple! Analyses would be a good deal briefer, as would the
kinds of conflicts that Cobb addresses. What else is needed then? Freud provides
some clues when he responds to the question of what happens when the analyst
offers a faulty interpretation—or “construction” (1964 [1937])—to the patient.
“No damage is done if..we make a mistake and offer the patient a wrong
construction as the probable historical truth. A waste of time is, of course,
involved, and anyone who does nothing but present the patient with false
combinations will neither create a very good impression on him nor carry the
treatment very far; but a single mistake of the sort can do no harm” (p. 261). As
he goes on to explain, “If the construction is wrong, there is no change in the
patient; but if it is right or gives an approximation to the truth, he reacts to it
with an unmistakable aggravation of his symptoms and of his general condition.”
As such, “Only the further course of the analysis enables us to decide whether
our constructions are correct or unserviceable” (p. 265).

Now, if narrative psychology has demonstrated anything at all through its years
of existence, it is that ideas like “right” or “correct” interpretation—not to
mention “the truth”—are to be questioned, radically. In the world of narrative,
Page 3 of 5
Foreword

there is no wholly unvarnished truth, no view from nowhere, no pristine thing,

able to be apprehended equally by all who can see or hear. Narratives aren’t
things. And yet, following Freud’s lead, there does exist a “pressure,” a narrative
pressure, one might say, to work toward the truth—or, at the very least, toward
more complete and inclusive stories than those customarily told. “On the (p.x)
global stage, the war between Al-Qaeda and the West,” for instance, “rests on
the (rather incomplete) story on either side about the Other; immediately after
9/11, the U.S. administration began to tell a story about ‘why they hate us,’” the
root cause supposedly being “their fear of our freedom and envy for our wealth.

“This story,” Cobb continues, “has not only provided a rationale for war in
Afghanistan, but also has been used, retrospectively, postinvasion, to justify the
war and continued U.S. occupation in Iraq.”

There is a kind of double violence entailed in this story, according to Cobb: “In
symmetry with the destructive force of what this narrative affords or makes
possible in terms of violence, it is equivalently violent in terms of what it
constrains—we, in the West, are disabled from exploring the Other(s) in all their
complexity, doomed, in a very tragic sense, to create the enemy we then seek to
destroy.” Needless to say, these “Others” have their stories as well, ones that are
equally violent, not only in terms of what they explicitly call for, but in what they
say about “us,” our motives and our characters. Each side fuels the other, and
the cycle continues, even intensifies. Whatever else might be needed to end the
cycle of violence—and Cobb is surely attentive to the myriad factors involved—
new, more complete, and indeed truthful stories are required. Without these,
there can only be repetition. Through the work of “critical narrative practice,”
we can find ways “to differentiate the ‘better’ from the ‘worse’ stories.” From
this perspective, it should be emphasized, truth is more than a matter of
representational accuracy or correspondence to the (ostensible) facts. It is a
matter of adequacy, human adequacy, both empirical and ethical, at once.

Seen from one angle, Speaking of Violence seeks to propose more effective
means of conflict resolution, rooted in narrative. But as Cobb goes on to suggest,
“a focus on narrative would do more than make conflict resolution practices
more effective; it would also encourage the development of an ethics of practice
equipped to favor the development of stories that redress marginalization and
anchor people’s capacity for moral agency.” For Cobb, therefore, a narrative
approach to conflict resolution is not to be seen as one more technical tool to be
added to the current store, one more instrument for “mediation” or
“facilitation.” By being rooted in substantive human concerns—marginalization
and oppression, degradation and suffering—it is a vehicle for discerning what is
ultimately at stake in political conflict and, in turn, for showing that resolving
such conflict cannot take place apart from the ethical realm. To curb narrative

Page 4 of 5
Foreword

violence, a narrative ethics is required. Speaking of Violence tells us not only

why this is so, but how this ethics might be advanced in serving human needs.

I don’t want to say much more about Sara Cobb’s outstanding work. How it will
impact the field of conflict resolution, I cannot say; those closer to the field will
surely know better. What I can say is that it is bound to have a strong and
enduring impact on narrative psychology. One reason is her sophisticated use of
narrative as an analytic lens for understanding human thought and behavior.
Another, again, is her vision of psychology itself. To her credit, she doesn’t (p.xi)
explicitly state what this vision is; there are no proclamations here, no oracular
pronouncements. Instead, she embodies this vision in the very meticulous,
careful, and caring work she engages in throughout the book. I characterized it
earlier as “omni-disciplinary.” This is surely one of its virtues. In the end,
however, it is also supra-disciplinary, in the sense of transcending its moorings in
specific fields of inquiry. Put simply, it is a work of thought, oriented toward
some of those fundamental questions that are at the heart of the human
condition. It is also a work of compassion and is animated throughout by an
abiding concern for the fate and well-being of people and of the human
community more generally. I therefore consider Speaking of Violence to be a
most fitting and welcome entry into the Explorations in Narrative Psychology
series.

References

Bibliography references:

Freud, S. (1958). Remembering, repeating, and working-through. Standard

Edition XII, 147–156 (originally published 1914).

Freud, S. (1964). Constructions in analysis. Standard Edition XXIII, 257–269

(originally published 1937).

Access brought to you by:

Page 5 of 5
Introduction

Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of

Narrative in Conflict Resolution
Sara Cobb

Print publication date: 2013

Print ISBN-13: 9780199826209
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.001.0001

Introduction
Sara Cobb

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords

This introduction to the book argues for the importance of a narrative lens for
conflict analysis and resolution and considers how this lens enables connections,
rather than divisions, across the “local” and the “international,” effectively
breaking down that nomenclature as a way of categorizing conflict.

Stories matter. They have gravitas; they are grave. They have weight. They are
concrete. They materialize policies, institutions, relationships, and identities that
circulate locally and globally, anywhere and everywhere. The story told by Israel
about Hamas is not just a set of words, it is an account of the history, in the
present, toward a selected or preferred scenario that rationalizes walls,
continued settlements, ongoing humiliations via the patchwork of checkpoints,
and authorizes violence. Likewise, the Palestinian story about “Nakba,” the
catastrophic event that established the state of Israel and disenfranchised the
Palestinians, is a story, not in the sense of a representation of the events
themselves but in the sense that it creates underground tunnels, it authorizes
networks of insurgency while legitimizing Hamas for its role in reducing
suffering within the Palestinian community, defining the contours of Palestinian
identity itself. The Middle East conflict, as a story, is foundational and mythic,
primordial, within both the Middle East and the Western worlds. It helps anchor
the divisions across the world, between religions, nations, and cultures, and is
toxic to peace everywhere for this reason.

This conflict, like all conflicts, is a function of the stories that are told, retold,
and foretold about the conflict (Harré and van Langenhove, 1991, 1999; Pearce,

Page 1 of 21
Introduction

2008; Tan and Moghaddam, 1999; Winslade and Monk, 2000). And, indeed, one
can argue that the persistence of this conflict is our collective failure to treat it
as the mythic struggle for life and legitimacy that the stories about it reveal. It is
not just a conflict over specific issues—and there are many. Even if there could
be consensus regarding the “right of return” or the settlements, the conflict
narratives, breeding “brittle” relationships, remain. Indeed, the specific issues
associated with the conflict, such as borders, settlements, and the fate of
Jerusalem, arise from the conflict narratives, the overlapping and layered stories
that provide a plot sequence, a set of characters, and moral frameworks that
authorize and legitimize a particular history, a given identity. And these stories
are not simply representations of history, even though they operate as if that is
all they do. Rather, these stories provide the architecture for hate and distrust at
all levels of social relations, from international to interpersonal conflicts
(Entman, 1991; Halverson, 2004; Porat, 2004; Tilly, 1998).

(p.4) On the global stage, the war between Al-Qaeda and the West rests on the
(rather incomplete) story on either side about the Other. Immediately after 9/11,
the U.S. administration began to tell a story about “why they hate us”—the cause
of the hatred was their fear of our freedom and envy for our wealth. In what
Jackson calls the “myth of exceptional suffering,” the U.S. administration and the
pressadvanced a story in which the United States was an exceptional victim
(Jackson, 2005). This story has not only provided a rationale for war in
Afghanistan, but has also been used, retrospectively, post-invasion, to justify the
war and continued U.S. occupation in Iraq. In symmetry with the destructive
force of what this narrative affords or makes possible in terms of violence, it is
equivalently violent in terms of what it constrains—we, in the West, are disabled
from exploring the Other(s) in all their complexity, doomed, in a very tragic
sense, to create the enemy we then seek to destroy. And, of course, on the Other
side, the Muslim “terrorists,” a largely undefined category of Others made up of
anyone (presumably Muslim) intent on violence against the West (the United
States), continue to resist and confront the West, in Gaza, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in
Afghanistan, and in Southeast Asia, for example. In a terrible cycle of irony, the
narratives create the evidence for their own presence and persistence (Jackson,
2005).

However, the interventions intended to eliminate or control terrorists, ranging

from wars to prisons such as Guantanamo, to aerial bombing, to
counterinsurgency strategies, have clearly increased the antipathy within the
Muslim world toward the United States, and, in fact, there is some empirical
evidence that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is responsible for actually
increasing terrorists attacks (Sheehan, 2007). Lake (2002, cited in Sheehan) has
also argued that the policy of “preemption” has mobilized extremists and
contributed to their consolidation, enabling them to increase their resources and
their organizational strength.

Page 2 of 21
Introduction

Efforts have been made, on the part of the West, at building “understanding”
within the Muslim world. These have appeared under the banner of “public
diplomacy” and have been efforts to market the United States in particular and
democracy more broadly; these efforts to gain “soft power” (Nye, 2004) are not
focused on increasing the understanding of the “terrorists” by the United States,
but rather they are intended to influence “hearts and minds,” reducing
insurgencies and/or cooperation with the enemies of the West. Public diplomacy
has not, however, yet focused attention on the dynamics of the broad cultural
narratives that shape the conflict between these two cultures. And yet, without
an understanding of not only the narratives of extremists and those who
advocate terrorism and without reflective awareness of how those narratives
are, in turn, fueled by the narratives told by the United States (the West),
strategies for reducing terrorism will continue to focus on control and
containment while public diplomacy is deployed as an effort to increase soft
power. Clearly, these global narratives that criss-cross the world play a critical
role in the production of violence, as well as in the international policies and
practices that seek to contain or reduce it.

(p.5) Local conflicts can also be understood in terms of the narratives told and
retold by parties to the conflict. In the Niger Delta region, parties themselves
explain the violence in the region via what can be called the “criminal
narrative,” referring to the theft of oil by militias creating a black market where
illegal trading of weapons and oil cause the conflict between the government,
backed by the multinational oil companies and the armed groups. In this story,
the militias are a criminal force, motivated by greed and a lust for power.
Conversely, the “social justice” narrative, told by locals in the community and
militia leaders authorizes the use of force to right the wrongs done to the
communities in the south over the past sixty years. During that time, the story
goes, the government and the multinational oil companies robbed the south of
its natural resource, polluted its communities, and failed to compensate the
people for that resource. In this narrative, the people of the Delta region have
been forced to take matters into their own hands in an effort to gain a greater
share of the wealth that has been stolen from them. The “environmental justice”
narrative, a permutation of the “social justice” narrative, adds to the complexity
of the conflict as international environmental groups echo the narrative of the
local people, who live with the open flames from nearby refineries. And, finally,
there are many within Nigeria, as well as in the international community, who
account for the conflict using ethnicity as a frame; this account tells the story of
the historical struggle between tribes and attributes current violence to those
divisions. Of course this “ethnic” narrative disqualifies the logic and legitimacy
of the social and environmental justice narratives and sidelines the role of the
multinational oil companies altogether. The narrative politics of this conflict are
extremely complex because, not only are there multiple narratives at play, each
struggling for elaboration and legitimacy, but there are also local, national, and

Page 3 of 21
Introduction

international actors, and the narratives at play are variously, even if predictably,
advanced and defended by speakers and their affiliated groups.

But it is not just that there are different and competing narratives in the Niger
Delta; narrative politics takes place in a context that Watts (2005) calls the “oil
complex,” as a set of institutional practices, struggles to marginalize, co-opt, and
otherwise delegitimate the narratives from those that would oppose it. The
narrative playing field is not “level”; institutional authority (note the root word
“author”) regulates the public sphere in which narratives of dissent, alternative
to the state narrative, can appear. Banished narratives or “hidden transcripts”
are the foundation for resistance (Scott, 1990) if not violence. As Scarry (1987)
has noted, violence fills up the spaces where words are not allowed.

Within the United States, a “local” conflict erupted in Manassas, Virginia over
the “Rule of Law Resolution” that was passed in 2007, which allowed police to
stop anyone and conduct a background check of immigration status using a
“probable cause” standard; Help Save Manassas, a local citizen group, mobilized
the community in favor of this legislation, with an overarching narrative that
illegal immigrants were taking jobs from citizens, committing crimes, (p.6)
infesting the community with gangs, and getting access to services supported by
tax dollars. The human rights community, along with Latino advocates, told a
different story: This country was founded and built by immigrants, and these
immigrants, regardless of their legal status, pay taxes and contribute to the
diversity of the community. Further, the Resolution dramatically reduced the
civil liberties of all citizens and promoted racial/ethnic profiling, thus fostering
discrimination.

Even though the legislation was amended in 2008 for practical reasons having to
do with the complexity of implementation, the narrative struggle persists; the
community continues to be polarized. Further, the narrative about illegal
immigrants began to resonate with communities all over the country, giving it
momentum and anchoring the emergence of other groups, permutations of Help
Save Manassas. And, in turn, this narrative has resonance across many parts of
the world. Like the narratives that characterize the conflict between extremists
and the West, these narratives regarding immigration are both local and global.
Indeed, the narratives of inclusion/exclusion demarcate the boundaries of
belonging, citizenship, and community itself (Wodak, 2006).

