The Transformation of Order in Narrative as Discordant Concord: Using Paul Ricoeur to Explore Narrative Realism as Part of Social Morphogenesis

Social interaction as the middle phase of the morphogenetic sequence described by Margaret Archer presupposes that interpretative activities go on between individuals and collectivities. Novel meanings emerge in social interaction and spur the processes of structural elaboration. The hermeneutics of actors (or agents) should be part of the morphogenetic explanatory framework. Narratives as a distinctive species of interpretation will then become more susceptible to a mode of analysis based in realism. By adopting Paul Ricoeur's concept of narrative figuration (or threefold mimésis) for use in sociology, it is possible to embark on this task at the rudimentary level of intersubjective communication. The stories and anecdotes in which we describe episodes, events, and processes to others articulate and give order to our experience of time. When we are searching for concord in narratives to cope with discordant elements, we are participating in morphogenesis via the transformation of meaning. The complementary nature of Archer's and Ricoeur's conceptualisations provides an alternative to one-sided social constructionist accounts of narrative.