Introduction (What is narrative research?), Doing narrative research edition 2 (original) (raw)
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Andrews, M., Squire, C., Tamboukou, M. (eds) (2008/2013) Doing Narrative Research, London, Sage
"Examining narrative methods in the context of its multi-disciplinary social science origins, this text looks at its theoretical underpinnings, while retaining an emphasis on the process of doing narrative research. The authors provide a comprehensive guide to narrative methods, taking the reader from initial decisions about forms of narrative analysis, through more complex issues of reflexivity, interpretation and the research context. The contributions included here clearly demonstrate the value of narrative methods for contemporary social research and practice. This book will be invaluable for all social science postgraduate students and researchers looking to use narrative methods in their own research."
Narrative research in the social sciences: A short bibliography Books
Why is narrative research so popular? • Apparent universality • Interdisciplinarity • Bridges theory and practice • Is academic yet accessible • Lies between modernism and postmodernism • Offers different levels of analysis, from microstructure, through content, to large-scale context • Allows some relationship to politics Difficulties of narrative research • Theoretical and methodological diversity of approaches • Theoretical and methodological incompatibility of approaches • Implications, if any, of narrative findings Approach 1: Researching narrative structure/syntax: event narratives. Abstract (optional) Orientation .Complicating Action .Evaluation .Result .Coda
2021
In this paper, I attempt to probe the underlying logic(s) underpinning narrative analysis in the social sciences. First, I explicate the reasons behind the dispersion of narrative analysis, before situating narrative analysis in a contemporary perspective. Second, I outline how different ontological and epistemological questions are part and parcel of narrative analysis. Third, I focus on (neo)positivism and constructivism in close relation to structuralism and hermeneutics. Fourth, I introduce reflexivity and critical realism to the discussion. Lastly, I discuss the role of normativity and whether we should adhere to the 'emancipatory agenda'.
Narrative tensions Perilous and productive
We focus on four major tensions pervading much narrative inquiry to date, tensions that threaten to divide the field into alienated enclaves. Of specific concern are psychological vs. social explanations of narrative, structural vs. process orientations to research, approaches that celebrate experience vs. those that textually deconstruct experience, and accounts that center on singularity of self-narratives vs. incoherent multiplicity. Finally, we open discussion on a relational constructionist account of narrative, with an eye toward reconciling these disparate orientations. Inquiry into narrative has swept across the humanities and social sciences, adding rich dimension to an enormous range of topics. Although the vastness and variation in narrative studies militate against a systematic summary, one does begin to sense that narrative work has reached maturity. There is presently an enormous wealth of conceptually, experientially, empirically, and pragmatically illuminating research. More importantly, we begin to find critical deliberation on the nature and significance of narrative in human affairs. In effective, narrative study is becoming reflective about its own undertakings. It is in this context that we wish to focus on several significant tensions emerging in narrative study to date, tensions with far reaching implications both for narrative studies and for related professional practices. In particular, we will focus on four interrelated tensions that currently invite intellectual polarization and the balkanization of what has largely Requests for further information should be directed to: Kenneth J. Gergen,
Foreword: Special Issue on Narrative Inquiry
2018
Narratives are curious constructions. Cutting across memory, body and culture, they are at one and the same time singularly unique and socially resonant. On the one hand, narratives reflect what Mohanty (1989) calls the ‘dense particularities’ of experience: they capture the textures and rhythms of specific lives, including the sensory, affective and physical modes of living and becoming. On the other hand, through their images, metaphors and grammar, narratives are also eminently social: they participate in a communicative gesture in reaching out to others and being received from others; and they circulate within complex webs of both shared and contested meaning. This double characteristic of narratives enables them to occupy a liminal territory, where their appearance both signals a singular becoming and an act of relationality..