They are always local in the sense that narrative conflict is performed in a
particular setting, with particular people. However, these are also always global
in that they operate as narrative resources that are “downloaded” into particular
settings as sense-making devices, structuring what Taylor refers to as “the
intersubjective web of meaning” on which both consensus and dissensus are
constructed (Taylor, 1985). Consider the stories that defined the murder of Theo
van Gogh in the Netherlands in 2004; this event unleashed violence against local

Page 4 of 21
Introduction

mosques, as well as some churches, and polarized the region—“autochtonen” (those

of Dutch descent) expressed alarm over the militancy of a portion of the large
immigrant Muslim population, while the Muslim community reacted not only
with fear but with a narrative about their own exclusion within Dutch society.
The post-9/11 narratives colonized the meaning of the murder of van Gogh and
today the Netherlands still struggles to reconcile the narratives of the
autochtonen with those of the Muslim community; the government is working to
design policies and processes that address the needs of what has been named
“problem neighborhoods” (Smetsand Uyl, 2008).

To complete the tracing of narrative across levels of conflict, interpersonal

conflicts are also a function of the narratives that are enacted. As many scholars
have noted (Killian, 2002; Labov and Waletzky, 1967; Sarbin, 1986; Walzer and
Oles, 2003; White and Epston, 1990; White and Taket, 2000), the stories that
individuals tell about Self and Other, in everyday conversations, structure the
nature of interpersonal interactions (Shotter, 2008), as well as intrapsychic
dynamics (Spence, 1986). The divorcing couple, family business conflicts,
organizational conflicts, and sibling conflicts, as well as family conflicts of all
kinds, all are enacted in conversations, within a network divided into “us” and
“them,” known as the “enmity system” (Coleman et al., 2007). The division
between (p.7) people within this system is a boundary constructed by the story
about the conflict and its associated issues.

For example, a conflict in a family business can be analyzed in terms of the

stories that are told, to whom, about what, as stories of suffering, loss, and pain.
In one such case in Latin America, there was a set of siblings whose uncle
controlled their (considerable) assets, after their own father died early. Over
time, the uncle clearly began to favor his own children, doling out cash,
professional opportunities, and special privileges to them. As the siblings grew,
so did their story of displacement and exclusion. As these narratives developed
and hardened, one of the siblings began to wear reflective sunglasses and T-
shirts and march in antigovernment protests. The uncle admonished his nephew,
who then openly and repeatedly defied his uncle. At one point, homemade
bombs were thrown over the wall of the uncle’s family compound, in broad
daylight. All of this had dire consequences for the financial opportunities of the
siblings. They were effectively banished from the family business, and there
were no formal laws in place that could adequately restore these siblings to their
prior standing, with access to collective assets. The uncle clearly had a negative
story about the siblings anchored by the central character, the errant brother,
whereas the siblings felt themselves “imprisoned” in their uncle’s illegal regime.
These stories were not only toxic to the relationships across the entire family,
but they also had serious material consequences for both the group of siblings,
who kept trying to control their “radical” brother, but also for the uncle, who
was repeatedly called out in public by “el mal educado.” Although some in the
field of conflict analysis and resolution would not consider a “family feud” a real
Page 5 of 21
Introduction

conflict, for those involved, it has the markers of violence, exclusion, and
displacement in which relationships, assets, and the future are at stake.

Furthermore, narratives of violence maraud across the relational field, infecting

even the intrapsychic space, debilitating a person’s capacity to be an agent in
his own life, rupturing his relation to his own narrative processes. Not only do
individuals “smooth” narratives, as Spence (1986) has noted, editing out portions
that might destabilize their own legitimacy, but their development depends on
their ability to story their Other as legitimate, which in turn reflects on their
capacity to manage and resolve conflicts (Goboda-Madikizeal, 2008). As Bauer,
McAdams, and Pals (2008) have noted, “happiness” itself is a function of the
nature of the narratives we tell about Self and Other.

In addition to the narrative complexity at the intrapersonal level, interpersonal

narrative dynamics, enacted in conversations, reflect the tremendous complexity
of conversations at the intersection of global, local, interpersonal, and
intrapersonal narratives. These “conversations” can be thought of as
interactions between speakers, exchanges that may not be face-to-face or
exchanges in which only one interlocutor participates, imagining their Other,
“conversing” via the media, in blogs, or in art, as well as in all manner of public
forums. I am here (p.8) using the notion of “conversation” not as the discrete
turn-taking between parties, consistent with conversational analysis, but rather
referring to the struggle over meaning, in which parties to that process offer
interpretations in response to Others, and these interpretations become the
context for the next round of what Bateson called “proposals” of how I see you
seeing me, seeing you (Bateson, 1979; Laing, 1998).

Because conversations-as-proposals are the domain for the enactment of

narrative, the distinction between “micro,” “mezzo,” and “macro” is not only
unnecessary, because these conversations populate all these levels, but it is
problematic, as it implies that macro is more critical, providing context for
“lower levels.” Although it is certainly the case that large-scale narratives do
provide context for interaction at mezzo and micro levels, it is also the case that
the micro-level conversations where narratives are adopted, elaborated, and
promulgated are extremely critical to the macro level. Local actors develop what
Hajer (1995) refers to as “storylines” in the course of addressing conflict or
problems, drawing on the discursive resources that are present and available,
explaining the past and forecasting a future. In turn, these discursive resources
are comprised of event sequences, characters, and themes that circulate in their
culture; the “origin” of these resources, although archeologically traceable, is
less important to this project than their deployment. For this reason, I resist, in
this book, following the “levels of analysis” approach and prefer to develop case
studies that exemplify the circulation of narratives as conversations across
global, local, organizational, and interpersonal contexts, accenting, where data
permit, the circulation of stories across these contexts as well. In this mediated

Page 6 of 21
Introduction

age, conversations between people careen around the globe, contributing to

break down the distinction between discrete levels of analysis. The “Global War
on Terror” narrative populates the stories in the Niger Delta conflict, and those
narratives ricochet off discussions of security and economic development in
Africa, which reverberate in conversations at affected oil companies and a host
of national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that deal
with human rights, environmental justice, aid, peacemaking, and more. The
effort to understand the level of analysis is an effort to try to isolate the origin of
meaning itself or to try to understand meaning as though it could be contained
by the “level” itself.

The conversations to which I refer are not conversations over the color of
tablecloths. They are not ordinary conversations, but are instead extraordinary
precisely because of what is at stake—literally life, well-being, and the access to
resources and rights. These are conversations in which violent narratives are in
motion, unleashed onto a social context and, all too often, uncontained, if not
uncontainable. These are conversations about “differends” (Lyotard, 1989),
narratives that “uncover and find idioms for wrongs, to remember and
reconstitute publically the traces and remainders of horrific events” (Smith,
2008).

(p.9) As Smith (2008, p. 167) has noted, any discussion of the

“differends” (wrongs suffered and silenced) is not only a conversation in which
there is a struggle over meaning—meaning that does not originate in that
particular conversation—but also it is a conversation in which meaning itself is
uncontrollable, multifaceted, and often opaque. These are conversations in
which power is visible, where irony abounds, and the materiality of discourse, of
narrative, as a doing, as a practice, is a “fact,” as in “factum,” or “something
done.”1

Communication theorists have studied these practices. They have noted that
anything that is said is structured by the frame provided by the context (Austin,
1975; Pearce, 2008); they have noted that anything that is said is regulated by
the constitutive and regulative rules that govern interaction in that context
(Huspek, 1994; Pearce, 2008); they have explored the ethnomethods associated
with specific cultures, in terms of language pragmatics (Carbaugh, 2005; Wodak,
2006). These lines of research, and the pragmatic tradition from which they
arise, presume that speech is enacted by agents who are “getting on” in the
Wittgensteinian (1953) sense, mobilizing language and stories toward preferred
outcomes and relationships (Searle, 1997).

But what the pragmatic approach to discourse does not accent is that agency
itself is all too often a casualty of conflict. In order to “get on,” people must be
able to tell a story in which they are positioned as agents, able to describe and
account for their own victimization, able to respond humanely to the stories of

Page 7 of 21
Introduction

others. However, conflicts are precisely the context in which the capacity for
action, for narrative action, is carefully circumscribed by institutional practices
(Smith, 2008), by master narratives (Johnson, 2008), by structural and physical
violence (Burton, 1996; Galtung, 1990). Narrative and discourse are not only
practices in which the social is constituted and relationships negotiated, as the
pragmatists would have it; they are highly political processes by which some
forms of life thrive and others are banished.

But the political process of narrative erasure, marginalization, or colonization is

not simply a process in which the powerful work strategically, in line with their
own interests, to reduce the agentic narrative capacity of their Others. If this
were the case, narrative would be the instrumental manifestation of the
intentions of the powerful, and the politics of narrative in conflict processes
would collapse back into game theory and behavioral economics—narratives
would be the surface manifestation of the deep structure, the intentions of
actors. Although narratives can certainly be the instruments of the powerful,
manifestations of intentions to dominate, narratives are, in and of themselves,
discursive “matter” that, obedient to social structure and cultural capital,
provide the habitus that affords and constrains what is (p.10) possible
(Bourdieu, 1977). And this habitus appears in conversations, in talk, in
interaction.

This book explores the politics of narrative processes in the context of conflicts
across global, local, organizational, and interpersonal contexts. First, I offer a
theoretical framework for understanding conflict as a narrative process,
describing both the structural and dynamical features of conflict narratives.
Drawing on narrative theory and language pragmatics, episodic structures,
character roles, and the moral themes of conflict narratives will be explored in a
set of case studies. Dynamical features of conflict narratives, including critical
moments and turning points, as well as the production of liminal phases, will be
described. Part I will end with a critique of narrative pragmatics and positioning
theory; drawing on Arendt, I will explore “radicalized” narratives that form the
basis for cultural archetypes that contain and manage discourse, debate, and
dialogue, severely delimiting our collective capacity for the deliberative
processes that Carlos Nino (1998), John Dewey (1929), and others (Hirst, 1994)
had hoped would be the foundation for democracy itself.

Against the backdrop of “radicalized narratives,” Part II offers a theory of

narrative violence that accounts for and describes the marginalization of
narratives through a series of discursive practices. Following a critique of
Habermas’s (1996) approach to emancipation, I will offer a normative view of
narrative, one that will build on the work of Nelson (2001), Scarry (1987), Jabri
(1996), Arendt (1998), Oliver (2001), Lara (2007), and others; this normative
view will be the foundation for evaluating and interrogating conflict narratives

Page 8 of 21
Introduction

and will provide the framework for a narrative perspective on power, a critical
theory of narrative. Again, I will be drawing on cases to illustrate the model.

Finally, in Part III, I will explore the implications of this narrative lens on conflict
dynamics for conflict resolution practice, advancing a theory of narrative
transformation that is founded on a normative approach to narrative. This
normative narrative model provides a framework for assessing narratives as
regards their ethical and aesthetic characteristics and features, in the context of
conflict processes and in light of the critical narrative theory discussed in Part II.
The implications of normative narrative theory, as a revolution of conflict
resolution practice, will be discussed. My goal in Part III is to provide a
framework for narrative practice that provides the foundation for a critical
analysis, as well as a framework for ethical intervention.

Advancing a Theory of Practice: Narrative Contribution to Conflict

Resolution
My motivation for this book, more broadly, is to build on the excellent work that
is being done in narrative theory and practice, across many disciplines, in order
to connect this work to conflict analysis and resolution. Not only is there an (p.
11) increasing body of research on narrative processes, but there is an
increasing gap between the approaches to conflict analysis and resolution,
founded on game theory and augmented by social psychology, and the effective
practice of conflict resolution as a practice in which the meanings that anchor
conflict and constitute relational divisions evolve.

But, more specifically, I hope this book, which outlines the contours of critical
narrative theory, will provide the theoretical framework to assess and advance
existing conflict resolution practices. At present, there are significant challenges
to the resolution methods that presume that conflicts can be resolved via
changes in attitudes or via meeting needs/interests as a function of negotiated
settlements. We know that a large percentage of peace agreements collapse
post-agreement (Stedman, Rothchild, and Cousens, 2002); we know that even
when agreements are in place, the conflict between peoples can become
“frozen,” as is the case in Bosnia (Borgen, 2007; Kemp, 2004); positive peace
cannot be legislated. Although negotiation is certainly an advance over
deterrence as a peace strategy, it is not a process that can easily adapt to the
complexities of, for example, the U.S./Iran relationship, in which there is a
history of violence, asymmetric power relations, and a vast difference in culture.
“Negotiation” that presumes “rationality” is just as likely to contribute to
escalations, as parties struggle to outline the conditions for any talks. All too
often, failures in peace negotiations are attributed to the absence of “ripeness”
or to the presence of “spoilers” who seek to continue the conflict for personal
gain; although these explanations are certainly viable, they lay blame on the
context and the parties for the failures of conflict resolution practice. And when
there is “success,” it is also attributed to “hurting stalemates” (Zartman, 1995)

Page 9 of 21
Introduction

that generate the conditions for ripeness/readiness. The issue for the field of
conflict resolution is not the viability of ripeness theory as an explanatory tool,
but rather the underlying assumption that parties know and will rationally
discern and address their interests/needs.

The violence associated with terrorism is riddled with interest-based discourse.

Either, as in the case of suicide bombers, experts continue to apply an “interest-
based” discourse, framing “terrorists” as irrational (as a function of the
misalignment of actions with interests) (Caplan, 2006) or they construe the
interests of terrorists as seeking media attention and instilling fear/terror.
However, in neither case have experts actually interviewed extremists in order
to understand (stand under) the stories that the extremists themselves would
tell, the stories that require violence and the generation of fear. In this context,
the application of a negotiation paradigm and interest-based discourse by the
West has not only been costly in terms of lives and money, but it has also very
likely fueled the very narratives that undergird the violence itself. Increasing the
effectiveness of conflict resolution will require the field to move beyond interest-
based analysis toward understanding the dynamics of meaning making itself.

(p.12) But a focus on narrative would do more than make conflict resolution
practices more effective; it would also encourage the development of an ethics
of practice equipped to favor the development of stories that redress
marginalization and anchor people’s capacity for moral agency. Existing conflict
resolution practices, such as mediation and facilitation, may be effective at
generating agreements, but may themselves lack criteria for assessing either the
ethics of the agreements (as parties to the conflict make those assessments
themselves, often from within asymmetric power relations) or the evolution of
the problematic relationship, if there was an evolution. Deliberative processes
can indeed generate community as well as consensus, but they can just as easily
cover over injustice and perpetuate marginalization, as Hajer and Wagenaar
(2003) and others have shown.

