Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story

“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2009)

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About the speech

“Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice – and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.” (TEDglobal)

Why we recommend the medium

In the TED Talk “The danger of a single story” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains how one-sided stories of people, groups or places create stereotypes and clichés.

She shows how distorted the image of Africa is in the Western industrialized countries, as it shows almost only negative sides. In the TED Talk, she links her own experiences with the question of global power relations and modes of representation. It’s worth watching!

Further topics

Post Colonial Theory, The West and the Rest, Change of Perspective,