Strategic Storytelling: Narratives for Development

Description from DukeHub

With a broad array of storytelling mediums, we ask how 'sticky' stories told about poverty or development strategically can add to our ability properly to understand poverty and to conduct appropriate development policies more effectively. What are the benefits and limitations of considering public policy problems by entering through the arts of storytelling and of storylistening? How do stories help readers/listeners become alive to ethical and cultural considerations previously unseen or unheard? How might these stories enable storytellers to tell stories on their own terms, opening up new and critically important terrains for public policy? Soft power strategy. Guest practitioners.

Skills

• writingdescription: "storytelling" and 2 more
• policy and lawdescription: "policies" and 2 more

AI-resilient: 2 of 5 2/5

• No: Physical, lab or field work
• No: Live work with people
• ✓Yes: Judgment someone is accountable for · "policies"
• No: A craft you practice with your hands or body
• ✓Yes: Small, in-person format · seminar, 7 seats per section

The checks lean on Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025), which found generative AI applies least to physical work and hands-on work with people. A signal, not a promise. How the score works

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