Stories of Resistance

Narrative Strategies for Democratic Movements

The Power of Narrative in Challenging Authoritarianism

As authoritarianism gains ground globally, movements for democracy must recognize that struggles over power are fundamentally struggles over story. At a time of sudden, deep change driving cultural displacement and multiple crises of community and identity, the authoritarians created narratives that serve as theories (defined as systemic explanations of reality as lived by those among whom they build movements). Those stories built bridges between social identity and political action across identities, turning their leaders into avatars of anxiety-ridden constituents.

The authoritarians understood what generations of colonialism has taught us - that cultural change, or cultural imperialism if you like, precedes political change. And so they infused their movement building strategies with storytelling - from the tale of a system-gaming Chicago Welfare Queen (Ronald Reagan), to fear mongering about gay men preying on young boys in order to “recruit” them to gay sexuality, to deep state conspiracy theories.

Authoritarian systems thrive by controlling narrative, determining which stories are told, whose voices matter, and what futures can be imagined. Countering these systems requires not just political organization but narrative reclamation.

The stories we tell shape how we understand ourselves, our communities, and our agency. When woven together, these stories create constellations that give meaning to each story while making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. These story constellations illuminate our interconnection and mutual dependence, and forms the foundation for resilient social networks that can withstand authoritarian pressure.

Strategic Storytelling Approaches for Democratic Movements

Memory Activation and Historical Continuity

Authoritarian regimes often attempt to sever communities from their historical memories of resistance. For instance, under Stalin, the U.S.S.R. engaged in campaigns of repression designed to cause the effect over time of making people forget how to organize for collective power. In another example, In 1893, when the Hawaiian constitutional monarchy was overthrown by an American-led coup, the takeover was immediately followed by the suppression of Native Hawaiian cultural and religious practices, including the banning of Hawaiian language in schools.

Storytelling that reconnects people to these histories builds resilience and provides strategic guidance.

Example: Highlander Folk School's Story Circles

The Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Research and Education Center) pioneered the use of story circles during the Civil Rights Movement. Led by Myles Horton and later, Bernice Johnson Reagon, these practices accomplished the following:

• Created spaces where sharecroppers, domestic workers, and other marginalized groups shared experiences of both oppression and resistance

• Surfaced forgotten tactics and strategies from previous struggles

• Validated personal experiences as politically significant

• Built cross-generational transmission of movement knowledge

During citizenship schools, organized in order to win the vote for African Americans, participants would sit in circles sharing stories about their attempts to register to vote. These stories revealed patterns of obstruction but also successful strategies, building both practical knowledge and collective courage.

Movements today can create intergenerational story exchanges that connect young activists with elders who experienced previous authoritarian threats, preserving tactical wisdom while building new approaches.

Constructing Counter-Narratives

Authoritarianism requires mythology: stories that justify power concentration, demonize out-groups, and portray complexity as threatening or, often even more powerfully, humiliating. Effective resistance requires constructing compelling counter-narratives.

Example: Chile's "No" Campaign

During Chile's 1988 plebiscite on extending Pinochet's dictatorship, the opposition's "No" campaign masterfully contested the regime's narrative through:

• Joyful, forward-looking messaging that replaced fear with hope

• Personal testimonials from diverse Chileans including those not typically seen as political

• Cultural expressions that celebrated pluralism against Pinochet's nationalism

• Visual storytelling through the rainbow symbol representing a diverse democratic coalition

The campaign's famous TV spots featured ordinary Chileans telling their stories directly to camera, creating intimacy and recognition across divided social groups. These stories collectively conveyed that democracy meant abundance rather than scarcity, diversity rather than uniformity, and healing rather than ongoing conflict.

Democratic movements today can create narrative campaigns that contest authoritarian claims to represent "the people" by showcasing the actual diversity of communities, emphasizing how democratic values enhance rather than threaten security and prosperity. As we represent our diversity, we should also celebrate it joyfully, reminding people what freedom feels like in its most personal form - free expression.

Prefigurative Storytelling

Countering authoritarianism requires not just opposing existing systems but making alternative futures tangible through what can be called "prefigurative storytelling." Prefigurative storytelling makes democratic possibilities feel real and attainable.

Example: Poland's Orange Alternative

During Poland's martial law period (1981-1983), the Orange Alternative movement used surrealist humor and storytelling to combat the Communist regime's claim to represent reality. To do this they:

• Created elaborate street performances that told stories of absurdist "dwarves" challenging authority

• Distributed underground comics and zines with alternative narratives about Polish society

• Used humor to break through fear and make resistance acts that ordinary people could relate to

• Told stories that prefigured democratic participation through their very telling

By creating carnivalesque story-performances, they contested the regime's monopoly on public narrative while modeling the creativity and joy possible in democratic space.

Movements today can develop storytelling practices that don't just criticize authoritarianism but actively demonstrate democratic culture through collaborative creation, participatory decision-making, and celebration of diverse expression.

Bridge Narratives Across Divided Communities

Authoritarianism thrives on social division, particularly fears that democracy threatens the interests of specific groups. Effective counter-authoritarian storytelling creates bridges across these divides.

