Narrative inquiry

An Inquiry on Narrative Inquiry
by Jeannette Novakovich
All this happened, more or
less

The stories we tell about ourselves and how we conduct
our lives — is who we are (Bamberg, 2012, p.204)

Finding the roots of the human
condition through narrative
inquiry
In sum, what the claims to narrative exceptionalism have
in common is the attempt to endow the person with
something like a ―narrative essence‖ — something that
anchors narrative ‗deep‘ in the existence of the person,
and ties the person and his/her existence to narrative as
the roots of the human condition.
Michael Bamberg, 2012, p.207

We shape reality through the
stories we tell
Narrative research has deep roots leading back to the late
19th century and it was a very significant way to explain
the truth in clinical psychology and sociology as late as
WWII. In the 1980's the narrative returned as a cognitive
scheme.
Narratives have enormous powers to shape reality.
(p. 208)
Spector-Mersel, Gabriela (2010). Narrative research: Time for a paradigm. Narrative Inquiry 20(1), 204–224.

In the past, the story was the
evidence.
Narrative inquiry has
been influenced by
philosophers,
anthropologists, and
psychotherapists such
as Dewey, Johnson,
Geertz, Bateson,
Czarniawska, Coles,
and Polkinghorne
(Clandinin and
Connolly 2001).
Freud, reflection, self

Transformative experiences and
the narrative form
The theoretical underpinning of narrative inquiry is the belief that ‗telling
a story about oneself involves telling a story about choice and action,
which have integrally moral and ethical dimensions‘ (Rice and Ezzy
1999: 126) (Cited from Hunter, 2010, p. 44)

Video was not exported from SlideRocket
Killing me softly with his song...
The aim of narrative inquiry is therefore not to find one generalizable
truth but to ‗sing up many truths/narratives‘ (Byrne-Armstrong 2001:
112).
The process of telling the narrative is believed to have the potential to
transform the participant‘s experiences. (Cited from Hunter, 2010, p.
44)

What is narrative research?
Narrative research is grounded in interpretive
hermeneutics and phenomenology; narrative research
covers a large and diverse range of approaches, the
result of a rapid expansion of the area of inquiry over the
past dozen years (Mishler 1999, xv).

The nature and practice of interpretation of written, verbal
and nonverbal communication.
Origin of its meaning: A divine message must be received
with implicit uncertainty regarding its truth. This ambiguity
is an irrationality; it is a sort of madness that is inflicted
upon the receiver of the message. Only one who
possesses a rational method of interpretation (i.e., a
hermeneutic) could determine the truth or falsity of the
message
(wikipedia :) )
Illuminating hermeneutics

How do we determine the truth
or falsity of a message?

The goal of qualitative phenomenological research is to
describe the "lived experience" of an event.
Living phenomenologically

What are narratives?
Narratives are about people, who act in space and time,
typically across a sequence of events.
The narrative form (structure) is said to hold the content
together (what the story is about — its plot) and
sequentially arrange the story units (orientation,
complication, resolution, closure) into a more or less
coherent whole (cf. Bamberg, 2012, p. 203).

Narrative is the primary way that
humans make meaning
Hendry, P.M. (2010) Narrative as Inquiry. The Journal of Educational Research, 103:
72-80.

Narrative performance as
research

Through the Looking Glass
Scene II—Doubling Back Through Wonderland
Alice: Why tell our story? (With passion, perhaps a bit defensively) We have come to
know academic illusions—illusions that take on a personality of their own as
constrainers, dictators, and oppressors.
Ecila: Why tell our story? We have journeyed in, through, and around a phenomenon
we now call academic adolescence.
Alice: Academic adolescence maintains the status quo and stifles identities; (louder
and with more force) it sustains dysfunctional academic structures.
McMillan, S. & Price M. (2009). Through the looking glass: Our autoethnographic journey through research mind-fields.
Qualitative Inquiry. 15: 140-148.

