Is story telling a political act?

As promised, here is our guest blog number 2 from Ellen McGovern-Greco, Moderation and Reporting Officer at Care Opinion Australia!

When I first spoke with Ellen during my visit to Australia, I was struck by how her philosophy studies give her a completely different way of seeing the work we do. Her reflections stayed with me, and this second piece continues that thoughtful exploration. Here, Ellen draws on the ideas of Jacques Ranciere to look at storytelling in a new light and to ask what it means for people to be seen and heard in health and care.

It’s a powerful and thought provoking read, and we are very grateful to Ellen for sharing her insight and perspective with all of us. Happy reading!

Is telling a story a political act?

To answer that, I want to first pose a second question: Do you think aesthetics is political?

When I ask this, I imagine many of you are initially drawn to instances where aesthetics is used to serve political ends. Images that often spring to mind include the propaganda seen during the Second World War; Uncle Sam calling America to arms or Rosie the Riveter beckoning women into the workforce. In such cases, aesthetics becomes political by functioning as a medium through which these ideologies are expressed.

But what if I were to tell you that this is not the only way aesthetics can be political?

Contemporary French philosopher Jacques Rancière argues that the relationship between aesthetics and politics goes much deeper. He claims that it is not merely the use of aesthetics to convey political messages that makes it political; rather, the very act of engaging in aesthetics, regardless of content, is inherently political.

So, what does he mean by this? And, more importantly, what does this have to do with Care Opinion?

The distribution of the sensible

To understand this argument, we must first look at Rancière’s political foundations. For Rancière, politics is not about institutions or governance, elections or policies. Rather, politics is about what is perceptible and what is not.

He calls this ‘the distribution of the sensible’ - the underlying rules that shape who gets to speak, who is seen or heard, and what is accepted as knowledge in a society. It’s this structure that quietly governs who is included and recognised, and who remains invisible. For example, when women had to publish under male pseudonyms, this reflected the distribution of the sensible as it determined whose voices were recognised as legitimate in the literary field. 

Politics thus becomes about who is able to disrupt this distribution. It is about breaking open existing structures and cracking them apart, creating ruptures and fissures in normative frameworks. It disturbs the dominant patterns of what is sayable, knowable, and visible. To act politically is to challenge the current distribution of the sensible, to question who is seen, who is heard, and whose experiences are listened to.

Aesthetics therefore becomes the perfect platform for such change to take place. Its visibility grants it the power to reshape what can be seen, felt, thought, or said. This ability is not merely offered to art alone. Literature, too, functions as an aesthetic form that redistributes the sensible. Even when a text isn’t political in content, the very act of writing and voicing one’s own experience makes visible certain lives and voices that might otherwise remain unheard. It performs a quiet but powerful political act simply by allowing anyone to appear, to be heard.

So, too, is telling a story on Care Opinion a political act.

Stories as political

If aesthetics are political because they make new ways of seeing and hearing possible, then the act of telling a story on Care Opinion is inherently political. It disrupts the existing distribution of the sensible by allowing patients to assert visibility, not only to speak, but to be listened to, responded to, and for these voices to reshape healthcare itself. Care Opinion offers not just a space for feedback, but it becomes a democratic opening: a platform through which power is redistributed and patients enter the sphere of decision-making.

This political act is not merely one sided. Health services on Care Opinion, too, are engaging in this redistribution of the sensible. By reading stories, sharing them within their teams, and discussing patient experiences in meetings - essentially, by centring the patient voice - staff and services are actively disrupting traditional hierarchies. By engaging with patient stories, health services expand the boundaries of who is being heard and seen within the healthcare space. It is an affirmation that the voices of patients should be listened to, made visible, and accepted as knowledge. It is through this mutual telling and listening that the aesthetic becomes political, and healthcare, in turn, becomes more democratic.

    So I ask again: is telling a story a political act?