Example: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

While imperfect, South Africa's TRC created a structured process for story exchange that:

• Established shared factual understanding of apartheid's harms

• Created space for both perpetrators and victims to tell their stories

• Used personalized storytelling to humanize "the other" across racial divides

• Constructed a national narrative that neither erased injustice nor prevented reconciliation

The public broadcasting of these testimonies created a national story circle, allowing South Africans to develop a complex shared narrative about their past that could support democratic development.

Movements today can create "bridging story projects" that bring together communities across political, geographical, and cultural divides to develop narratives that honor different experiences while identifying shared democratic values.

Distributed Narrative Networks

Centralized storytelling remains vulnerable to authoritarian disruption. Resilient movements develop distributed narrative networks where storytelling capacity exists across many nodes.

Example: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

During Argentina's "Dirty War," the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo developed a distributed storytelling approach:

• Each mother became a storyteller carrying her disappeared child's history

• They developed simple, replicable story formats anyone could adopt

• Their stories spread internationally when domestic media was controlled by authoritarians

• Wearing white headscarves as a symbol allowed the story to travel visually when words were dangerous

Their distributed approach meant the narrative couldn't be silenced even when individual members were targeted, and the simplicity of their core story format (showing photos, stating names and disappearance dates) made it accessible to diverse audiences.

Contemporary Application: Democratic movements can develop storytelling trainings that build narrative capacity across diverse communities, creating resilient networks that can maintain coherent messaging without centralized control or vulnerable leadership.

Essential Elements for Anti-Authoritarian Storytelling

Based on these historical examples, effective storytelling for democratic movements should include:

Complexity Without Confusion

Authoritarian narratives promise simple solutions to complex problems. Democratic storytelling must embrace complexity without becoming inaccessible. This means:

• Developing clear narrative frameworks that can contain multiple perspectives

• Using concrete, specific stories that illuminate broader patterns

• Creating narratives with multiple entry points for diverse audiences

• Balancing emotional impact with factual accuracy

Agency-Centered Narratives

Stories that combat authoritarianism must center agency rather than victimhood by:

• Highlighting successful acts of resistance, even small ones

• Portraying challenges as specific and solvable rather than overwhelming

• Including concrete next steps for audience members

• Balancing acknowledgment of suffering with recognition of resilience

Tactical Narrative Diversity

No single story type will reach all communities. Effective movements develop diverse narrative approaches including but not limited to:

• Personal testimonials that build emotional connection

• Analytical stories that explain systems and patterns in simple, memorable terms

• Cultural and artistic expressions that transcend rational barriers and ignite the democratic imagination

• Humorous approaches that deflate authoritarian pretension

• Historical narratives that provide context and continuity, while embracing mutual interdependence and the knowledge that there is no one definitive story of “us”

Multimodal Storytelling Infrastructure

Democratic storytelling should utilize diverse channels and formats:

• Digital storytelling platforms that are resistant to censorship

• IRL physical gathering spaces for direct story exchange

• Visual and symbolic systems that communicate when words are monitored

• Performance traditions that embody democratic values

• Documentation systems that preserve stories for future movements, remembering that to future generations, we are ancestors

Funding Implications for Donors

For donors supporting democratic movements facing authoritarian threats, these insights suggest several strategic priorities:

Invest in Narrative Infrastructure

• Fund community media platforms controlled by movements rather than corporations

• Support physical spaces where story circles and narrative development can occur (the Highlander Center, the Penn Center, libraries, colleges and universities, and other democratic spaces should be protected and preserved)

• Invest in training programs that build storytelling capacity across diverse communities and connect them in networks of story-sharing and practice building

• Invest in documentation and archiving systems for movement stories (consider the powerful effect of the documentary, Eyes on the Prize, which was based on archival video and photographs, much of which was created and preserved by the Highlander Center)

Support Cross-Movement Narrative Development

• Fund collaborations between different movement sectors to develop shared meta-narratives

• Support bridging projects that connect divided communities through structured story exchange

• Resource translation and cultural adaptation of successful narrative approaches

Prioritize Long-Term Narrative Capacity

• Provide sustained funding for narrative development beyond electoral cycles

• Support relationship-building between cultural workers and movement organizers

• Invest in evaluation methods appropriate to narrative work rather than imposing metrics from other fields

Resource Both Institutional and Grassroots Storytelling

• Fund established and trusted cultural and media institutions that can reach broad audiences

• Simultaneously support grassroots storytelling initiatives embedded in affected communities

• Create pathways for stories to move between grassroots and institutional spaces

From Isolated Stories to Narrative Constellations

The power of storytelling lies not just in individual narratives but in how they connect to form constellations that illuminate our interdependence. In facing authoritarian threats, movements must develop not just compelling individual stories but coherent narrative ecosystems.

When diverse stories are woven together, the mother searching for her disappeared child, the factory worker organizing against exploitation, the teacher defending accurate history, the artist creating spaces for free expression, they create a constellation that reveals democracy not as an abstract concept but as the living practice of our interconnection.

By investing in the infrastructure, capacity, and connections that allow these narrative constellations to emerge, activists and donors can strengthen democracy's deepest roots - our shared stories of struggle, resilience, and hope.