Other approaches to conflict resolution, such as problem-solving workshops, do

indeed attend to the meanings that parties assign to problems and the
associated construction of relationships. Problem-solving workshops have
certainly been advanced by the field as a strategy for promoting understanding
across divisions fueled by violence and hatred (Fisher, 1997; Kelman and Cohen,
1976). However, they all too often “symmetrize” the conflict and contribute to
justify the relationships that are formed, even in the context of oppression and
continued violence (Rouhana, 2004), even in the face of the complexities of “re
entry”—participation in a problem-solving workshop can be read as “defection”
from within a group, endangering the lives of those who participate (Pearson
d’Estrée, Fast, Weiss, and Jakobsen, 2001). Even in the case in which the
knowledge “transfer,” via re entry, is strategically orchestrated, there is still
little work that evaluates the effectiveness or the ethics of the movement of

Page 10 of 21
Introduction

meaning/stories through networks. A more developed approach to narrative and

conflict resolution would shift the grounds for problem-solving workshops and
help link networks to narratives in practice.

Dialogue is another important conflict resolution practice anchored in the

exploration of meaning, but, like other practices, it cannot only cover over
asymmetries—as dialogue itself is often advocated as a practice that foster
“authentic” relations—it can also set up parties for a connection between
“revelation/reflection” (as if sharing alone breeds understanding) and relational
healing. Also, dialogue is often promoted as a means for obtaining consensus, as
if communion would generate the grounds for addressing injustice, suffering,
and oppression. Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of dialogue as a conflict
resolution practice is the concept of “recognition” that lies at its heart, a concept
I will review later in this book. Oliver (2001) has offered a powerful critique of
the way parties “exchange” granting the Other status as a human being on the
basis of similarities they see they have with the Other. Clearly “recognition”
should not be a commodity to be traded in a dialogue process, but if we are to
avoid the ethical dilemmas that Oliver has underlined, we need to advance the
theory that undergirds the practice of dialogue. Attending to the nature of the
stories that are constructed in a dialogue process would provide a method for
tracking the (p.13) commodification of recognition and establish a narrative
framework that fosters reflection and learning along with relational
development.

Deliberation, as a practice often twinned to dialogue, has a rich theoretical

foundation linked to the pragmatics of meaning making. Habermas (2001) has
provided a framework for deliberation as a practice core to democratic practice,
enacted via the construction of ideal speech acts. Although a more thorough
review of this contribution is included in this book, I am here making the point
that this work has been, to date, one of the only efforts to provide a critical
theoretical base for designing and evaluating deliberative processes, attending
to meaning making. However, as McAfee’s (2009) analysis of deliberative
practice reveals, the discourse of interest-based processes is retained even
though there is also an abiding concern for the production of meaning in
communities. There is new and important work being done on the production of
meaning in deliberation in which scholar-practitioners are developing theories to
account for reframing practices and the “negotiation” of meaning as
communities come together to work through identity conflicts. Reviewed later in
more detail, this line of research is drawing on narrative theory and developing
a narrative lens on public policy practice. It is an excellent example of innovative
research in deliberative process.

Peacemaking is yet another conflict resolution practice aimed at relational

development, outside the parameters of interest-based discourse. Described by
Lederach (1998, 2005) and anchored in the nonviolent tradition of Gandhi and

Page 11 of 21
Introduction

Martin Luther King, Jr., peacemaking and peacebuilding are certainly critical to
the resolution of protracted conflict and to the emergence of a sustainable
positive peace. Peacemaking itself is grounded in an ethics of participation that
seeks to ensure that the peace that emerges promotes equality among and
across the parties, often twinned to processes promoting justice (Abu-Nimer,
2001a,b; MacGinty, 2008).

Although there have been excellent examples of the successes of peacemaking

(Dayton and Kriesberg, 2009), peace-making itself is increasing co-opted by
counterinsurgency processes, such as those practiced in Iraq or those under
development in Afghanistan; peacebuilding has become “nation-building” and is
all too often aligned with the objectives (narratives) of the occupying force, as
has been the case in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although Lederach (2005)
and others (Cousens, Kumar, and Wermester, 2001; Jeong, 2005; Reychler and
Paffenholz, 2001) have outlined the parameters of effective peacebuilding
practices, the issues surrounding power and justice remain, the issues
surrounding marginalization can persist, even as peace agreements are reached.
Peacebuilding and peacemaking would both benefit practically and ethically
from a redefinition anchored in narrative theory, tuned to the features of the
stories that populate a given conflict and effective at fostering their evolution.

Somalia provides a case in point: The power-sharing agreements that were

negotiated in Somalia have not resolved the “meaningful” issues—relationships
(p.14) continue to the damaged, and power-sharing has not led to
reconciliation. As Nadler, Malloy, and Fisher (2008, p. 41) point out, power-
sharing agreements fall into the category of “instrumental reconciliation,” which
seeks to promote trust through collaboration or cooperation. This is very
different from a focus on what they term “socioemotional reconciliation,” which
is designed to build trust by altering the way parties construct their sense of Self
and their sense of the Other; these changes in identity, in turn, provide a
foundation for a new relationship. It is clear that in instrumental reconciliation
there is little evolution in the nature of the conflict narratives—collaboration is
expected to be the force that creates those changes. In the case of Somalia,
instrumental reconciliation has not worked—14 different reconciliation
agreements did not heal the past or increase the presence of positive peace.

But even in the case of socioemotional reconciliation, the theory about how
identity is transformed through interaction/engagement is limited in terms of
our understanding of how the meaning that undergirds the construction of
identity evolves over time and, in a positive manner, in the context of a
relationship that is historically violent. Although research has expanded our
understanding of the process of reconciliation, it has yet to document the
evolution of the stories parties tell, on the ground, about the conflict, about
themselves, and their relation to others. Without this level of detail, we may
presume reconciliation has taken root in a post-conflict environment on the basis

Page 12 of 21
Introduction

of evidence that there are acts of “forgiveness” (widely circulated in the media,
as they were in the national reconciliation project in South Africa, set in motion
by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC]) or collaborations in
progress. These acts of reconciliation not only may be limited in nature, but they
may also cover over ongoing resentment associated with marginalization. A
narrative lens would enable analysts and interveners, who are working to
promote reconciliation, to attend to the evolution (or lack thereof) of the stories
told in a post-conflict region.

Additionally, reconciliation processes are often critiqued for bypassing justice—

transitional justice itself often relies on amnesty, and even when truth and
reconciliation processes, such as the one in South Africa, foster forgiveness,
social inequality and marginalization persist (Mendeloff, 2004; Nagy, 2004).
Some have argued that “truth-telling” without accountability neither fosters
reconciliation nor supports the emergence of justice (Gibson, 2004; Nattrass,
1999; Quezada, Rangel, and Pallais, 2006). And there have been many critiques
of transitional justice processes for either failing to promote reconciliation, as in
the case of Chile (Cobb and Wasunna, 2000), or failing to promote justice, as has
been the critique of South Africa’s TRC, as well as many other cases in which
“truth-telling” was either accompanied by amnesty or no effort was made to
assign blame, as has been the case in many TRCs to date. Attention to the
narrative structure and reconciliation processes would not only provide an
additional assessment for evaluation of the process, it would also provide the
foundation (p.15) for more effective, targeted policies that address and reduce
marginalization and promote integration across identity divisions.

In summary, the practices of conflict resolution available to practitioners today,

although certainly effective in many cases, are inevitably limited, either because
they are not able to effect agreements or alter the nature of the conflict, or
because the peace that is created is partial, unstable under the weight of
historical injustice and the threat of renewed violence. Although the interest-
based discourse has certainly contributed to conflict resolution, it has fit, hand-
in-glove, to the discourse of rational choice theory, which disattends to the
presence and creation of meaning systems and their relation to violence. After
all, it is not as though people can “create new meaning for mutual gain” when it
is the existing frameworks for meaning that reproduce the conflict. One can
argue that the glass is half empty and return to advocate “Realpolitik,” using the
logic that conflict resolution practices are “soft” and flawed.

However, I want to argue the opposite—the glass is more than half full. We have
sets of conflict resolution practices, emerging around the world, in conflict and
post-conflict zones, in business settings, in law, in formal diplomatic processes
and grass-roots social movements. But what we need is a lens, a way of tracking
the conversations in these practices that attends to the nature of the stories in
play, as well as to their transformation. Narrative provides a “plumb line” for

Page 13 of 21
Introduction

understanding, tracking, and altering the meanings that anchor conflict and
support its resolution. It provides a lens for both planning and assessing the
nature of the change that is effected; and critical narrative practice goes further
—it will provide us means to differentiate the “better” from the “worse” stories,
and, in the process, it holds out the promise of an ethics for narrative
approaches to conflict resolution that can address, if not redress,
marginalization.

What all the conflict resolution processes have in common is that they all are
enacted in conversations in which stories are launched, elaborated, destabilized,
and otherwise unfolded. Elaborating a theory of conflict and its resolution from a
narrative lens will provide not only a foundational theory for the analysis of
conflicts, but will also enable practitioners to assess the evolution of narratives
on the basis of a narrative ethics that denounces narrative violence and calls for
the reduction of marginalization, story by story, conversation by conversation.
Conflict resolution does indeed aspire to more than simply settlement or
agreement. In keeping with Burton’s aspirations (1996), it should seek to redress
marginalization, which is the handmaiden of structural violence (Galtung, 1990;
Laclau and Mouffe, 1987). In the end, it is my hope that this book will not only
advance the theory of conflict resolution, but will also support the evolution of
conflict resolution practice in line with an ethics for narrative engagement that
addresses the critical workings of power and ideology. Moving beyond the very
important observation that we live in narrative, this book provides a pragmatic
and ethical framework for understanding conflicts and their evolution, (p.16)
as narrative processes, as well as a framework for practice that recognizes and
contains, as it reduces, narrative violence.

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definition/english/factum.

Access brought to you by:

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Speaking of Violence

Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of

Narrative in Conflict Resolution
Sara Cobb

Print publication date: 2013

Print ISBN-13: 9780199826209
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.001.0001

Speaking of Violence
Sara Cobb

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter is intended to situate the rest of the book with a discussion of the
materiality of narrative and the complexity of narrating violence within conflicts
as well as the conflict resolution process. Thus, this framework sets the stage for
the rest of the book by grounding the discussion of narrative and conflict on the
issues that complicate both the pragmatics and politics of narrative dynamics in
conflict processes. Illustrative examples will include narratives from the conflict
in Somalia as well as narratives from a conflict in the US over immigration.

Keywords: materiality, witnessing, narrative violence, state of exception, language of agency

In the summer of 2008, in Prince William County, Virginia, The Rule of Law
Resolution was passed that authorized the local police to check the immigration
status of anyone encountered during the course of any routine police work, such
as during traffic stops or responses to disturbance of the peace.1 Persons who
did not have immigration documents that permitted them to be in the United
States, known locally as “illegal immigrants,” were to be arrested and deported.
Prior to its passage, at packed televised public hearings,2 some speakers wept,
reminding others that they, too, were once immigrants; others called those who
supported The Resolution “racists.” The supporters of The Resolution, by far the
dominant voice, blamed illegal immigrants for gang violence and linked the
immigration issue to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. One woman told a narrative
about how afraid her elderly mother was to go outside, given that her immigrant
neighbors drank beer in their front yard. Meanwhile, those who supported the
immigrant community protested outside of City Hall; they put up a billboard
called the “Liberty Wall” on a prominent corner in the community accusing The

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Resolution’s supporters of racism and linking the immigration issue to Jim Crow
laws against African Americans and the annihilation of Native Americans. “Help
Save Manassas”3 began as a local group to organize support for The Resolution
in the community; they held public meetings where they told narratives about
how illegal immigrants were taking their jobs and increasing the crime rate. The
Resolution was eventually amended, on the basis of financial and legal
concerns,4 to allow police to check the immigration status only of those who
were actually arrested. However, the damage was done. Immigrants fled the
community. Tax revenues plummeted. And the deep divisions between
supporters of (p.21) The Resolution and those opposed to it became a stable
fracture, solidifying the polarization of the community.

Throughout the discussion and public deliberation, there was one group whose
voice was not able by its absence—that of the immigrant community itself. As
the Washington Post noted5: “Latino immigrants have been exploited by
ungrateful, racist white residents who took advantage of their labor and now
want them to leave.” Among the few immigrant voices raised in protest was that
of Gaudencio Fernandez, a local resident who authored the billboard message
linking racism and violence against Native Americans and African Americans to
anti-immigrant sentiment in the community. Fernandez and members of his
family were very vocal in expressing their antipathy to The Resolution, but they
were unique in their community. During the public hearings, hour upon hour of
testimony was heard from members of the community, but there were very few
speakers who self-identified as “immigrants.” Narratives from immigrants
themselves about their experience of living in the community, about their
experience of how the immigration issue was discussed and debated, and about
the impact of The Resolution on their lives were blatantly missing. The nature of
the narratives that are told, and those that remain untold, reflect and recreate
the conflict that unfolded in that Virginia community.

This chapter addresses that terribly paradox: Violence begets narratives of

suffering that recreate the conditions that led to the violence. How can people
account for suffering—speak about violence—when that process is either
impossible, for reasons I will detail in this chapter, or contributes to more
violence and violation? And if we cannot narrate violence, or if, in the narration,
we contribute to violation, how is violence to be made known, to be made
public? And if it cannot be made public, how can the past be judged, and
through those judgments, create reflections that can support the very context of
deliberation, if not of law and community itself? I review the research that
contributes to our understanding of the relation between pain and language,
between violence and narrative, noting that violence and pain inevitably escape
the containing power of discourse, of narrative.

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This is also related to the complexity of witnessing: It is not simply that violence
resists or disrupts narrative, it is also that the process of being present to
narratives of violation and suffering poses its own problems. The limits of
discourse and the process of witnessing do not, however, absolve us of the
problem of how (p.22) to account for suffering because the narratives that are
told are material—they matter. They are inscribed on bodies, institutionalized,
and enshrined in cultural practices. For this reason, it is critical to develop the
knowledge needed for phronesis,6 practical wisdom relative to “speaking of
violence” so that narratives can be nurtured to support sound political
judgments in the public sphere that reduce violence and generate the conditions
necessary for deliberation and democracy itself. In the discussion that follows,
the relation between violence and narrative will be explored as a theoretical
framework for narrative pragmatics.

