49. Reimagining Individual Identities in Crisis by Co-authoring Collaborative Narratives for Moving Images

The paper explores the unification of narrative experimentation and collaborative storytelling as a therapeutic and data-gathering tool for envisioning adaptive ways of crisis prevention and coping. Our communities and their identities are changing and shaping their ways around the latest technological advancements as much as the innovations are evolving to cater to humanity. We are now, more than ever, in need of robust crisis management systems and solutions that will keep up with the evolving nature of human identities. Identities are shaped by the stories individuals tell about their lives. Stories of each individual are intertwined with the stories of others around them, and they collectively form the stories of a community or a society. Using the evidence supporting the proposition that stories influence our ability to recall events, motivate people to act, modulate our emotional reactions to events, cue certain heuristics, and biases, structure our problem-solving capabilities, and ultimately even constitute our very identity, the paper will propose and elaborate an application that uses this correlation. Using questionnaires and interviews, stories of 41 individuals of age 21–35 were collected to derive insights to comprehend the cognitive state of people evading threats of pretension and insecurity of individual enquiries. The correlation between stories and identities not just benefits in drawing insights but also becomes a manner to influence a positive shift in one's narratives. During crises, these narratives possess the potential to be reimagined and redefined in a way more malleable than ever but with equal risk of being derailed toward becoming preys of misleading manipulations. That is where a collaborative approach to narrating a story, being less prone to individual biases, ignorance, and inclinations, leads to a more wholesome representation of a narrative that benefits both individuals and community.