1. ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
by Jane Palmer
Institute for Sustainable
Futures
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
1
Storytelling as qualitative
method in changing the
future
ACFID CONFERENCE Sydney 21-22 November 2013

2. 2
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
Stories show us what
lies underneath,
contingent,
precarious,
invisible
Stories
show us
futures denied,
futures unthought,
latent futures,
waiting to be explored
STORIES ARE RICH DATA FOR THE

3. 3
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
‘… the living being essentially
has duration… precisely
because it is continuously
elaborating what is new and
because there is no
elaboration without searching,
no searching without groping’
(Grosz 1999, quoting Bergson)
FINDING OUR WAY TOWARDS THE

4. ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
(Marston et al.
2005)
4
The
social site
is the place
‘where ideas are
formed, actions are
produced, …relationships
are created and maintained’
… AND SITES WHERE WE MEET THE

5. 5
POVERTY
Inayatullah
1998
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
‘The past we see as truth
is in fact the particular
writing of history,
often by the
victors of
history’
IN THE DETAIL OF A LIFE WE GAIN

6. ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
(Mitchell et al 2011)
6
We need
more ‘historical,
descriptive and
democratic accounts of
thresholds and limits’
IN ‘SMALL PASTS’ WE ACTUALLY SEE THE

7. ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
(Turner et al 2008)
7
In some lives
and communities,
another change can be
‘devastating’
… INCLUDING THE PAST

8. 8
POVERTY
Grosz, 2000
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
We need ‘a history that
defies repeatability….
to bring out the
latencies, the
potentiality
of the
future’
… AND SEE LATENT, UNACTUALIZED

9. 9
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
© Enrique Indonesia Cartographic Publishing
The Dutch
The Japanese
Darul Islam,
‘The communism’
30 year Free Aceh conflict,
2004 Tsunami (170,000 dead)
‘HISTORIES OF SINGULARITY’

10. POVERTY
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
10
What is
most remembered?
What has its impact
today and tomorrow?
… SHOW US THE PAST AS REMARKABLE

11. POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
11
Inayatullah 1998
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
‘… the spaces of reality…
loosen and the new
possibilities, ideas
and structures
…emerge’
… AND FUTURES DENIED, UNTHOUGHT

12. 12
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
Rapid Ethnographic Assessment
Methods now used in
rural development
and disaster
recovery
GATHERING STORIES IS

13. POVERTY
ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
13
‘The
goal
of critical
research is
thus to disturb…
power relations …
evoking other places or
scenarios of the future’
Inayatullah,
1998
CRITICAL RESEARCH AND CREATIVE

14. ALTERNATIVE PATHW
AYS TO END
POVERTY
DEVELOPMENT FUTUR
ES:
Carter 2004
14
‘Anecdotes
…the trifling,
the dirt, the rubbish,
give the lie to history’s
pretence of clear-sightedness’
THANK YOU