For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.
This article examines the role of storytelling in the process of making sense of the financial crisis.
Taken for granted assumptions were suddenly open to question. Financial products and practices that were once assumed to be sustainable sources of economic growth and prosperity swiftly became de-legitimized. Highly respected individuals and institutions (bankers, regulators) suddenly became widely detested.
The moral stories crafted during a public hearing in the UK that was designed to uncover ‘what (or who) went wrong’ during the recent financial crisis are examined. Micro-linguistic tools were used to build different emplotments of the ‘story’ of the financial crisis and paint a picture of the key characters, for example as ‘villains’ or ‘victims.’ The stories told by the bankers had assigned responsibility for the crisis and what should be done about it. These stories shaped both public opinion and policy responses.
The study illustrates when a crisis of sensemaking occurs, and the dominant and well-established storyline is no longer plausible a new story must be crafted to make sense of what happened and why.
The plot and characters of a story start to form a meaningful story only when discursive devices (linguistic styles, phrases, tropes and figures of speech) build up a moral landscape within which the events unfold.
{ Bankers in the dock: Moral storytelling in action | SAGE | full article }
