Perceptions of collective narratives: toward an empirical tool of measuring inter-group relations in conflictual contexts

In this chapter, we describe a tool for measuring the perception of
collective narrative that is based on a tool developed by Sagy,
Adwan, and Kaplan (2002). The tool uses perceptions of individuals’
collective narratives in order to investigate the intergroup relations
between groups who interact in a particular sociopolitical context
of conflict. The tool examines the different interpretations of
historical, social, and political events made by various groups based
on their belief systems in favor of crystallizing a sense of “we” (Liu
& Hilton, 2005). This tool was initially developed to investigate a
national level conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but recently
it has been used in different and less violent social group conflicts.
We suggest this as an appropriate tool for investigating inter-group
relations in a variety of social contexts and who the “others” are
(Liu & Hilton, 2005). For this purpose, we describe the
development of the tool and the procedure by which it can be
adapted to different social contexts. In this chapter, we will present
the tool as it was developed and adapted in four different
conflictual social contexts.