Jarkko Immonen (MA) works as career counsellor and careers education teacher at the University of Helsinki. In this blog he introduces us to his ‘Behind the headline’ activity which is designed to help people to think critically about stories and narrative in their careers.

Ever since Mark Savickas and his team trailblazed the narrative approach to career theory and laid the groundwork for career counselling in the 21^st century, the story of the individual has been front and centre in the work that we practitioners do (e.g. see Mark’s keynote in Padua in 2013). I am an ardent admirer of their work, as I presume many of us are, and utilise different narrative approaches and methods in my work on a daily basis.

That being said, there are a few notions that sometimes can be overlooked when we aid our clients or students to craft their stories:

• everyone else has a story too;
• we live in a story economy (especially in the Western world) and are constantly bombarded with these stories;
• the stories we encounter often are edited to fit the neoliberal ethos and narrative; and
• we are not immune to those stories. Not by a long shot.

The story economy

To say that we live in a story economy is to say that not only have stories become one of the most powerful selling strategies around, personal stories have also become “a defining form of well-being and societal participation”. It is also becoming increasingly acceptable in politics and public discourse to base opinions on personal experience, as opposed to statistics, research, and other kinds of boring and complex information.

Personal stories are all the craze. Open your Instagram or your newspaper, and those stories abound. Many are about the modern working life, and they come in many forms: inspirational success stories, dramatic exposés, or, for example, romanticized opt-out stories.

What they all have in common is what they convey to us between the lines: “You can do it too!” When an individual person’s story is published on a public platform, it becomes an example for the rest of us.

Problems for social justice

Therein lies a problem from the social justice point of view. In the true spirit of neoliberalism, most of these stories highlight the meaning of the individual’s personal efforts in making the story happen. Moreover, they do this at the cost any other factors that might have affected the story: the person’s background, social and societal contexts, dynamics of privilege and oppression, colonial hierarchies, and so on.

I was first introduced to these ideas in my studies at the University of Eastern Finland, especially by the great teacher Anne-Mari Souto, and later on e.g. through Tom Staunton’s marvellous blog. However, when I found about the Finnish research project “Dangers of Narrative”, my mind really exploded. The three-year project investigated how, why, and in what ways the narrative form is being used to manipulate us.

As a career professional, however, these thoughts troubled me. Surrounded with these stories it seems inevitable that eventually they will affect the way we shape and perceive our own identity narrative. They make us susceptible to the neoliberal gospel of work, which fetishises and normalises precarity, self-optimisation, notions of “lovable work” and burnout.

So, what to make of this when my whole understanding of what I do is based on the importance and sanctity of the individual’s story?

Behind the headline

Here is a concrete example how I have approached stories differently with university students. I will be talking about students but the group can of course comprise anyone.

When addressing different issues during the exercise, you should provide “the mirror” for the students to reflect their views on. Steer the discussion with questions like “Why do you think that is?”, “Where do you think those impressions come from?” and the like.

Remember, we’re trying to detect and dissect the neoliberal ethos and also get to questions of societal dynamics, representation issues, privilege and oppression, and so on, and the only way we’re going to get there is that we recognise that each of us are ourselves moulded by the societies we’ve spent our lives in. We are not neutral.

A few things should also be said aloud to create a safe space for everyone involved:

• The focus of the discussion should be on the stories you are analysing. If somebody wants to share a personal experience or something about their personal situation (often in comparison to the story at hand) they are naturally free to do so, but no one is required to share anything about themselves they do not want to. Everyone decides for themselves what to share and what not to.
• It is okay to have different reactions to the stories. What one finds inspirational can be irritating to the other, and both views are equally valid and worthy and should be able to co-exist in the same space. There are no right or wrong reactions.
• There are no “wrong” stories either. When doing critical pedagogy students can sometimes get into lynch mob mode and only concentrate on the negatives. Any positive findings, thoughts and feelings regarding the stories need to be as welcome as the negative ones.
• Likewise, the point is not to question the integrity of the people whose stories you are analysing. Remind the students that most likely the stories have been edited with varying intentions in mind.

This was my two cents, have fun!