Summary
A metanarrative, or grand narrative, is a big story a society tells about where history is heading – progress, enlightenment, emancipation – and which is used to justify its knowledge, its institutions and its smaller stories. The term was brought to prominence by the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard in ‘The Postmodern Condition’ (1979). Lyotard was a critic, not an advocate: “I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives”, he wrote, and he proposed that smaller, local narratives (‘petits récits’) take their place.
His critics reply that grand narratives still do plenty of work. In communications the related term ‘master narrative’ means a long-lived story deeply embedded in a particular culture.
Rationale
Some in our process spoke of a ‘meta deep narrative’, yet Part 1 calls the desire for a single focus “part of the reductive, linear mindset”. Lyotard’s suspicion of totalising stories is a welcome check.