Narrative and the Social Construction of the World

In general, the field of narrative studies has contributed greatly toward
anchoring our understanding of narrative. Bruner (1986) has noted that our
social world is composed of narratives, that the “mind” itself is narrative in
nature. We grasp the world as “narrative”7; experience is structured via the act
of sequencing events linked through a logic of action, populating these events
with characters, embedding these characters in a moral framework such that
their actions not only become sensible, but the point of the narrative—or what
Labov (1997) refers to as “the evaluation”—becomes clear. The human condition
is the condition of narrative (Polkinghorne, 1988); we are the narratives we tell
(Gergen, 1988).

Narrative is not only constitutive of the human psyche, it is also foundational to

interaction in families, communities, organizations, and nations, as well as to
international relations (Bamberg and Andrews, 2004; Barry, 1997; Charon and
Montello, 2002; Cobb, 1994; Drexler, 2006; Einhorn, 2000; Hajer and Wagenaar,
2003; Harré and Moghaddam, 2003; M. Levi, 2002; Maines, 1999; Mitchell,
1981; Nelson, 2001; Rappaport, 2000; Roe, 1992; Rotberg, 2006; Sköldberg,
1994; Sluzki, 1992; Soliva, 2007; Tololyan, 1987; Tripp, 2001; van Wynsberghe,
2001; Winslade and Monk, 2000; 2008).

Consistent with the tenets of social constructionism (Berger and Luckmann,

1967), the social world is organized and structured on the basis of both
narratives “lived” and narratives “told” (Pearce and Littlejohn, 1997). The
“lived” narratives are those that structure the nature of experience itself, often
sustained by the scaffold provided to us by our culture; the “told” narratives are
those we elaborate with others over a lifetime. This is a useful distinction
because it allows (p.23) for the presence of what Scott (1990) called “hidden
transcripts” that structure the nature of the social world in any given context. In
this sense, we “arrive” at narratives we did not make—we may tell the
narratives, but we do not author them because they are, in many ways, provided

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to, if not forced on, us. From this perspective, we live in narratives that we tell
but that we do not make (by ourselves). Authorship is partial and dependent on
cultural resources and rules.

But, given the dynamical nature of the narratives told, we also have little control
over their content or the process of their emergence. Bateson (1987) described
interaction as a set of interlocking “proposals” for a relationship; each and every
thing that is said is composed, he argued, of two levels—the level of the content
of what is said and the relational level, which functions to propose a certain
relationship between the speaker and the listener/audience. Relational proposals
can be accepted, rejected, or modified. Take, for example, a question from a
child to its mother: The question will likely carry with it a proposal for a
relationship in which the mother makes decisions and has the privilege to do so.
In turn, when that child makes a demand to its mother, the relational proposal is
often one that carries the child’s privilege to make decisions and the mother’s to
carry them out. Independent of the particulars, assuming that relational
proposals are always under development, the nature of any narrative will always
itself be under negotiation, particularly in conflict contexts.8 Given the dynamic
nature of narrative production (which is elaborated in Chapter 3), “told”
narratives are rarely under the total control of speakers; this is particularly
obvious when considering that “told” narratives live beyond any immediate
interaction because they circulate and reverberate in social networks (Boje,
2001; Hanninen, 2004). From this perspective, we live in narratives that we do
not make (lived narratives) and cannot control (told narratives). This seldom
processed and acknowledged “fact” of narrative is particularly dramatic, if not
tragic, in the context of conflict.

Narrative and Conflict

At the heart of any conflict are narratives, some spoken clearly, loudly,
persistently, even articulately, backed by science and technology, and others
seemingly absent or shriveled, partial, yet dense with meaning, materialized
only through the presence of a wall, a shrine, a fire, or the macheted arm of a
young woman. The transformation of meaning and relationships, related to the
evolution of (p.24) the narratives at the heart of a conflict, occurs over time
and requires engagement, interaction and meaning making. Although it is the
case that conflicts can be transformed without interaction between parties—time
passes, new actors enter the scene to rewrite the narrative and create new
futures—in many cases, conflicts are protracted, “frozen” in time, because there
is no evolution of meaning. Narratives must be told if they are to evolve;
however, telling the narrative is no guarantee that it will evolve—its evolution
depends on the conditions under which it is told.

There are many institutionalized spaces set up to elaborate the narratives at the
heart of a conflict, such as courtrooms, public hearings, and parliamentary
sessions; in these settings, narratives are presented, contested, elaborated and,

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on occasion, transformed. The telling and retelling of narratives, the

development of explanations and the creation of new narrative logics and
narrative lines, is part of any negotiation process in which narratives are
evaluated, judged, and adopted as scenarios moving toward a future that is,
itself, under development.

This is the dream narrative of law and democracy. People have competing or
different interests, they come together to share their ideas about what is or
could be, they learn about themselves and others, they negotiate their
differences, and, in majoritarian processes, authorize their choices through
voting. Dewey (1910, 1927, 1929) argued that reflective thought could be a
foundation for the kind of communication that could allow persons to interact in
a manner that would increase uncertainty and collective knowledge about
interests and options. Although Dewey did not presume that beliefs that ground
certainty have narrative structure, he did assume that talking mattered, that it
was through communication that differences would be resolved. From a
narrative perspective, this process involves the presentation and elaboration of
narratives of what Dewey (1927) called “negative externalities”—events whose
negative consequences come to the attention of the public, which then becomes
a public, a community, in the course of engaging the negative consequences,
which are, in effect, narratives. It is in and through making these narratives
public that the public itself is constituted.

In the context of courtrooms, the contest over narratives is transparent. Rules

that govern the development of narrative restrict and constrain what narrative
elements can be included and how the narrative is presented. Although these
narratives may develop, they are not likely to evolve because this development
takes place within an adversarial interaction that includes accusations, denials,
justifications, and excuses. This interaction usually reproduces narratives,
hardening them as the struggle over meaning takes place. Accusations lead
inevitably to more of the same. In this way, courtroom narratives neither heal
broken bonds nor reduce the trauma of violence. On the contrary, courtroom
narratives are reductive and blaming and generative of conflict.

Although these institutionalized settings and associated practices regulate the

production of conflict narratives, deepening or transforming conflict, they do not
determine the nature of those narratives themselves. At times, (p.25)
transformation takes place, even in contexts where it is unlikely (Hajer and
Laws, 2006); but, all too often, given the momentum of conflict narratives, these
narratives not only persist but gain momentum. Irony and humor can erupt
anywhere, even in contexts that suppress them; critical moments and turning
points abound, even when procedures for social process are highly structured
(Cobb, 2006, 2008). Conversely, even in contexts designed to promote the

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transformation of narrative, it may resist change, warding off interventions,

sealing itself off from reinterpretation (Nelson, 2001).

Narrative production is, theoretically, always idiosyncratic, particular, and

unpredictable in the context of conflict processes because narrative evolution is
a function of how particular people, in particular moments, make sense with
others. However, although narrative evolution is unpredictable, theoretically,
practically speaking, there is always a folk wisdom, a narrative competency that
allows persons to understand and anticipate how existing patterns of narrative
interaction will evolve in the future (Zlatev, 2008). Also, the future is always a
function of, but never contained by, the narratives about the past because
shifting contexts in the present can retrospectively alter the narrative past.

Although forecasting or predicting narrative evolution is certainly an issue for

parties in conflict, there is an even more significant issue: Conflicts contain (in
both senses of the term) both violence and violation. People can have differences
that are narrated as differences, without conflict. Conflict carries with it a
narrative DNA that both reflects violation, in terms of the experience of persons,
and creates violence, in terms of the patterns of interaction over time. The word
“violence” is fundamentally a relational word—it refers to a force extended
toward Others, a force that “breaks,” “dishonors,” and generates “outrage.”9
Although it is possible to do violence to inanimate objects, violence, in the
context of conflicts, refers to the “break” generated through force in the
relational field. This “break” is not only of relationships; it is also of the narrative
order of the world itself.

Domesticating Violence
Scarry (1985), in The Body in Pain, argues compellingly that physical pain is very
difficult to describe—it eludes words. Although we have a metaphoric vocabulary
that we use to describe pain, it is exceedingly inadequate—pain is always beyond
the capacity of language to contain it. Efforts to do so result, she argues, in an
“alchemical” process by which pain is converted into the “language of agency”;
this is a discourse in which pain is translated into weapons and wounds—the
account is not about the pain itself, but instead focuses on the weapon and its
product, the wound.

(p.26) In the context of conflict, a similar kind of consideration may apply:

Persons externalize responsibility for their suffering, accenting the negative
outcome of a story (as a sequence of events), and focus on the cause of that
outcome—the outcome is the “wound” and the “weapon” is the cause. The
language of agency, in this way, can be seen to truncate the production of a
narrative—all too often, the account of violence and violation is more of a story
about a set of events, rather than a narrative that contextualizes those events.
The language of agency foreshortens the development of narrative itself.

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Speaking of Violence

Defying Narrative
Langer (1991), in his analysis of Holocaust testimonies, argues that violence
disrupts and resists narrative. Violence breaks not only relations, but it also
breaks the narrative logic itself because persons are not able to make sense of
the violence; it is always more than, to draw on Scarry’s terminology, the
“language of agency”—more than a discussion of weapons and wounds. There is
simply no way to account for or make sense of institutionalized violence, which
is always extreme, intentional, and systematic. The result of this is that persons
become separated from their own pain, inured to it, and, in this process, lose not
only their status as human beings, cut off from themselves, but also become
despised by Others for enduring in a zone of half-life, alive, but dead. As
Agamben (2002) has noted, building on Levi (1988), the Nazi concentration
camps were designed to create “non-persons” or Musselmann who had given up
on life, bent, as if in prayer, lost to life, but yet living. They were also beyond
narrative, nonhuman: “Human beings are human insofar they bear witness to
the inhuman” (Agamben, 2002, p. 121). Not only were the Musselmann beyond
bearing witness, but those around them, their fellow inmates, refused to bear
witness to the inhumanity that had stooped the Musselmann’s shoulders. And
here lies the awfulness of that regime, and any and all other systems of
institutionalized violence that separate people from their capacity to witness
inhumanity. If violence cannot be contained, tamed, cornered, or corralled by
narrative, it marauds as outlaw, outside of law, out of control, dangerous and
unknowable. Yet it is precisely institutionalized violence itself that disrupts our
capacity to narrate pain.

Violence can be understood as “institutionalized” in any context in which the

conditions of suffering are built into the ways of life, into local institutions and
practices; referred to as “structural” violence (Galtung, 1969), this form of
violence creates the living dead—persons so outside the realm of agency as to be
objects, objectified by those who control the system, as well as by themselves.
However, it is the case that conflict implies that the parties to the conflict, via a
language of agency, recognize a “wound.” In the ghettos of Washington, D.C.,
and in so many other cities around the world, these “wounds” can be
unemployment, threats to safety, bad schools, or drug-infested neighborhoods in
general; (p.27) more specifically, wounds can refer to the particular pains
suffered in an episode of violence or in the daily grind of poverty, there on the
edge of the nation’s capital, where power and money are coupled and coupling.

But, in the conflict narrative, the “weapon” is all too often either highly
particularized, in terms of an episode of violence, or absent altogether in the
discourse. Structural violence, by definition, is difficult to “story” in that its
existence does not seem to accompany a specific history, a sequence of events
that can be strung together, contextualized, by those subject to that violence—
they are themselves living in, from this perspective, a “state of exception,” a

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place where law has been used to create a place without law, a place that defies
narrative itself.

This is a new kind of violence, the contours of which are outlined by Levi and
Agamben. This is a narrative violence, violence that breaks narrative itself.
Galtung has described both physical violence and structural/cultural violence,
associating the cessation of physical violence to “negative peace” and the
cessation of structural violence as a condition of “positive peace” (Galtung,
1990). In the case of narrative violence, the disruption of narrative process is a
consequence of the “break” in social relations that is a function of both the
intention to harm, exhibited in physical violence, and/or the result of living in a
“state of exception.” Separated from narrative, people do not have access to the
production of meaning; as a result, neither protest nor politics is possible
(Rancière, 2006). People are disabled from participation in public deliberation
and cut off from the reflective processes through which not only healing but also
social mobilization and change are possible. Isolated and disenfranchised, they
live in the shadows of the public sphere, their relation to state and community
broken.

To the extent that persons are able to link together a sequence of events, they
are able to tell a story. But, as Abbott (2008) has noted, a story is not a narrative
—the latter refers to the way events are contextualized and presented as a
coherent whole, to make a point. Absent this context, this coherence or point, a
story does not rise to the level of narrative—it is only a series of episodes or a
plot. Although it is the case that we use “story” colloquially as interchangeable
with “narrative,” it is narrative, not story, that is the threshold for humanity, for
being human.

In the context of institutionalized violence, there are several complications: first,

weapons that are named are seldom named as systemic in nature, yet it is
precisely the state of exception that allows and even creates structural violence;
second, those who are subjected to institutionalized violence are not only less
able to witness their inhumane treatment, they are all too often despised by
Others for their lack of agency, for their somnolence and abjection. Third,
humiliated by their own inability to respond to violence and oppression,10
violence is all too often their only recourse. In a terrible inversion, it becomes
the evidence for increased oppression and justification for the state of exception.

(p.28) This is exactly the condition that led to the creation of the prison system
at Guantanamo Bay; the United States, humiliated by the 9/11 attacks, was
unable, given its leadership, to create a narrative that accounted for its pain
without counter-humiliating Others. The shriveled narrative that emerged in the
United States post-9/11 was one in which the terrorists were violence because
they “hated our freedom.” The wound was the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as
well as gash in the ground in Pennsylvania. And, whereas the weapons of the

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violence were the airplanes commandeered by Al Qaeda operatives, the cause of

the violence, within the U.S. narrative, was “the Muslim hatred for the West.”
Although this could be framed as a narrative, in that it does have a plot (hatred
led to acts of terrorism, which led to loss of life and the need for the “war on
terror”), characters (terrorists, innocent victims, and protectors of the innocent),
and moral themes (security and freedom), it is a “thin” narrative—there is no
history of why the “hatred” emerged. The Others are irrational and almost
“animal” in their dogged intention to harm the West; the good guys are a
caricatures of themselves. This thin narrative, however, had tremendous
hegemonic power—it was impossible to contest it without being labelled
“unpatriotic.” As a consequence, any effort to elaborate this narrative was met
with resistance; to this day, it remains a historical, as archetypal narratives often
are. Guantanamo Bay persists, even in the context of President Obama’s efforts
to dissolve it. Reflection on the pain of the events, for both victims and
perpetrators, remains hidden. The consequence of narrative violence is the
perpetuation of violence itself, in a terrible cycle that cripples the relation to
narrative itself, both for the oppressor and the oppressed, for the victims and the
perpetrators.

