A metanarrative is a term used in postmodern discourse to refer to a narrative about narratives. The prefix meta is used to mean about, a narrative is a story, so a metanarrative is a story about a story.

Metanarratives justifies stories and determines which other (non-meta) stories are "central" and acceptable, and which are "marginal". Metanarratives are thought to prevent narratives deemed "marginal" from upsetting or subverting the cultural order; they prevent (certain) stories from proliferating. According to Jean-François Lyotard (1984), postmodernism is defined "as incredulity toward metanarratives" and thus represents an openness to "marginal" narratives.

For example, the history of mental illness, from the perspective of mental health institutions, gathers together and gives meaning and value to the many individual stories and texts which comprise this history, and it does this, possibly entirely, through devaluing other stories and texts, for instance the writings of the mad are most often discounted in favor of writings about the mad. Michel Foucault shows incredulity towards this history in his book Madness and Civilization (1961).

A metanarrative is often equated to the concept of an ideology or world view; however, this equation is not entirely accurate, as the Western concepts of ideology and world view are themselves thought to be influenced by Western metanarratives. A metanarrative is more correctly a story about ideologies and world views. For example, while Marxism and atheism are ideologies, the story of human and scientific progress is a metanarrative supporting those ideologies. Similarly, the story of human liberation is a metanarrative supporting both libertarianism and humanitarianism. Other examples of metanarratives include the emancipation of the dissonance.

References

• Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984, reprint 1997. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi.