Narrative Research: What's in a story (original) (raw)
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Narrative and its potential contribution to disability studies
Disability & Society, 2008
This article seeks to expand our understanding of narrative and the analysis of stories researchers invite and collect in the domain of disability studies. What narrative inquiry is and various reasons why researchers might opt to choose to turn to narratives are highlighted. Painting with broad strokes, narrative analysis is then considered before a typology of different ways in which stories can be analysed is offered. Illuminated by the typology are two contrasting standpoints on narrative analysis (storyteller and story analyst) and three specific methods (structural, performative, and autoethnographic creative analytic practices) that each standpoint might use to analyse the whats and hows of stories. The article closes by suggesting that researchers might consider using a variety of analyses in order to assist us to understand the complexities of the social world in diverse ways.
Narrative Research Methodologies: Learning Lessons From Disabilities Research
2013
Presenting research well with regard to persons with disabilities is as important as conducting research well. Disembodied, technical writing does not accurately represent the dramas of athletes, fans, and people who are trying to exist in damaged or violated bodies. Our stories are left incomplete if we omit the metaphoric and symbolic codes we use in narrating our subjective and personal realities. We invite kinesiology scholars to present the fragmented stories that abound in sport and physical activity through narrative research: realist tales, autoethnographies, poetry, fictional representations, and ethnodrama. We present examples and explanations of a variety of narratives that attempt to draw the reader into the subjective experience of others. They conclude that professionals in the sub-disciplines can learn lessons from disabilities researchers. They also posit that narratives provide avenues for multiple realities to be shared, people who would most likely never read social or behavioral research in kinesiology can be introduced to other ways of being in the world, and students who are interested in sport and physical activity can become better professionals.
This paper reflects upon the growing narrative research with people with intellectual disabilities. In this paper we consider some of the unexpected, hidden, elusive consequences of our quests for narratives with people with intellectual disabilities. In this paper we respond to Bourdieu’s invitation to reflexivity in an attempt to unpack some of the complexities and power relations of research. We reflect on some of our own narrative work with people with intellectual disabilities. Our attention is not solely drawn to issues of method, but also highlights the ways in which we understand the narratives we collect and the narrators we work with. We also explore how our narrative work has potentially contributed to the construction of the label of intellectual disability. Our conclusion is that reflexivity is fundamental to research collaboration with people with intellectual disabilities. And attention should be paid to the strategies that people with intellectual disabilities employ in their resistance to prejudice and lack of power they experience in their daily lives.
Stories affording new pathways: bridging the divide between aged and disability care
Journal of Organizational Change Management, 2014
Purpose -To examine the time, place and space of stories in opening up 'intractable' problems by affording new pathways in changing organizations. The empirical focus is on a project undertaken by two organisations located in Australia. The organizations -IRT, a large aged care provider and Greenacres Disability Services, a disability support service -collaborated with the researchers in identifying the nature of the problem and storying new ways for tackling the transitioning needs of people with intellectual disabilities into aged care services.
Disability identity: Exploring narrative accounts of disability
Rehabilitation Psychology, 2013
According to recent estimates from the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP, 2015), the unemployment rate for persons with disability (PWDs) is more than double that of persons without disability (11.7% vs. 5.3%), even though two thirds of these PWDs indicate that they are willing and able to work (Canas & Sondack, 2011; Harris Interactive, 2000). The social/structural model used to explain this employment gap emphasizes the negative beliefs, prejudice, and misinformation that prevent PWDs full inclusion and participation in the workplace (Dunn & Burcaw, 2013). The model also identifies extensive structural barriers, examples of which range from missing curb cuts to inaccessible websites. The World Wide Web enables many people to communicate, participate in civic life, become more educated, and develop a far greater social network. In addition, Internet access and usage has become almost a necessity for job seekers today, as evidenced by the proliferation of websites such as simplyhired.com, indeed.com, monster.com and careerbuilder.com. An increasing number of organization websites permit jobseekers to search available openings and apply online. However, whether due to prejudice, ignorance, or inattention, organizations launch websites that are unwelcoming and technologically inaccessible to people with sensory, mobility, and cognitive impairments. PWDs should have equal ability to complete online job applications or, at the very least, websites should include a statement specifying how a PWD can obtain accommodations for the job application process, if needed. For many persons with disability such barriers can exacerbate existing employment disadvantages relative to other groups.
Narrative Enablement: Constructions of Disability in
2014
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Research and'Disability': Accounts, Biographies and Policies
2001
This article reviews and re-evaluates a qualitative research project carried out in England in the late 1990s. The project was informed from its inception by the social model of disability, and explores how 'disability' is conceptualised within the accounts of participants defined by others as disabled. It also examines participants' views of community care services. As part of this discussion, notions of collaborative and emancipatory research are appraised. The implications of the findings for policy and practice in the field of social work and social care are also discussed.
Crafting and Retelling Everyday Lives—: Disabled People’s Contribution to Bioethical Concerns
Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, 2013
This commentary draws out themes from the narrative symposium on "living with the label "disability"" from the perspective of auto/biography and critical disability studies in the humanities. It notes the disconnect between the experiences discussed in the stories and the preoccupations of bioethicists. Referencing Rosemarie Garland-Thompson's recent work, it suggests that life stories by people usually described as "disabled" offer narrative, epistemic and ethical resources for bioethics. The commentary suggests that the symposium offers valuable conceptual tools and critiques of taken-for-granted terms like "dependency". It notes that these narrators do not un-problematically embrace the term "disability", but emphasize the need to redefi ne, strategically deploy or reject this term. Some accounts are explicitly critical of medical practitioners while others redefi ne health and wellbeing, emphasizing the need for reciprocity and respect for the knowledge of people with disability, including knowledge from their experience of "the variant body" (Leach Scully, 2008).