1. Exploring the scale-up of prevention,
care and support in Zimbabwe:
A place for narrative inquiry
Diane Marshall
SIM International / University of Technology, Sydney
international.aids-consultant@sim.org
2. Exploring the scale-up of prevention, care
and support in Zimbabwe:
A place for narrative inquiry
Outline
Background
Narrative Inquiry
o Strengths
o Challenges
Research methodology
Findings
Conclusions
3. Narrative Inquiry
Caring nothing for the division between
good and bad literature, narrative is
international, transhistorical,
transcultural:
It is simply there, like life itself.
(Barthes 1977, p79)
4. Narrative Inquiry
Orders and explores the interplay
between individual, institutional,
cultural, and social contexts
(Clandinin & Rosiek 2007)
Embedded in context and time
Focuses on the relationship of the
researcher & the researched
Multiple ways of knowing
5. Story telling is not just about work.
It is work (Orr 1996).
Narrative inquiry
greatly under utilized to improve
understanding of problems be a
part of a flexible organizing effect
mainly used to tell stories of illness,
grief & death
6. Strengths
Well suited in the context of community
development
Exposes tacit knowledge, spiritual beliefs &
values
Facilitates local control over the research
Enables input and analysis from a variety of
sources
Participants are co-producers of meaning &
more able to control public representation
7. Challenges
Stories may minimize the collective-social
dimension
Subtle aspects of context and social
discourse, which shape what can and cannot
be said
Tension between between forming
generalizations and context specific cases
Requires time, trust, and respect
8. Methodology
Three dimensional narrative inquiry space
(Clandinin and Connelly 2000)
1. Person-social dimension
2. Backward and forward dimension
3. Outward dimension
Interviews + social mapping + observation
9. Narrative Analysis
1. Examine narrative segments
2. Identify the person-social dimension, the
backward and forward dimension, and the
outward dimension of the overall narrative
3. Ask why the story is being told in the way
it is
4. What stories are difficult to tell
10. Findings
Learning to scale-up is conceptualised
as a contextualised, collectively
constructed experience
Tension exists between recognised’
training and and traditional life-long
learning
12. Findings
Collective competency and a sense of
identity
Facilitating factors
• Participatory leadership & healthy team
relationships,
• Prayer
• Favourable financial arrangements, and
effective monitoring & evaluation
13. Findings
Inhibiting factors
• Perceived ‘de-personalising of services’
• Volunteer turnover
• Political restrictions
• Lack of food security
• Safety
• Lack of male volunteers
• Lack of access to comprehensive antiretroviral
services
14. Conclusion
Narrative inquiry provides a relevant
and effective approach to social
research
Possibilities for new organic
collaboration and coproduction
o Beyond delivery to health itself
o Adaptable to personal-social situations,
context, perceived spiritual dimensions, &
the political environment