The muteness of the “terrorists” in the public discourse, the total absence of
their narrative, such as an account of their pain, fits their status as objects of the
state of exception. They are victims of narrative violence. But reciprocally,
although not symmetrically, those who create the state of exception, the
Imposers, are already ensnared, in turn, in a narrative that denies the humanity
of their Other, a narrative that confers totalizing and essentialized legitimacy on
Self and totalizing and essentialized delegitimacy, or evil, on the Other. And, not
only is there nothing in their own narrative that could anchor its evolution, no
uncertainty, no ironic tragedy, no instability, but any attempt to alter the
Imposer’s narrative is met with the same kind of categorical ontology—the
violence done to the Other’s narrative creates the conditions for shriveling the
narrative of the Imposer. These are reciprocal processes, in that the narrative
violence done to a group by its Others damages the relation between narrative
and pain for both groups. However, the “damage” is not symmetrical—the
violence done to those who live in the state of exception is more totalizing, in
terms of access to narrative itself, whereas those who impose the state of
exception live with damaged or truncated narratives.

From this perspective, narrative violence highlights the issue that conflict is not
symmetrical at the level of language practice. There is always one “side” that
(p.29) works, via the creation of a state of exception, to control the “violence”
of the Other, breaking their relation to language and effectively reducing or
denying them their humanity. This can and does lead to reciprocal denials of
humanity. However, they are not equivalent—those subjected to the state of
exception are also denied what Nelson (2001) has called “moral agency” or the
capacity of persons to narrate themselves as having the capacity to be moral
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actors. Moral actors are not those who are capable of moral action because this
state of affairs would, theoretically, apply to everyone. Rather, “moral agency”
refers to the way that Others elaborate the capacity of actors to be moral agents
and the consequences for those subjected to structural violence to narrate that
violence. Narrative violence reduces moral agency both for those who create the
state of exception and for those who are victims of it.

The Middle East conflict provides a case in point: Narrative violence can be
exemplified in the violence done to the Palestinians, who live in a state of
exception, quite literally, as a function of the Israeli narrative about the
Palestinians. First, Palestine is not defined as a “state” because Israel will not
agree to its constitution as such. Second, Palestinians are lodged in a state of
exception because the laws that afford rights to Jews are not afforded to
Palestinians or to the Arabs within Israel.11 Third, the suffering of the
Palestinians, like that of the Musselmann, is unrecognized and even denied by
Israel.12 Both the Palestinian and the Israeli narratives contain and draw on the
language of agency—there is an externalization of the pain, attributed to the
weapons of others. Although this is tragic, in the sense that it fuels the conflict,
it is not in and of itself violent. It is only in the context of institutionalized
violence that narrative violence exists. And this is what constitutes the
asymmetry of conflict—the group that exists within a state of exception is the
group subjected to narrative violence.

And the Israeli people know, perhaps better than any other group in the world,
what it means to live in a state of exception. They have, after all, been subjected
to discrimination for centuries, across different continents and cultures,
excluded from rights and privileges granted to others, and singled out for
persecution and annihilation. The concept of the “state of exception” was itself
born from attempts to make sense of “the Final Solution” and its processes
during the Holocaust. From this perspective, the state of exception creates
radioactive narratives that have long half-lives. Subjected to narrative violence,
subjected to the state of exception, the Israelis impose the state of exception on
others in a round robin of victimization. Once victims of a state of exception, the
narrative scenarios are extreme and limited: Impose the state of exception on
Others so that they will not destroy you.

(p.30) Institutionalized narrative violence can be recognized as a function of

the primordial exclusion: racism. Cornel West (1989), in The American Evasion
of Philosophy, notes that Emerson, whose contribution to pragmatism is
foundational, was himself derailed in his advocacy of pragmatism as a
foundation for democracy by his racism. If Others are inferior, they cannot, or
will not, join in the making of meaning; and, indeed, herein lies the “difference
that makes a difference.”13 Community itself, from this perspective, requires the
exclusion of the Other to create aggregation, collectivity, and commonality. As
Kristeva (1982; 1994) notes, this exclusion of the Other, this abjection, is critical

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to the dynamics of self-reflection, of intersubjectivity. From this perspective,

“conflict” is more than simply contesting narratives, more than simply
differences between narratives. It is the struggle against abjection, against
exclusion, from within the state of exception. It is a struggle to make pain visible
from within a context where the pain of the excluded cannot be formulated. It is
a struggle to create narrative in a context where racism, as abjection, is the
primordial condition of community, reproduced by structure, by institutions and
local practice. In this way, narrative violence refers to both the disruption of
narrative by violence and, in the context of conflict, the institutionalization of
exclusion.

From this perspective, conflict resolution as a practice is itself, as Rouhana

(2010) has described, a practice that “symmetrizes”—it presumes equality
between parties because the conflict is all to often defined in terms of
“differences” in general (in culture, in identity, in needs or interests), and more
recently as “competing narratives.”14 Within this tradition of narrative research
on conflict, narrative itself is a “carrier” of identity, and it is differences in
identity that are the cause of conflict, as per dominant theories in conflict
studies. The work of conflict resolution, from this perspective, is to identify the
areas of difference and then work to create a common or shared narrative
(Scham, Salem, and Pogrund, 2005). And, indeed, the narrative approaches to
conflict resolution are aimed at “bridging narratives” (Pappe, 2006).

A bridging narrative is one that is developed to “bridge” different segments of a

storyline—it provides context for connecting portions of the plot that seemingly
are unrelated. As Pappe pointed out, in Greek dramas, the omniscient voice of
the narrator functioned as a bridge between segments of the play. In conflicts,
bridging narratives provide links between otherwise disparate or mutually
disqualifying (p.31) narratives.15 The conditions for the creation of bridging
narratives require, according to Pappe, a willingness for or interest in
reconciliation; the stronger party has to be ready also to recognize the
legitimacy of the weaker party’s narrative, or at least ready to recognize the
incompleteness of its own narrative. But this is precisely the narrative condition
forestalled by narrative violence—the state of exception so damages narrative
and its relation to pain that the oppressor can neither reflect on his own
narrative nor legitimize his Other, which would, of course, lead to (or come from)
lifting the state of exception. Those in the field who would advocate the creation
of a “shared narrative” as an approach to conflict resolution not only elide the
presence of narrative violence but are also complicit with the exclusionary
practices that support the state of exception. From this perspective, conflict
resolution can function, as Rouhana has noted, in ways that support injustice; on
the basis of his years of work with Kelman, who hosted problem-solving
workshops for parties in the Middle East conflict, Rouhana (2006) has argued
that problem-solving workshops presume a symmetry between parties that
erases the power differential between Israel, as occupier, and the Palestinians,
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as the occupied. He has, however, taken his own argument to the extreme—the
power of parties is not defined by the context alone. Even when they are
victimized by narrative violence, it is possible for parties to return to language,
to develop a narrative that “contains” violence, without reproducing more of the
same.

Witnessing Violence
Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi provide examples of how it
is that persons subjected to narrative violence return to narrative and develop
an account of their pain that does not itself perpetuate violence. King told a
narrative of pain, expanding beyond the language of agency, drawing on
religious discourse—it was not only the U.S. Constitution that granted rights to
all men, but it was God who was the source of the rights of man. This discourse
allowed King to name the violence without perpetuating it, framing oppression
as caused by fear that could, in turn, be overcome through love and faith.16 For
Mandela, twenty-seven years in prison gave him the right to externalize
responsibility for his pain and speak of the need for unity, for a shared vision for
the country, moving the level of discourse beyond the specifics of his own
suffering to the (p.32) suffering of the nation.17 Gandhi, through his practice of
nonviolent communication, was able to narrate the pain of millions of “British
subjects” but did so while refusing to participate in the cycles of violence.18 In
effect, he made the violence of the state of exception obvious, material, and
transparent. The narrative he told was one that resisted the state of exception
and materialized the contradiction between the theoretical equality at the heart
of the rule of law and the practical presence of the inequality authorized by the
rule of law. All three of these cases, albeit rare, are examples of the way that
individuals can mobilize narrative, returning from exclusion, making the pain of
the abject visible, real, and present, being witness to violence, yet doing so in a
way that does not perpetrate—or perpetuate—violence.

Witnessing violence is most commonly understood to be a function of the act of

“recognition,” which is, in turn, defined as witnessing the humanity of the Other
(Taylor, 1985). Thus, in the field of conflict resolution, there is widespread belief
that the absence of recognition is a symptom of conflict, as well as being
productive of conflict. And the converse is also the case: Conflict resolution
involves fostering recognition of the Other in both parties. Witnessing is the
process of mutual recognition and is core to the practice of conflict resolution; in
fact, Taylor (1971) has argued that recognition is a precondition for the creation
of intersubjectivity itself.

However, Oliver (2001) has provided an important critique of Taylor’s concept of

recognition, arguing that it is an “exchange” that trades witnessing the Other for
seeing their similarities with Self. This requires a commodification of differences
that circulate in the marketplace of identity politics, which, as items for
exchange, are disarticulated from the history of those that are witnessed. She is

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warning against the practice of thinking that recognition is in fact a practice

that ensures against exclusion or racism. In lieu of recognition, Oliver
recommends that we follow Judith Butler’s suggestion to be “vigilant” against
the practice of granting humanity to Other in exchange for their similarities with
Self. Given the complexity of institutionalized exclusion, vigilance, as a mental
attitude, is a weak prophylactic against the enactment of narrative violence; it is
much more likely that the existing patterns of interaction, anchored in the
language of agency, institutionalized through the state of exception, persist.
They have path dependency (Boas, 2007). And they create, reflexively, the
conditions for their own persistence (Foucault, 2002).

Narratives Matter
Narratives are material. They are not only mnemonic in nature, reflecting the
world as experienced, but they are constitutive of identity, relationships, and (p.
33) institutions, as well as of the practices associated with these. Feldman
(1991) has provided an excellent framework for understanding the role of
narrative in violent conflict. Using the conflict in Northern Ireland as a case, he
describes the way that people-as-bodies are “inscribed” with narrative—they
are, he argues, texts on which narratives are written and overwritten. He notes
that, in this way, the body, although material, is a text—the material is
subjective, and the subjective, the text, is material. In this move, he erases the
Cartesian distinction that plagues most analysis of violence as material by
framing “talk” or meaning as subjective. When this distinction is made, he
argues, we fail to see the very material struggle over meaning. And it is this
struggle that lies at the heart of violence itself.

Narrative violence, from this perspective, is the materialization of a narrative of

oppression in which one party is separated from narrative and relegated to the
language of agency to account for its pain and suffering. Those who perpetrate
narrative violence are themselves victimized, reciprocally but not symmetrically,
by the truncation of their own narrative of suffering, one that is anchored, as
Feldman notes, on the “origin” narrative, which, in turn, all too often reflects a
romanticized past being destroyed or threatened by the Other, who is excluded
in an effort to return to the natural order. Alternatively, the past was dominated
by the pain caused by the Other, so the present effort at exclusion, via the state
of exception, is an effort to right a wrong and move toward a progressive future.
In both cases, the cause of the suffering is as depicted in the origin myth that is,
all too often, materialized in the creation of the state of exception.

Victims who are captured in the state of exception are positioned within a
narrative in which they are accused of harming, or intending to harm, their
Others. Consistent with the dynamics of “accusation,”19 victims of the state of
exception struggle to elaborate a narrative that could be adopted by third
parties connected to their Others in an effort to constitute their legitimacy.
Denied legitimacy by those who impose the state of exception, victims “work”

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the narrative field in order that some in that field pick up and elaborate the
victims’ self-legitimizing narrative.

However, even if this narrative could be elaborated,20 it can engender

opposition, if not renewed violence. As a case in point, consider the dynamics
surrounding the publication of the Goldstone Report, which documents crimes
against (p.34) humanity perpetrated by Israel toward residents in Gaza, during
December 2007 through January 2008. Immediately after its publication, Israel
decried this report as an exaggeration and undertook its own investigation,
rather than allow the narrative of the Palestinians to be elaborated by the
international community, legitimated by the voice of Richard Goldstone and that
of the United Nations (UN).21 This is a very material struggle over narrative,
over the right of the Palestinians to have a narrative of pain.

Speaking of narrative violence, Israel is the primordial case in point. Encased in

a regime of terror during Nazism, in the most efficient and large-scale state of
exception ever created, European Jews became the exemplar of the
materialization of narrative violence. Separated from the capacity to have a
narrative, they exemplified and embodied exclusion. However, the Declaration of
the Establishment of the State of Israel22 does not name this horrific “exclusion,”
what we now refer to as the Holocaust, as the central case for the construction
of the State; rather, “homelessness,” which resulted from exile from their land, is
the central case—what came to be known as “the Holocaust” was indeed a
“catastrophe,” but just one of many resulting from homelessness. Functionally,
the Declaration narrative equates exile itself to a state of exception and sees the
condition of homelessness as the cause and reflection of narrative violence.
Tragically, the dream expressed in the Declaration was not to be—the dream of
equality for all inhabitants of Israel, regardless of religion, race, or creed.
Instead, the state of Israel has created, over time, a state of exception for their
Others within Israel, thus perpetrating narrative violence against those Others
in an effort to retain or recover their own right, as Israeli Jews, to a place, to a
home, which is for them the way out of their own state of exception. Tragically
and paradoxically, to give up the place is to give up narrative, voice, and to, in
effect, re-exile themselves. But the consequence of this narrative is that it
engenders narrative violence on or for Others who live in Israel, in a state of
exception, quite literally, with laws that establish their second-class status within
Israel. Wherever there are states of exception, there are victims, but the
narrative violence that accompanies the creation of a state of exception does
violence to both those who establish and those who exist within the state of
exception. The Israeli government’s narrative disables it from developing
narratives that would reflect a world forecast in the Declaration; instead, the
narratives used to judge Others justify the state of exception and, tragically,
enact narrative violence and fuel the conflict. And, of course, the judgments
made by the Palestinians also enact narrative violence, positioning Israel as
immoral and making it the object of acts (p.35) of terrorism. But this is not a
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symmetrical problem because the Palestinians do not have the authority to

create a state of exception within Israel, even though one could argue that
Hamas’ narrative creates the state of Israel itself as a state of exception. The
point here is that narrative violence is done through the creation of the state of
exception, a state that rests on narrative judgments.

