Antenarrative

Antenarrative is a story concept invented by David Boje in 2001, Narrative Methods for Organization and Communication Research. London, Sage. In ‘antenarrative’ (Boje, 2001), storytelling is no more than a bet, a scrawny pre-story. Antenarrative is defined as “non-linear, incoherent, collective, unplotted, and pre-narrative speculation, a bet, a proper retrospective narrative with Beginning, Middle, and End (BME) can be constituted” (Boje, 2001: 1). Antenarratives are “in the middle” and “in-between” (Boje, 2001: 293) refusing to attach linear BME coherence. Whereas, most BME narratives and narrative fragments are retrospective (backward-looking) antenarratives are more often prospective (forward=looking. BME Narratives must achieve coherence, developmental plots required by narrative theorists (Gabriel, 2000:20, 22; Czarniawska, 1997: 79, 98; 1998: vii, 2).

Antenarratology - is defined as the study of antenarratives in interplay with stories and narratives. Whereas retrospective narratives typically have beginnings, middles, and ends (BMEs) stories are more part of the living fabric of the social, more co-created, unfolding in the present moment of Being, and prospective into the future of the social. Critical antenarratology is a method to trace and deconstruct an ongoing interweaving antenarrating this is always composing and self-deconstructing.

Antenarratives have five dimensions (Boje, 2001: 3-5).1. Antenarrative is about the Tamara of storytelling. Tamara is a play where ten characters unfold their stories before a walking, sometimes running, audience that fragments into small groups to chase characters and storylines from room to room. 2. Antenarrative is a collective (prospective) memory before it becomes reified into the organization story, or consensual (official) narrative.3. Antenarrative directs our analytic attention to the flow of storytelling, as lived experience before the narrative requirements of beginnings, middles or endings.4. Antenarrative gives attention to the speculative, the ambiguity of sensemaking and guessing as to what is happing in the flow of experience.5. Antenarrating is both before story and a bet of prospective-transformation through supplements, dropping and picking up meaning in each successive context, and remaining unfinalized.

The value of antenarratives is that they occur in social networks. Their arcologies are only beginning to be charted. In prior work antenarratives have been thought to pick up and jettison context, morphing over time, as them move through social networks.

Antenarrative in Management Research

There has been increasing interest in antenarrative theory and research (Barge 2002; Boje, 2001, 2002, 2003; Boje & Rosile, 2002, 2003; Boje, Rosile, Durant, & Luhman, 2004; Collins & Rainwater, 2005; Vickers, 2002).

Walter Benjamin's Illuminations examines the rise of the novel and the decline of storytelling. Benjamin found industrialization and standardization as well as a decline in the value of experience as the likely culprits in this unfortunate trend. The differences between stories and novels are highlighted along with some salient examples. In Benjamin's estimation, Paul Valery, epitomizes the qualities of a storyteller. Benjamin expands upon Valery's observations about the decline of the idea of eternity: "It has been observable for a number of centuries how in the general consciousness the thought of death has declined in omnipresence and vividness." Benjamin also comments on the decline of the ability for people to listen and a loss of the value of craftsmanship, essential elements of a culture of storytelling.

ee also

* Story (surname)
* Storytelling
* Story arc
* Sjuzhet

References

Barge, K. J. 2002. "Antenarrative and managerial practice". Working Paper, University of Georgia. Accepted for publication in revised form at "Communication Studies".

Boje, D. M. 2001. "Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research". London: Sage.

Boje, D. M. 2002. "Critical Dramaturgical Analysis of Enron Antenarratives and Metatheatre". Plenary presentation to 5th International Conference on Organizational Discourse: From Micro-Utterances to Macro-Inferences, Wednesday 24th - Friday 26th July (London).

Boje, D. M. 2007. "The Antenarrative Cultural Turn in Narrative Studies" in Mark Zachry & Charlotte Thralls (Eds.) "Communicative Practices in Workplaces and the Professions: Cultural Perspectives on the Regulation of Discourse and Organizations".

Boje, D. M. & Rosile, G.A. 2002. "Enron Whodunit?" "Ephemera", 2(4), pp. 315-327.

Boje, D. M. & Rosile, G.A. 2003. "Life Imitates Art: Enron’s Epic and Tragic Narration". "Management Communication Quarterly", 17(1), 85-125.

Boje, D. M., Rosile, G.A., Durant, R.A. & Luhman, J.T. 2004 "Enron Spectacles: A Critical Dramaturgical Analysis". Special Issue on Theatre and Organizations edited by Georg Schreyögg and Heather Höpfl, "Organization Studies", 25(5):751-774.

Collins, D. & Rainwater, K. 2005. "Managing change at Sears: a sideways look at a tale of corporate transformation". "Journal of Organizational Change Management", 18(1): 16-30.

Czarniawska, B. 1997. "Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity". Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Czarniawska, B. 1998. "A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies". "Qualitative Research" methods Series "Vol. 43". Thousand Oaks, Ca; Sage Publications, Inc.

Dalcher, D. & Drevin, L. 2003. "Learning from information systems failures by using narrative and antenarrative methods". Proceedings of SAICSIT, pages 137-142.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 1987. "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia". Translation by B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Gabriel, Y. 2000. "Storytelling in Organizations: Facts, fictions, and fantasies". London: Oxford University Press.

Gardner, C. 2002. "An exploratory study of bureaucratic, heroic, chaos, postmodern and hybrid story typologies of the expatriate journey". Dissertation in Management Department of College of Business Administration and Economics.

Vickers, M. H. 2002. "Illness, work and organization: Postmodernism and antenarratives for the reinstatement of voice". Working paper, University of Western Sydney. Accepted for publication at "Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organizational Science".