Through the Looking Glass
White Queen (in a rushed, urgent whisper): They didn‘t follow the formula! We all know
the formula. Venerate the APA manual. Be professional! Keep your cool; follow our—
um—plans. That‘s what being professional means: You accept what we say; we all
remain self-regulated. We don‘t do nasty or unpleasant in public. We arrange for others
to do that.
In spite of the shaking ground and shifting shadows of our work environment, there
were some realities regarding academic territorialism of which we were quite sure. One
way to limit notions of who should teach research classes is to limit perceptions of what
constitutes legitimate research (p. 145)

Through the Looking
Glass
Narrative performances not only provide sites to represent and to
deconstruct diverse and ever-changing experiences of identities
formation, but they are also potential spaces for democratic meaning
making (p. 145)
McMillan, S. & Price M. (2009). Through the looking glass: Our autoethnographic
journey through research mind-fields. Qualitative Inquiry. 15: 140-148.

It's difficult to distinguish the
phenomena from the
methodology

What is narrative?
Narrative as inquiry is not a method, but rather a process
of meaning making that encompasses what I suggest are
three major spheres of inquiry: the scientific (physical),
the symbolic (human experience), and the sacred
(metaphysical) (p. 73).
72-80.

What is inquiry?
At the heart of inquiry is the asking of questions. Inquiry begins with
doubt. As a mode of inquiry, narrative ―tells us about something
unexpected‖ (Bruner, 1996, p. 121).
Cultivating and generating questions requires exchanges across the
boundaries that now separate scholars when research is constructed
as dichotomous, either or or, qualitative or quantitative, scientific or
humanistic, or positivist or interpretive. These distinctions contribute to
producing a truth effect that science is real knowledge and that
narrative is mere interpretation and thus not real (p. 73).
The threat to science, to inquiry, and, ultimately, to education is to
elevate one and only one way of knowing the world (p. 74).
72-80.

Narrative as three modes of
inquiry
72-80.

SACRED
The sacred addresses those questions that are beyond reason. It is the
realm of the unknowable. Inquiry in this realm is not directed toward
representing the world, but rather toward understanding matters of
existence and larger questions of meaning (p. 75).
However, I suggest that sacred narratives ... have not only the power to
question that which is unknowable but also have the power to
interrogate and critique that which is not humane or just by holding us
accountable to our humanity (p. 75).
As educators and researchers, the goal of sacred narratives is to
materialize the humanity of our encounters with others (p. 76)
72-80.

SYMBOLIC
Symbolic inquiry: Symbols that seek to re-present human
experience are encoded as language (letters),
mathematics (numbers), music (notes), space
(architecture), and art (form). Symbols do not represent
lived experience, but rather they interpret experience.
In other words, there is no correspondence between
reality and the symbol (p. 76).
A story can be true to life without being true of life (p.76).
72-80.

Science
Science is the body of knowledge about the natural world generated by
methods that emphasize observation, experimentation and explanation
of real-world phenomena....I maintain that science, similar to narrative,
in general has been reduced to method....The actual practices of
scientists differ substantially from idealized characterizations embodied
in the dominant white-coat image. Erickson and Gutierrez described the
culture of science as one which is far from rational and disinterested
but is steeped in passion, argument, and aesthetics. Real science, they
suggested, ―is not about certainty but about uncertainty‖ (Erickson &
Gutierrez, p. 22).
Hendry, P.M. (2010) Narrative as Inquiry. The Journal of Educational
Research, 103: p. 77.

What is research?
Not following method is absolutely necessary for the
growth of knowledge. In fact, most science only becomes
scientific or reasonable after the fact (p. 77).
Research, then, is not just a method but also a way of life
and living with others. Current understandings of research
based on dualistic, binary assumptions must be disrupted
as a means to break the barriers that divide and separate
in order to create spaces for dialogue.
Reconceptualizing narrative as inquiry is perhaps one way
to begin this conversation (p. 79).
Hendry, P.M. (2010) Narrative as Inquiry. The Journal of Educational Research, 103: 72-
80.

Maybe, we need a narrative
paradigm?

What is the nature of being?
Social reality is constructed, fluid and multifaceted.
The narrative paradigm draws on the constructivist paradigm, with its
phenomenological and hermeneutic foundations, and the
poststructuralist paradigm.
But the narrative paradigm is more specific, in its focus on the storied
nature of human conduct (Sarbin, 1986), maintaining that social reality
is primarily a narrative reality. (p. 211)
The ontology of the paradigm.