Conflict Narratives as Judgment

Judgments are a critical feature of conflict narratives. At the time of this writing,
Sryia is embroiled in a civil war; China and Japan are making bellicose
movements against eachother. Shite and Sunni factions struggle in Iraq. In
South Africa, racial tension broke out over the murder of Eugene TerreBlanche
and a song calling for the killing of Boers—it then spilled out into street
demonstrations.23 And there has been increasing tension between the Obama
administration in the United States and Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel,
over Israel’s announcement of new settlements in East Jerusalem. Within the
US, those in favor of gun control are vilified by, and vilifying of, the National
Rifle Association, in the aftermath of the death of 20 children, and 6 adults at
Sandy Hook Elementary School. In all of these cases, participants in these
conflicts are anchored in narratives that constitute judgments. These judgments
are moral, pragmatic, personal, and political (Lara, 2007). As such, they are
implicated in the social interaction in which persons perpetrate and respond to
violence.

Labov (1997) has argued that not only do all narratives have an evaluative
component, but that evaluation is the point of narrative. Narratives that do not
have an evaluative point are incomplete in that the meaning of the entire
narrative remains obscure or ambiguous—they function as a story. Consider for
example, a journalist’s report on violence surrounding the elections in
Afghanistan; simply listing the candidates and explaining their political
platforms and the history of their political parties may indeed constitute a
“story” (as a sequence of events), but it may not have an evaluative point. This is
because journalism, as a practice, seeks to avoid the “bias” that is made
apparent when the story becomes a narrative, when it has an evaluative point.24
And it is precisely the avoidance of negative evaluation that characterized the
reporting on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in which reporters were “embedded” with
troops and unable to string together events in a manner that judged the war
itself. On the contrary, the introduction of the media into war zones during the
Vietnam War contributed greatly to negative evaluation of the war because the
videos and pictures (p.36) of the violence functioned to evaluate the actions of
the United States as either victimizing innocents or themselves suffering
horrifying pain and fear.25 It is the evaluation of the action depicted in the plot
sequence that constitutes the meaning of a given narrative.

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The evaluative point of a narrative is a judgment. Contrary to Rawls (2000) and

Kant (1960), who have argued that judgments are artifacts of rationality,26 a
narrative approach to judgment presumes that “rationality” itself is a function of
the logic advanced by narrative and is, therefore, a discursive production
(Bruner, 1986, 1991). Furthermore, because narrative is itself a social
production, generated in interaction, judgments are collectively produced over
time and in interaction with others. They are not products of individual cognitive
processes, but rather products of the dynamics of narrative processes, social in
nature and a function of those narratives that are in play in the culture, in
interaction.

Lara (2007) has argued that judgments materialize in and through narrative; she
notes that the social construction of evaluations draws from existing narratives
circulating in the culture—as the narrative becomes itself “universal,” the use of
these dominant cultural narratives is equivalent to Kant’s (2009) notion of
“determinate judgment”:

Judgment in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained

under the universal. If this universal (the rule, the principle, the law) be
given, the judgment which subsumes the particular under it…is
determinant. But if only the particular be given for which the universal has
to be found, the judgment is merely reflective. (Kant, 2009, p. 15)

Substituting “dominant narrative” for “rule,” determinant judgments are those

that effectively reproduce the legitimacy of dominant narratives in the process of
framing/containing or evaluating the “particular.” And, reciprocally, reflective
judgments enact the search for a narrative that would fit a given particular. As
Lara (2007) notes: “language can be shocking us with new meanings and
stimulate us to reorient our moral thinking” (p. 10); it is “disclosive language
[that] is an operation of opening up spaces for moral learning” (p. 10). Disclosive
language leads, in turn, to reflective judgments—in the discussion of evil, these
are narratives that “disclose hidden dimensions about the cruelty of human
beings” (p. 9). Lara offers disclosive language and reflective judgments as the
methods by which new moral meanings about past events emerge (p. 68). And
the nature of the moral meanings that emerge, as judgments, as evaluative (p.
37) points, matter—these have constitutive power to open or close spaces for
deliberation and learning.

Arendt (1973) argues that totalitarianism, as a regime, functions to prohibit the

presence of public judgments and/or disrupt the presence of public spaces in
which these judgments can become the object of inquiry, debate, and dialogue.
But it is not just any judgments or narratized evaluations that generate
reflection and dialogue and enrich the public sphere, as Arendt imagined;
clearly, there are narratives that, in and of themselves, shut down alternatives to
themselves, they have illocutionary force—they tell a narrative of wrongdoing

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and provide an account of violation, but this narrative perpetuates and deepens
the kind of discourse that contributes to destroy rather than open public debate
and deliberation. These are determinant judgments that “naturalize” an existing
(narrative) order and legitimize the exclusions and marginalizations that permit,
or even require, violence.

Lara notes that it is the work of disclosive language to materialize, to generate

reflective judgments that lead to inquiry and dialogue, precisely what Arendt
calls for as a means to ward off totalitarianism: “Indeed it is the privilege of a
well-told story to be able to disclose aspects of the human condition that would
seem impossible to translate into pure philosophical concepts” (2007, p. 14). So
it is not just any narrative that could constitute the public sphere, not just any
narrative that can materialize the unsayable, not just any narrative that can
escape the limiting, if not deadening, influence of the kind of rationality that
distills, logically, human experience. And the project of avoiding totalitarianism,
the project of promoting reflection and dialogue, the project of crafting
disclosive language that can express the unsayable, requires particular kinds of
narrative structure and process. For it is, as Lara notes, all too easy to turn
reflective judgment, the kind that opens up new meaning and leads to dialogue
and learning, into “determinant” judgments that function to strip singularity and
specificity in the project to create general explanatory models27:

In my view, it is because good stories are the result of reflective judgments

that [they] can become the chosen means to rebuild communities and
envision a different sense of justice. A good story that sheds light on dark
episodes of the past is surely the best way to share views that can
transform a community….Narratives of the past can also help us build a
space for self-reflection. (Lara, 2007, p. 15)

Conflict narratives function to create accounts of the past, but these narratives
are neither disclosive nor do they function to promote reflective judgments that
open up a space for learning. On the contrary, conflict narratives are constituted
from the public store of cultural narratives that have ready-made victim (p.38)
and victimizer frameworks, ready-made accounts of wrongdoing that perpetuate
these frameworks and function, in this process, to shut down the space for
deliberation and dialogue. Conflict narratives are certainly judgments, but they
are determinative, they reproduce certainty. As such, they are not able to
function as Arendt had imagined, as accounts that support deliberation and
dialogue in the public sphere. On the contrary, they shut it down, as I will
discuss by defining and describing “radicalized narratives” in subsequent
chapters.

Determinant judgments, as conflict narratives, draw on institutionalized

discourses that draw on, and reproduce, archetypal narratives. And these
narrative archetypes are at once cultural and local. They appear as conflict

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“storylines” and provide a shorthand, condensed framework for action. Conflict

narratives, as “storylines” (Hajer, 1995), provide “nodal points” (Laclau and
Mouffe, 1985; Torfing, 1999) that then organize and structure not only the
semantic field, but also the temporal ordering and evaluative frames that,
recursively, anchor the storylines. In summary, conflict narratives are archetypal
storylines structured by nodal points that draw on, and constitute,
institutionalize discourses. From this perspective, the process of organizing
narratives that function as reflective judgments is extremely complicated. It
requires narrative to capture violence and make judgments that would not,
themselves, reproduce exclusionary or marginalizing judgments.

One could presume that the only kind of determinant judgments that would
function to foster reflection, rather than marginalization, would be those that
draw from narratives whose evaluative points affirm equality, human rights, and
access to participation more broadly, thus legitimizing difference as a foundation
for problem-solving and governance. However, there are multiple (and perhaps
multiplying) examples of how countries can be invaded in the name of
democracy and how some people can be held under indefinite detention in a
state of exception (Agamben, 1998, 2002). In other words, narratives that
advance a morality based on rights and participation do not necessarily function
as reflective judgments.28

Although Lara does make the connection between reflective judgments and the
rebuilding (or transformation) of community as a return from violence, in her
book Narrating Evil: A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment, she does
not detail the pragmatics of how reflective judgments are produced. She does
suggest that such judgments are produced through art and literature, and,
although she does discuss the function of tragedy in the production of reflective
judgments, she does not explicate the practice of producing narratives that (p.
39) transform determinant judgments into reflective judgments. She does,
however, point us in the direction of postmetaphysical theory and the role of
description:

The answer to the question, “What makes political judgment sound?” is

best illustrated by calling upon Arendt’s model of Eichmann: she…
produced an illocutionary effect,…[w]ith her novel use of the concept of
ordinary men who commit extraordinary evil deeds Arendt departs
completely from the prevailing tradition of thought—in literature, in the
theological tradition, and in the philosophical tradition as well. Hers was a
postmetaphysical definition of evil because it was not a description of the
nature of evil, but rather a description of the moral code of a man who
committed evil. (Lara, 2007, p. 149)

Page 18 of 29
Speaking of Violence

As a reflective judgment, Arendt’s account of Eichmann’s form of evil

transgressed the dominant narrative that evil is done by evil people. We can see,
through Lara’s account, that Arendt’s narrative about the “banality of evil”
disrupts understanding and generates reflection. It is, from this perspective, a
reflective judgment, and it is constitutive of a new narrative, one that opens up
the public sphere toward democracy and, in this process, withers the potential
for the emergence of totalitarianism. Judgments matter because they constitute
the narrative conditions for either the transformation of conflict and the
evolution toward democracy, or they are productive of narrative violence, the
justification for physical and structural violence.

In this chapter, the relationship between violence and narrative was explored,
highlighting the irony that, in order to speak of violence, which must be done in
order to return from violence, speakers must elaborate the very narratives that
can, tragically, increase violence and violation. If there is any alternative, any
way to escape the centrifugal force of narrative violence, it will require the
transformation of judgments, the evolution of the point or evaluation of the
conflict narrative. In the next chapter, I explore in detail the pragmatics of
conflict narratives, connecting narrative violence to the structural and
processual features of conflict narratives in an effort to illuminate the
complexities of conflict transformation.

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Other documents randomly have
different content
“No whispering allowed,” Merry warned as they climbed
in, the girls sitting two and three deep.

The blizzard had disappeared as completely as though it

never had been, but the high snowbanks that lined the
road and reached to the window sills of the houses
remained to testify that it had been “some storm,” as
Bob said.

“Well, we sure have it to thank for a week of good times

instead of school,” Merry declared. “I hope Miss Preen
and Professor Lowsley enjoyed being snowed in
together.”

Much laughter greeted this remark, but Gertrude said [79]

rebukingly: “I think it’s shabby of us to make fun of
those two. Of course they are sort of queer looking
outside, but in their hearts and souls they may be just
like the rest of us.”

“Trudie, dear, it wouldn’t take a detective to know that

you are a minister’s daughter,” Merry remarked, then, as
the sleigh was stopping in front of her home, she
added: “Now, everybody decide what to take to the
skating party. We’ll find out about the moon and make
our final plans tomorrow. All of you come over to my
house. Tra-la. Good night!”

[80]
 CHAPTER X.
WANTED—A HOUSEKEEPER

Meanwhile Colonel Wainright was facing a new problem.

While living alone he had needed very little waiting on,
a faithful Chinese cook had provided his meals, and the
wife of his hired man had come in daily from their
quarters over the stables to clean the house, but the
O’Haras had decided to return to Ireland. Geraldine, of
course, was absolutely helpless and the Colonel decided
that what he needed was a refined and somewhat
elderly housekeeper, one who would be a good
influence in the home. Just where to find such a person
he could not think at first, but he happened to recall his
old friend Mrs. Thompson, who had transformed her
fine house on Hickory lane, not far from the girls’
seminary, into a home for old ladies. It wasn’t a
charitable plan, exactly; it was a home for homeless old
ladies of some means whose last days would be made
far happier there than they could be elsewhere. Mrs.
Thompson, herself, retained a large front room
overlooking the beautiful grounds, and spent her
summers there; winters she lived either in Europe or
with her son in New York. But only that day he had seen
in the paper that for some reason Mrs. Thompson was
spending a few weeks at her country home, and the
courtly old gentleman decided to visit her and ask her
advice about how best to solve the problem with which
he was confronted.

An hour later he was walking under the leafless hickory [81]

trees that formed a veritable grove surrounding a very
large turreted wooden house, one of the oldest in the
village. A pleasant-faced little old woman answered his
ring, ushered him into the small reception room, and
went to summon Mrs. Thompson. He had not long to
wait, for his elderly friend, dressed in a simple black silk,
as she had been all through the years since her
husband had died, soon appeared and greeted him
graciously. After explaining that her return had been
because of a need for quiet and simpler fare than she
could obtain easily in her son’s New York home, the old
gentleman explained his mission, telling how he had
unexpectedly acquired a family and so had need of a
housekeeper. Before his story was finished, he knew by
the brightening expression in the fine face of the old
lady that she had someone in mind to suggest. Nor was
he wrong.

“I believe Mrs. Gray is just the one for you,” she told [82]
him. “She admitted you just now.” Then before Mr.
Wainright could reply, Mrs. Thompson continued: “Mrs.
Gray came to us recently, during my absence. I know
nothing at all about her past life; we ask no questions
here. It is, as you know, merely a home boarding-house
for gentlewomen. I asked Mrs. Gray this morning if she
were happy with us, and she said, with a wistful
expression on that unusually sweet face of hers, that
she was afraid she never would be entirely contented
without a home to keep, and she asked me if she might
go down in the kitchen now and then and stir up a
pudding or something. Now my theory is that she is a
born housekeeper and just the one you need.”
Colonel Wainright agreed, and the little old lady who
longed to putter about a kitchen was called and the
proposition was made to her. The other two knew by
the brightening of her softly wrinkled face that she was
delighted to accept. The Colonel had told about the two
Morrison “children,” as he called them, who had come to
spend the winter with him, and by the tender light that
glowed in her eyes he was assured that she loved
young people and would have for them an
understanding sympathy.

“Mrs. Gray,” he said, when the arrangements had been [83]

completed, “there is about you a haunting suggestion of
someone whom I once knew. Ever since you admitted
me an hour ago I have been trying to think who it is
that you resemble, but I have given it up.”

