A Narrative Approach to Culture

This paper proposes a narrative approach to culture. It argues that such an approach enables us to understand how individual and collective meaning making is mediated within the cultural realm. It outlines three mechanism through which narratives are intrinsic to culture. First, narratives enable meaning making by weaving together separate events. Second, public narratives penetrate daily lives and inform the meanings attributed to them. Third, human beings reproduce, negotiate, challenge, subvert, and counter narratives, which attests to the dynamic nature of culture. The theoretical framework proposed is substantiated with examples from the Turkish case. Such an approach to culutre also enables us to see not only how culture is used in democratic backsliding but also how it is employed in countering it.