What is narrative knowing?
With regard to epistemology, the narrative paradigm shares underlying
assumptions with the constructivist paradigm, maintaining that we
understand ourselves and our world by way of interpretative processes
that are subjective and culturally rooted.
But how exactly do we shape reality? How do we interpret it? The
narrative paradigm suggests a definite answer: through stories.
Narrative is depicted as an ―organizing principle‖ (Sarbin, 1986) of
human experience and ―narrative knowing‖ (Polkinghorne, 1988) is
offered as a primary mode of thought relevant to social reality" (Bruner,
1986).

What is narrative knowing?
Sally was a fifteen year old girl from Nebraska
Gypsies were passing through her little town
They dropped something on the road , she picked it up
And cultural revolution right away begun!
Yes right away begun!
They always were afraid that I was schizophrenic
They always were afraid schto ja rodinu prodam
A po pravde ja bil prosto malenkij medvedik
Spizdil vsjo you vseh I vsjo nahuj proebal
From all the tables of contents that Mother Earth provides
I'd like to be a big fat fucking fly
The one that spins around your head all day and all night
And sound of it is just like a what?
But by the accident of some kind divine dispensation
I ended up being walking United Nation
And I survive even fucking radiation

What are narrative's methods?
Qualitative researchers employ an impressive range of (1)
materials that serve as data; (2) methods of collecting or
producing these materials; and (3) methods of analysis
and interpretation.
The data of any narrative research are, therefore, stories
— written and oral, personal and collective,
autobiographical ―big‖ stories and ―small stories‖, as
recently termed by Bamberg (2008) and Georgakopoulou
(2006).
Spector-Mersel, Gabriela (2010). Narrative research: Time for a paradigm. Narrative Inquiry 20(1), 204–224. p. 213.

• Introduction (problem, questions)
• Research procedures (a narrative, significance of
individual, data collection, analysis outcomes)
• Report of stories
• Individuals theorize about their lives
• Narrative segments identified
• Patterns of meaning identified (events, processes,
epiphanies, themes)
• Summary (Adapted from Denzin, 1989a, 1989b
Performing an inquiry

Analytic focus of narrative
inquiry
Chase identified five interconnected, analytic lenses used in narrative
inquiry (Chase 2005: 657-8).
Narrative as a vehicle for the uniqueness of human actions
Narrator‘s voice and the verbal action and choices made by the narrator
The ways in which the narrative was constrained by social
circumstances
Narratives as socially situated, interactive performances between the
researcher and the participant
Researchers as narrators as seen in autoethnographic research
Hunter, 2010, p. 46

Themes situating narrative
research
Relationship of researcher and researched: movement away from a
position of objectivity defined from the positivistic, realist perspective
toward a research perspective focused on interpretation and the
understanding of meaning (p. 9)
Movement from numbers to words as data.
Movement from the general to the particular: When researchers make
the turn toward a focus on the particular, it signals their understanding
of the value of a particular experience, in a particular setting, involving
particular people (p. 21)
Movement blurring knowing: The final turn we explore here is the turn
from one way of knowing the world to an understanding that there are
multiple ways of knowing and understanding human experience
Clandinin (2006) Situating Narrative Inquiry. Handbook of Narrative Inquiry pp. 1-34

How is the data interpreted?
Two basic principles are widely accepted as
characterizing narrative methodology
1) Treating the story as an object for examination, not as
a neutral pipeline for conducting knowledge that is ―out
there‖.... based on the assumption that stories are the
data, not a channel to the data.
2) Following the narrative ontology that emphasizes the
story‘s holistic nature.

The story is the world, the reality,
the movement, the knowing.