The little old lady smiled pleasantly as she replied: “It

does seem that everywhere I go, folks think I look like
somebody they’ve known.”

“Well, that’s about all there is to it,” the old man

acknowledged. “I have had the same thing happen to
me. Judge Crow, up in Dorchester, and I are supposed
to be doubles.” Then, holding out his hand, first to one
and then another of the old ladies, he expressed his
deep gratitude to them both, ending with a promise to
send for Mrs. Gray and her baggage that very
afternoon.

And so it happened that on the third day after the

arrival of the young people, another member was added
to their household. Colonel Wainright had welcomed the
little old lady and had at once introduced her to
Geraldine and Alfred, then he had walked to town,
leaving them to their own devices.
It was quite evident that Geraldine’s good humor of the [84]
day before had departed, for she acknowledged the
introduction with a barely perceptible nod and had risen
at once to go to her own room. Never before had she
been introduced to a housekeeper as though she were
one of her own class. Colonel Wainright was certainly
old-fashioned. Servants were servants, she considered,
whatever they were called.

Alfred, who had promised to go skating with Jack and

Bob, had welcomed the old lady in the friendliest
manner, and she knew at once that she was going to
love the boy, but the girl—that was quite a different
matter.

The Colonel had shown the housekeeper to her pleasant [85]

room overlooking the orchard when her trunk and bags
had been taken there; he had also introduced her to
Ching Lee, the plump, smiling Chinaman in the kitchen.
When she was quite alone, the old lady stood by a
window in her room gazing out at a sparkling snow-
covered scene, and her eyes were misty. How happy
she had been when the Colonel had told her she was to
make a home, a real home, for a boy and girl. One of
the unfulfilled desires of her life was to have had
grandchildren. She blinked a bit, then wiped her eyes
with her handkerchief and smiled at the scene before
her. “Well,” she comforted herself by thinking, “I’ll
pretend these two are my grandchildren, and I’ll treat
them just as lovingly as though they really were, and I’ll
begin that game right now.”

Putting a clean white apron over her soft grey dress,

she went down the wide upper hall toward the front
room, which was Geraldine’s.
Meanwhile that rebellious girl was unpacking her trunk
in a manner which showed that it was a most distasteful
task. Never before had she lifted her finger to wait on
herself. Susan, her maid, had always done everything
for her. She had asked her father to permit her to bring
Susan to Sunnyside with her, but he had said that he
could not ask his old friend to take three people into his
home. As she thought of this injustice, her anger
mounted higher and higher, and she took things from
her trunk and actually threw them over the bed, chairs
and lounge. Every conceivable spot was littered when
there came a tap on the door.

“Come in!” the girl said sullenly, supposing that it was [86]
her brother who wished to speak with her. Instead a
smiling little old lady opened the door.

“Why, Geraldine, child,” she said kindly, “you are busy,

aren’t you? Unpacking and hanging things up is quite an
undertaking, but I think folks like to do it themselves,
then they know where things were put.”

The girl’s face reddened in very evident displeasure.

“Well, I don’t like it,” she said coldly, “and I don’t see
why I should have to. I’ve always had a maid to wait on
me, and I’ve simply got to have one. Now that you’ve
come, I suppose you’ll make my bed and keep my room
in order.”

The old lady had had a talk with the Colonel about this
very matter, and he had definitely said that waiting on
the girl was not one of her duties, explaining that Mr.
Morrison had especially requested that she learn how to
care for herself. Very quietly Mrs. Gray replied: “No, little
girl, that is not one of my duties.”
Then, as the front door bell was ringing, the
housekeeper went to answer it. Geraldine, standing
among the confusion and litter, watched the retreat with
flashing eyes.

“Little girl, indeed! Our housekeeper always addressed [87]

me as Miss Geraldine. Country ways and country
servants are certainly hard to understand.”

Her torrent of angry thoughts was interrupted by a

sweet voice calling: “Geraldine, two girls are coming up
to see you.”

Geraldine looked around the room wildly, but before she

had time to decide what she could do to prevent the
girls from entering, they were standing in the open door.

“Oh, good morning, Miss Drexel and Miss Lee,” the

unwilling hostess exclaimed, with a quickly assumed
graciousness which had been acquired at the young
ladies’ select seminary. “Wait until I remove a few
dresses from the chairs and I will ask you to be seated.”

Doris and Merry exchanged puzzled glances. They felt

Geraldine’s true attitude of mind, and the former said:
“Oh, Miss Morrison, we really ought not to have made
so early a morning call, but we have decided to go to
the Drexel Lodge on Little Bear Lake tomorrow, and
there are so many things to talk about. We did try to
telephone, but the line is out of order, but first do let us
help you put away your things.”

To Geraldine’s amazement, the two girls removed their [88]

wraps, laughing and chatting the while in a most social
fashion.
“I’m going to suggest that we drop formality,” Merry
said, “and call each other by our first names; and now,
Geraldine, I just know that you are ever so tired with
unpacking, so you sit here and tell us where you want
these dresses hung, and presto, we’ll have them up in a
twinkling.”

“But I cannot permit you girls to wait upon me!” the

hostess protested.

“Why not?” Doris inquired. “My mother says that the

most beautiful thing that we can do is loving service for
one another. Oh, what a darling dress this is! It glows
like jewels, doesn’t it, Merry?”

The city girl was rather pleased to be showing off her

elaborate wardrobe to these village girls, who were
evidently quite impressed.

“Oh, that’s just one of my party gowns,” she said

indifferently. “I have several.” Then she confessed: “I
honestly don’t know how to go about hanging them up.
I have just stepped out of my clothes and Susan, my
maid, has put them away.”

“My, how I would hate to have anyone tagging me [89]

around all the time like that,” Merry exclaimed, not any
too tactfully. “It would get on my nerves.”

Geraldine drew herself up haughtily and bit her lip to

keep from replying. Her two guests, with many
exclamations of admiration for the dresses, hung them
up in the long closet, and then, when that task was
finished, Merry announced: “Now I will show you my
latest accomplishment, of which I am real proud.”
Her chum laughed as she explained: “You see,
Geraldine, my mother has a companion, who is also a
trained nurse, and last week she taught Merry how to
make a bed in hospital fashion, and the next day when I
went over to the Lees’, Merry had made and unmade
her bed seven times trying to get it perfect.”

“There’s quite a knack to it,” that maiden smilingly

declared, as she stretched, smoothed and tucked in
sheets and blankets. Then as she stood back proudly
and surveyed her accomplishment, she said, “Mother
thinks my bed-making is a work of art.”

Geraldine wanted to say that she did not consider

menial labor of any kind an art, but she refrained from
making the comment.

Merry sank down in an easy chair by the fireplace and [90]

looked around with a radiant smile. “Everything was
cleared away like magic, wasn’t it?” she said sociably;
then she added philosophically: “If one dreads a thing,
that makes the doing of it doubly hard, but when one
pretends that it is going to be great fun, it gets done
much more quickly; don’t you think so, Geraldine?”

Poor Geraldine’s head was in a whirl. Somehow she

could not adjust herself to the view of things held by
these country girls.

The Colonel had told her that Mr. Lee was the wealthiest
man in the countryside, and, of course, she knew the
financial and social standing of the Drexel family, and
yet these girls had been taught that it was a privilege to
render loving service and that bed-making was an art.

“Now, we must tell you all of our grand and glorious

plans for tomorrow’s lark,” Doris began as she drew her
chair up cosily. Then they chattered about the sleigh
ride and the skating party, and when at last the little
clock on the mantle chimed the hour of twelve, Merry
sprang up and looked out of the window. “Here come
the boys!” she said. “I made them promise that they
would call for us at noon. They’ve been down to the
lake to clean off a space on the ice for our skating
party.”

“I’m so glad, Geraldine, that you like to skate,” Doris [91]

exclaimed as she slipped on her fur coat. “You’ll want to
wear your heaviest shoes and leggins on the sleigh-ride
party and your oldest, warmest clothes. You won’t need
to bring anything toward the picnic part. You and Alfred
are to be our guests of honor tomorrow. Good-bye.”

That night the Colonel, finding Geraldine standing alone

in front of the fireplace in the living-room, slipped a
fatherly arm about her, saying: “Little girl, I know how
hard it is going to be for you to get used to our country
ways, and I was just thinking that perhaps you would
like to go to Dorchester with me tomorrow and spend
the day with your friends.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t, Uncle-Colonel!” was the unexpected

reply, brightly given. “The girls and boys of Sunnyside
are giving a welcome party for Alfred and me. It’s a
sleigh ride out the lake road to the Drexel lodge; then
there is to be skating, and a ride home in the
moonlight. I never was so interested in anything before
in all my life.”

“That’s good news!” the Colonel replied, deeply touched [92]

because the girl had, almost unconsciously, used the
name which he had taught her when she was very
small. “Well, some other time you may go with me to
the city. I go there often to attend to business matters.”

That night after the young people had retired to their

rooms, the Colonel and Mrs. Gray exchanged
confidences and each felt hopeful that the unfortunate
motherless girl was soon to have a change of heart.

[93]
 CHAPTER XI.
A REBELLIOUS BOY

The next morning when Colonel Wainright entered the

cheery, sun-flooded breakfast-room, he saw a slender
girl standing by the window looking out at the glistening
white orchard. She turned with a truly radiant face.

“Oh, Colonel,” she exclaimed, “isn’t this the most

wonderful, sparkling day? I will have to confess that I
have never seen anything so beautiful in the city, for
there, even in the parks, the snow becomes sooty
almost as soon as it has fallen.”

The elderly gentleman was indeed pleased and he said

heartily: “Well, little lady, I am glad that there is at least
one thing that you like in our country village. Aha! Here
is Alfred. Good morning, lad, I judge by your ruddy face
that you have already been out-of-doors.”

“Indeed I have,” the boy replied as they took their [94]

places at the table. “I saw a chap shoveling and so I
went out to help him. Who is he, Colonel? Sort of a
surly boy, I thought. He only grunted when I asked if he
didn’t think the snow was great.”

“He is Danny O’Neil,” the old gentleman replied. “His

father is a tenant on one of my farms and he has had a
great deal of trouble with the boy, he tells me. Danny is
seventeen and has sort of taken the bit in his mouth. He
doesn’t want to go to school nor help his father on the
farm. Mr. O’Neil came to me yesterday and asked my
advice about sending Danny to a reform school. I
advised him not to do so unless he feared the boy might
do something really criminal. Then I suggested that he
send the lad over here to take the place of my man
Patrick, who has gone to Ireland to visit his old parents.
I thought, perhaps, if Danny were earning good wages,
that might straighten him out. I wish you would talk
with him, Alfred. I’m sure it would do him good.”

“I will, sir,” the boy replied. “There must be some reason

that doesn’t show on the surface for Danny O’Neil’s
rebelliousness. Perhaps his father doesn’t understand
him.”

Mrs Gray smiled over the silver coffee urn at the boy [95]
and nodded encouragement. “That often leads to a lot
of trouble and unhappiness, as I have reason to know,”
she replied.

An hour later, true to his promise, Alfred tried to make

friends with Danny O’Neil. Having procured another
wooden shovel from the tool shed, he was tossing snow
from the front walk which had not been entirely cleaned
off since the blizzard. He did not wish his efforts to
become acquainted with Danny to seem too pointed,
and so he had taken this way to make them appear
natural, but the other boy was taciturn, giving no
information about himself or his plans, answering all
direct questions with monosyllables. Discouraged, Alfred
was about to give up when he heard the jolly jingling of
sleigh bells, and to his surprise saw a two-seated cutter,
drawn by a familiar big dapple mare and driven by Bob.
Rose sat at his side, while Doris and Jack were on the
back seat.

They sang out merry greetings as they approached and [96]

came to a halt near where the two boys were working.
Jack leaped out and, after a wave of his hand toward
the Morrison boy, he turned to the other with, “Hello,
old Dan, how are you? I haven’t laid eyes on you in
twenty moons. Why don’t you ever come around?”
adding by way of explanation to Alfred: “Danny O’Neil
and I were champion snowballers when we were kids. I
always chose him to be on my side when I was captain
of the Brick School gang.” Then to the still sullen-looking
boy, who kept on shoveling: “I haven’t seen a thing of
you since you stopped going to school. You made a
mistake to drop out, Dan.” Fearing that he was
embarrassing the still silent boy, Jack turned to explain
their early visit. “We four are a committee on
arrangement. Stopped by to tell you and your sister to
be ready along about two. We’ll call for you.”

Doris, seeing Geraldine in the doorway, skipped up the

front steps for a few words, and on her return, seeing
that Danny was alone, she stopped and spoke to him in
a low voice. “Danny O’Neil,” she said. “I’ve often wished
I could see you to tell you how my heart aches for you
since your mother died. Every week, when I drove out
to your little farm to get fresh eggs for my mother, Mrs.
O’Neil was so cheerful and brave, although we know
now that she must have been suffering for a long time.
She was always telling me that her one desire was to
save enough money to send you up to the Dorchester
Art School. She showed me things you drew, Danny. I’m
sure you have talent. I hope you’ll carry out her wishes.
Won’t you try, Danny, for her sake?”
The boy for a moment seemed to find it hard to speak, [97]
then he said in a tone gruff with emotion: “If I can get
hold of any money, I will. It’s all that’s left, now Ma’s
gone.”

“But, Dan, if you’re working for the Colonel, you can

save that money, can’t you?”

“Not much I can’t! The old man gets it paid to him.

That’s how much I’ll get it.” His voice expressed
bitterness and hatred.

Rose was calling and so, with a pitying expression in her

eyes, Doris said, “Good-bye, Danny,” and skipped away.
After they were gone, Alfred tried once more to be
friendly, but found the surly lad even less inclined to talk
than before, and so he went indoors to prepare for the
afternoon frolic.

[98]
 CHAPTER XII.
A SLEIGH-RIDE PARTY

Promptly at two, Geraldine and Alfred, well bundled in

furs, were waiting in the hall when a joyous shouting,
ringing of bells and blowing of horns announced that
the merry sleigh-ride party was coming up the drive.

Alfred threw open the door and gave an answering

halloo, then, turning, he assisted Geraldine down the icy
steps.

“I wonder where Danny O’Neil is,” the Colonel

exclaimed. “I told him to put ashes on the icy places,
but he has not done so.”

