Acceso usuarios
John Boswell
Although narrative has become an important concept in political analysis, the empirical focus has largely been limited to narrative as text. This article puts equal emphasis on narration as act. Drawing on tools and techniques associated with performativity, I analyse how actors perform a critical counternarrative on obesity as a policy issue across democratic settings in Australia and the United Kingdom. I show that this political narrative is watered down, muted and confused the closer it gets to formal governing institutions; this avowedly ‘cohesive narrative’ becomes fuzzy, inconsistent and overlapping, such that the ticking ‘fat bomb’ described in open public debate fizzles out before it even approaches these institutions. In concluding, I argue that these findings add considerable nuance to our understanding of how and to what effect narrative manifests in political affairs.
