Salzburg Global Fellow Josué Carlos Souza dos Santos emphasizes the central role of narratives in shaping social structures
This article was written by Salzburg Global Fellow Josué Carlos Souza dos Santos, who attended Salzburg Global's Culture, Arts and Society session on "Creating Futures: Art of Narrative" from April 6 to 11, 2025.
I have been trying to understand the world through the lens of others. As I do so, I am not only shedding my ego, that is, my preconceived ideas and my old worldviews, but I am also joining other worldviews as a tangent, part of a world still under construction. In this way, I am engaging in the narratives of others, my own narratives, in an exercise of otherness.
Narratives shape our understanding of the world. They are not merely forms of storytelling, but symbolic structures that underpin individual and collective beliefs, values, and identities in a society. Over time, they have played a decisive role in shaping cultures, strengthening community ties, and legitimizing political regimes.
However, narratives can also be vehicles of exclusion, naturalizing inequalities and consolidating hegemonic perspectives.
In a global scenario where trust in public institutions is losing strength and misinformation spread in the form of fake news and other models of questionable morality is also on the rise, it is urgent to understand what these narratives are: how and where they circulate, who produces them, and whose interests they serve.
In 2025, I participated in the Salzburg Global session on "Creating Futures: Art of Narrative", which brought together artists and intellectuals in Salzburg, Austria. Through contact with different people and their contexts, works, and narratives, I was able to realize that my reality is just a small piece of a large puzzle still being put together.
In the trails left by the narratives I had access to and that still resonate in and through me, it is possible to perceive that when the status quo is challenged, intense disputes arise for control of mainstream discourses. This ability to navigate through narratives, others, institutions, and even the connections we establish throughout life, places us in an in-between place, from where we can observe, intervene and understand different perspectives, contexts, and points of view.
It is precisely in these intersections and in the result of the clash of these approaches that it is possible to establish dialogues with and about resistance, history, ancestry, race, education, political movements, and so many other layers and facets. The act of narrating is always a process that implies ethical, aesthetic, and political choices. What is told, what is silenced, and how the story is structured reveal both the milestones of subjectivity and the mechanisms of power operating in society or influenced by it.
The history of humanity is full of moments in which new narratives catalyzed disruptive movements - from the fight for civil rights to decolonization, and through cultural revolutions and uprisings of political minorities, such as processes of militarization vs. demilitarization, imperialism vs. democracy, and slavery vs. freedom.
In the present time, the digital environment is gaining strength and prominence. Algorithms amplify certain voices and make others invisible, reproducing dynamics of symbolic domination in new forms, that is, old power structures now revamped. Or, as the philosophical expression goes, putting new wine in old bottles.
With the advent of these digital systems, such as social networks, blogs and other mechanisms (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, etc.), we are experiencing a profound transformation in the ecology of information. The speed at which content is produced and disseminated favors the agility of information, but at the same time it can lead to a stumbling block of ideas based on a route of misinformation, untruths, and orthodox subjectivities.
Misinformation not only confuses, but also reorganizes forms of social belonging, engaging feelings such as fear and hatred. Such feelings, mediated by caricatured and Manichean narratives, favor authoritarian projects and the emptying of the democratic public space. This is reflected in the advent of polarized narratives, male chauvinism, transphobia, patriarchy, and many other specific issues that mainly affect those outside the center, who survive on the margins and who do not fit into any type of established pattern.
In light of this scenario, there is an urgent need for counter-narratives that promote different perspectives in the public debate. This is where artists must speak out, mediating discourses in favor of peaceful narratives.
And so, I returned to Brazil from Salzburg with a wealth of history, but also of concepts, paradigms, and choices that were not always linear, but necessary. There I defended the idea that borders should not be vegan, that is, selective. In fact, I understand the geographical existence of borders, but why do we often insist on imposing other borders and barriers in our existence with others, particularly with those who are different?
Among so many scenarios and life narratives, such as the historical stigmatization of family groups in China that were colonized by other groups, the movements that are woven into traditional and ancestral dances in Egypt, the voices that still cry out for justice from the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, and the resistance of the Palestinian people, I ask: How do human experiences intersect with larger narratives of power, culture, and inclusion?
Are these topics discussed by those who actually have some power in their hands, or are they in fact the result of conversations that arise from meetings of those who seek a form of revolution from the edges?
The arts have a long tradition of contesting hegemonic discourses. Whether through literature, theater, cinema, or visual arts, artists act as storytellers and critics of reality, destabilizing established truths and opening space for new possibilities of (co)existence.
In this way, these artistic expressions not only denounce injustices, but also produce new repertoires on the path of the counterculture that we want to narrate from now on.
From the arts, working with/along and with/on narratives means moving from the center what needs to be on the margins, and on these same margins, disrupting “political correctness”, giving prominence to ideas from the margins and illuminating their subjects and their stories.
Thinking of narratives as a field of dispute means recognizing that they are not neutral – in contrast to positivist ideals – but, although deeply implicated in power games, open to subjectivities and personalities depending on the objectives of their interlocutors.
And so, marked and crossed by multiple aspects – social, political, climatic, and epistemological – we must abandon idleness and reflect. The question about the future ceases to be a philosophical exercise and becomes an urgent one: What future are we building? And, even more: what future do we want to inhabit? Through the art of narrative, these questions gain visibility and relevance, as they remind us that possible futures arise from the way we tell — and retell — our experiences, our pain, our struggles, our dreams, and in short, our history.
Josué Carlos Souza dos Santos is a Ph.D student in Education at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. An indigenous individual from the Brazilian Amazon, Josue is deeply passionate about stories, books, and coffee. His academic and personal journey reflects a commitment to exploring education's role in promoting human rights, citizenship, and social justice. Josue holds a Master of Arts in Public Security, Human Rights, and Citizenship from the State University of Roraima.
