This symposium consists of a series of engagements with an exciting contribution to the study of narrative in security politics and practice: Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin and Laura Roselle’s Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2013). The collection presents eight essays by scholars working with the concept of narrative in various ways, including a response from the authors to the critical interventions offered here. All of the contributors, including the book’s authors, have taken seriously bell hooks’ inspiration to ‘challenge and change’ the way that we think about narrative and have used their readings of Strategic Narratives to open up a dialogue about how we study representational practice and, ultimately, how we understand the processes and practices of security.