The girls graciously welcomed Geraldine and made room

for her on the deep, blanket-covered straw between
Doris and Merry.

“This is for you to blow upon,” the former maiden said,

producing from her coat pocket a small tassled horn.

For one moment Geraldine hesitated. Then, as the two [99]

big white horses raced along the snowy road with bells
jingling, she soon caught the spirit of merriment and
found herself tooting upon a horn as gayly as the rest of
them. Never before had she had such a jolly time, and
she was actually feeling a bit sorry for the city girls who
had never been on a straw ride.

The sun was bright, and long before they reached their
destination they could see the ice glistening on Little
Bear Lake.

As they drew up at the Inn, to rest the horses a

moment before turning up the seldom traveled East
Lake Road, Mr. Wiggin, who lived in that lonely spot all
the year round with only now and then an occasional
guest for a week-end, came out to greet them.

Usually his face beamed when he saw these young

people, but today he looked greatly troubled.

“What’s up, Mr. Wiggin?” Bob drew rein to inquire. “You

look as though you’d seen a ghost.”

“Well, I came out to warn you young people you’d [100]

better turn back. Old Man Bartlett, who lives a mile up
the wood road, was robbed an hour ago. He’d been to
town to get five hundred dollars he had in the bank; got
a queer notion that the bank was going to pieces. He
had the money in an old bag. Someone must have seen
him getting it out of the bank and followed him.
Anyway, when he reached the wood road, he was held
up and robbed.”

“Well, with all the unbroken snow there is about here, it

will be easy enough to catch the thief,” Bob said.

“You’re wrong there!” Mr. Wiggin replied. “Several teams

have been along the lake road since the blizzard, and he
could walk in the ruts.”
“Was poor old Mr. Bartlett hurt?” Gertrude asked
anxiously.

“No, not at all. He was blindfolded and tied to a tree,

but he worked himself loose before long, but the robber
was gone. The old man came right down here and we
telephoned to the sheriff. He and his men will be along
most any minute now. There may be some shooting,
and so I’d advise you boys to take the girls right back to
town.”

Jack looked anxiously at Merry, who was vigorously

shaking her head. “We aren’t afraid, are we, girls?”

“Not with all these boys along to protect us,” Peg

declared.

Then Doris explained: “We’re only going as far as our [101]

cabin. Mr. Wiggin; that’s not more than a mile from
here. We’ll be all right.”

“That crook is probably headed for Dorchester by this

time,” one of the boys put in. “We don’t want to miss
our fun for him.”

The innkeeper watched the sleighload of young people

until they had disappeared over a rise on the East Lake
Road. Then he shook his head solemnly and, having
entered the inn, he said to his wife: “That’s what I call a
foolhardy risk. It might be all right for the young fellows
if they were alone, but to take a parcel of girls into,
nobody knows what, I call it downright foolishness and
maybe worse. Why, if they cornered that highwayman,
he would shoot, of course, and there’s no tellin’ who he
would hit. Well, not being their guardeen, I couldn’t
prevent their goin’, and so they’ll have to take their
chance.”
Meanwhile the two big white horses were slowly
ploughing their way along the east side of the lake. In
some spots the road was quite bare where the wind had
swept across the fields, but in other places the horses
floundered through deep snow drifts. The road, which
led close to the lake, was hilly and winding, and, as it
neared the cabin, it entered a dense wood of snow-
covered pines.

“Girls, why don’t you blow on your horns?” Bob called [102]
as he looked back. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. That
highwayman would make straight for Dorchester, where
he could lose himself in the crowd.”

Suddenly Merry called out excitedly: “Bob, stop a

minute. Look there. That highwayman must have been
riding on a horse. If he was, this is where he turned and
cut through the pine woods to the old Dorchester road.”

Jack and several other boys leaped over the side of the
sleigh and followed the tracks for some distance
through the woods where there was little snow on the
ground.

“Say, boys, I believe Merry’s got the right idea,” Jack

said as he climbed back to his former place next to
Geraldine.

“Glad we saw those tracks,” Alfred put in. “Now we

know for sure that the highwayman won’t be lurking
around the Drexel cabin.”

“Sure thing! Let’s proceed to forget about him and have [103]
a good time,” Bob called in his cheerful way. “Blow on
your horns, girls. Make this silent pine wood ring.”
“Ohoo! Isn’t it silent, though, and dark, too? Hurry up,
Bob. We’ll blow hard enough when we get out into the
sunshine,” Betty Byrd said as she huddled close to
Merry.

Peggy took occasion to say to Doris in a low aside that

the boys of the “C. D. C.” probably thought they now
had a mystery to solve, but they wanted the girls to
think that they weren’t interested.

“That’s what I thought,” was the whispered reply.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we solved the mystery first?”

“Say, cut out the secret stuff,” one boy across from them
called; then, taking his companion’s horn, he blew a
merry blast. The others did likewise and so noisily they
emerged into the sunshine, but some of the girls
glanced back at the silent, somber woods as though
fearing that the robber had been there all of the time.

Just in front of them and built close to the lake was a

picturesque log cabin.

“Hurray for the Drexel Lodge!” someone called.

“You girls stay in the sleigh,” Bob said, “while we boys

see if the robber is hiding in the cabin.”

Five minutes later the lads reappeared. “He certainly [104]

isn’t here!” Jack declared. “The heavy wooden doors
and blinds are all padlocked just as they were left last
fall, and there is no other way of entering, so let’s forget
the highwayman and have the good time we planned.”

“Jack is right,” Bertha said as she leaped from the

sleigh. “Doris, you have the key. Let’s open the doors
while the boys get wood from the shed. Isn’t the ice
just great? I can hardly wait to get my skates on, can
you, Geraldine?”

The young people were convinced that the highwayman

was not in their neighborhood, and, with fear gone,
they resumed their merrymaking. The blinds were
opened, letting in a flood of sunlight. A big dry log was
soon burning on the wide hearth and a fire was started
in the kitchen stove.

“Now, girls,” Doris announced, “I want you all to go

skating with the boys while I prepare our supper.”

“Why, won’t you be afraid to stay here alone?” Betty

Byrd, the timorous, inquired. “I wouldn’t do it for
worlds.”

“No, I’m not afraid,” Doris replied. “The house was

locked, so why should I be?”

“Sure thing. You’re safe enough!” Bob declared. “But if [105]

you do get frightened, blow on your horn.”

Ten minutes later Doris was alone, or at least she

thought she was alone in the log cabin.

[106]
 CHAPTER XIII.
A BAG OF GOLD

Doris sang softly to herself as she busily unpacked the

lunch baskets and spread the long table in the living-
room. The tea kettle was soon humming on the stove
and bacon was sizzling in the frying pan.

“We’ll have an early supper,” she was thinking, “and I’m

going to suggest that we start home early, too. Our
parents will have heard about the holdup and they’ll be
terribly worried. I do hope Mother, ill as she is, won’t
hear of it, but of course she won’t. That’s the advantage
of having a trained nurse with her all the time.” Then,
she glanced at her skates lying near the door. “I
suppose they’re disappointed not to get out on the ice.
Well, so am I, but my ankle doesn’t feel as strong as I
had hoped it would. I turned it a little getting into the
sleigh, and I don’t want to sprain it again as I did last
winter.” She opened a box which Bertha had brought.

“Yum! Yum!” she said aloud. “What delicious tarts!” [107]

Then she counted them. “Two apiece! I’m glad they’re
big ones.”

Carrying them into the living-room, she placed them

around on the long table, then, stopping to sniff, she
darted back into the kitchen to turn the strips of sizzling
bacon. A few minutes later she returned to the living-
room with a huge plate of sandwiches. Suddenly she
stood still and stared at the door of a small closet. She
thought she had seen it move just ever so slightly. She
knew that it had been locked, for Bob tried it just before
he went out to skate.

The crack widened and Doris saw eyes peering out at

her. Wildly she screamed, but the windows were closed
and no one heard.

She started to run, when a familiar voice called, “Doris,

don’t be frightened. I won’t hurt you. It’s Danny O’Neil.”

The girl turned in amazement toward the boy to whom

she had been talking not six hours before.

“Danny,” the girl gasped, “what are you doing here?”

The boy looked around wildly: “I—I was the one who [108]
robbed old Mr. Bartlett,” he said rapidly. “I didn’t set out
to do it, Doris! Honest, I didn’t! I was just a running
away from home. Pa has been so hard on me ever since
Ma died, and so I thought I’d clear out of it all, but I
didn’t have any money. And then this morning, when
you told me how Ma wanted me to get money and go to
art school, well, I don’t know, Doris, what did happen to
my brain, but I was just crazy mad to get money and
get away from that man who calls himself my father.
After you left I started walking to town. I didn’t even
know I was doing it till I got to the bank. Then I saw
Old Man Bartlett stuffing all that money in his handbag
and I followed him, hiding behind trees, till he got to
the wood road—then—I don’t know what I did—
knocked him over, I guess. There was a long rope, one
end tied to a tree, and I wound it about him, then I
took his bag and ran.”

“But how did you get in here, Danny? The doors and
windows were all locked and we didn’t see any tracks.”

“I know! I stepped on the places where the snow was [109]

blown away and I climbed to the roof and came down
the chimney. Then I went in that closet and locked the
door on the inside. But, Doris, I don’t want the money.
All these long hours there in the dark I’ve been seeing
Mom’s face looking at me so reproachful, and she kept
saying, ‘Danny-boy, you promised me you’d go straight.’
If she’d a lived, Doris, I’d have been different, but ’tisn’t
home without her.”

The lad drew his coat sleeve over his eyes, then he said
gloomily: “The sheriff will be hunting for me and they’ll
put me in jail, but anyhow, here’s the money. Take it
back to Old Man Bartlett and tell him I didn’t really
mean to rob him. I did it just sudden-like, without
thinking.”

There were tears in the eyes of the girl and she held out
her hand: “Danny,” she said, “I know how lonely you’ve
been without your mother and I’ll help you. Quick, hide!
Someone is coming.”

Danny darted back and locked himself in the closet.

Doris hid the bag of gold and hurried toward the front
door. Someone was pounding and she was sure it was
the sheriff.

When Doris opened the heavy wooden door, she found

that her surmise had been correct. Mr. Ross, the sheriff,
stood without, and waiting near were several other men
on horseback.
“Oh. Miss Drexel, it’s you, is it?” The sheriff was [110]
evidently much surprised. “We saw smoke coming from
the chimney and believed that we had cornered our
highwayman. Thought he might be hiding here. Of
course it would be a daring thing to make a fire in a
deserted cabin, but these criminals are a bold, hardened
lot. Who else is with you, Miss Drexel? I guess I’ll step
inside, if you don’t mind. No use holding the door open
and letting the heat all out.”

The sheriff entered and closed the door, then he went to

the fireplace and held his hands over the blaze.

Doris’s heart was filled with a new fear. What if Danny

should make a sound of some sort and betray his hiding
place? Hurriedly she said: “All of our crowd is here. Mr.
Ross. There are seven boys and as many girls, but the
rest of them are out on the ice skating. I remained in
the cabin to prepare our supper.”

The sheriff straightened and leaned his back against the

closet door as he said: “Miss Drexel, because of this
robbery, I feel it my duty to tell you and your friends
that you would better return to town as soon as you
have had your lunch. It gets dark early these wintry
days and there’s no telling what might happen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ross.” Doris said, “I will tell the boys [111]
when they come in.”

When the sheriff was gone, the girl closed and bolted
the front door, then she tapped on the closet, saying
softly: “Come out, Danny. I have a plan to suggest. Bob
and the rest of them may be in at any minute.”

Then, when the lad appeared, she added: “I want you

to take my skates, fling them over your shoulder, and go
boldly out of the front door and up the lake road.
Anyone, seeing you leave here, will think you are one of
our party. Whistle and stride along as though you were
out for fun. Half a mile above, as you know, the lake is
narrow. Skate across and go back to your work at
Colonel Wainright’s, but before you go, Danny, promise
me that from now on you’ll be the kind of a boy your
mother wanted you to be.”

The lad held out his hand and, with tears falling
unheeded, he said huskily: “I give you my word, Doris.
You’ve been my good angel and saved me from nobody
knows what.”

Then he shouldered the skates and started down the [112]

snowy road with long strides, whistling fearlessly. A load
had been lifted from his heart and he was sure that his
mother had forgiven him.

Doris watched him until he disappeared beyond a bend

in the road and then she breathed a sigh of relief. She
heard a stamping without and the laughing young
people swarmed into the kitchen.

“Ho, Doris, who was the chap that just went by?” Bob
called—but before the girl could reply, something else
happened to attract their attention. Bertha, in the
kitchen, was crying in dismay: “Where is the cook?
What has she been doing? We’ll have to discharge her.
I’m thinking. The bacon is burned to a cinder.”

Doris, thankful indeed for this timely interruption, ran

into the kitchen and declared remorsefully: “Oh, isn’t
that too bad, and I suppose you are all hungry as bears,
but luckily I brought an extra supply. Throw that out,
Bertha, please, and I’ll get some more.” Then, as she
searched in her basket, she added hurriedly: “I suppose
I left it burn while the sheriff was here.”

“The sheriff!” was the surprised chorus.

“Why, what did he want?” Jack asked. “He didn’t [113]

suppose that we had the highwayman here as one of
our guests, did he?”

Doris purposely did not look at any of them as she put

the strips of bacon into the pan which Bertha had
prepared. “Oh, Sheriff Ross and his men were just
passing by,” she said with an effort at indifference, “and
so he thought he would stop and ask us if we had any
idea where the bold robber might be.”

“He is wasting his time,” Bob declared. “I am positive

that Dorchester holds his man by this time.”

Peggy and Dick Jensen entered the kitchen at this

moment and the girl exclaimed: “Oh, Doris, I’ve had bad
luck. I broke one of my straps, but since you aren’t
going to skate today, may I take one of yours?”

What could Doris say? How could she explain the

absence of her skates? She was busy at the stove and
she pretended that she had not heard, but before the
other girl could repeat her question, Bob called: “Here’s
one for you, Peg. I always carry an extra strap in my
pocket.”

Doris again breathed a sigh of relief, but it was a short

one, for, a second later, she thought of something which
set her heart to throbbing wildly.

The bag of gold! She had hidden it under a cushion on [114]

one of the chairs when the sheriff was knocking.
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