Adopting a multidimensional disciplinary lens - emotion,
cognition, culture, gender, class.
Treating the story as a whole unit.
Maintaining a regard for form and content.
Paying attention to contexts.
Narrative analysis is based on a
holistic strategy

Positioning the researcher
In contrast to the positivist premise, that it is possible and
imperative to distinguish between the known and the
knower, between reality ―as it is‖ and the researcher
―discovering‖ it, the narrative paradigm, like other
interpretive paradigms, maintains that researchers and
the phenomena they study are inseparable. p. 216

While some narrative researchers endeavor for a sounder
understanding of the phenomenon they study, others take
a further step by striving for personal, social or political
change. In Josselson‘s terms (2004), the former aim at
―decoding‖ their participants‘ texts in order to analyze
unconscious or socially constructed processes, while the
latter seek to ―give voice‖ to their participants. Indeed, the
question whether narrative inquiry ―is descriptive or
interventionist; that is, does… [it] set out to change the
world… or is it a more descriptive kind of inquiry‖
(Clandinin, 2007b, p. xv), is a pressing debate among
narrative researchers.
Descriptive or interventionist?

Who'll stop the rain

"Reflexivity is the unknown
soldier of social science"
Margaret Archer

Reflexivity
Reflexivity is exercised through people holding internal
conversations.
Inner conversation is the regular exercise of the mental
ability shared by all normal people to consider
themselves in relation to their social contexts and vice
versa.
Internal speech is for oneself.
External speech is for others.
Vigotsky
Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.

Silence and privacy
Internal conversation takes place in silence without
conventions or rules or manners.
We talk silently to ourselves without misunderstanding.
Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.

Social mobility is a reflexive task
Concerns -- Projects -- Practices
We talk to ourselves about society in relation to ourselves
and about ourselves in relation to society.

Internal conversations and the
pursuit of the good life
Defining and dovetailing one's CONCERNS
⇔⇔⇔⇔Internal goods
Developing concrete courses of action PROJECTS
⇔⇔⇔⇔Projects
Establishing satisfying sustainable PRACTICES
⇔⇔⇔⇔Modus vivendi

The three realms of inquiry
There are three realms or spaces of narrative inquiry to
answer the "Who-am-I question" in terms of navigating
between two opposing alternatives:
(i) sameness⇔difference between self and other
(ii) world⇔person direction of fit
(iii) constancy⇔change across time, where the first two
require choices that do not have to account for temporal
dimensions.
(Bamberg, 2012, p. 205)

Dilemma one: Be-ing in relation
to others
First, in our daily practices, we continuously mark
ourselves as different, similar or same with respect to
others. Integrating and differentiating a sense of who we
are vis-à-vis others is a process of moment-to-moment
navigations, and stories about self and others are good
candidates to practice this from early on. Descriptions,
practical reasoning or theoretical discourses may be
equally important discursive practices for developing and
changing the membership constructions that divide and
unite people along affiliations and alignments in terms of
being just like them (belonging) — or different (as in being
special and unique).

What is your relationship as a
researcher to other members of the
class and their chosen methodologies?
Begin a narrative exploring sameness⇔difference.

Dilemma two: Mapping out
agency
The second dilemmatic space often is termed ‗agency;‘ and although it
seems as if agency is something that we have, even if only in the form
of a capacity, I am suggesting to view it along the lines of navigating the
sameness⇔difference dilemma as a space where we navigate two
directions of opposing fit: one from world-to-person and the other from
person-to-world.
While it is possible to view a sense of who we are as passive recipients
of influences (typically from biological or outside forces such as
parents, teachers, or culture), it also is possible to view world as a
product of self (where the self is constructed as highly agentive). The
navigation of agency⇔passivity/recipiency as a dilemmatic space
becomes particularly relevant in presentations of characters as involved
and responsible — as for claims to success and self-aggrandizement
— versus denials of culpability in mishaps or wrongdoings.

Describe your agency within in
the classroom?
Continue your narrative exploring world⇔person, where
the world is limited to the room and our shared
experiences.

The dilemma of how to navigate the connection of a
sense of who we used to be with how we want to position
ourselves for the here-and-now is often seen as closely
coupled to issues of acquiring or developing self-worth,
having deteriorated and become useless, and of striving
for (or losing out on) the life one would like to live.
Dilemma three: Positioning
ourselves

Have you lived the life you
wanted to live here?
Complete your narrative exploring constancy⇔change.

What to be mindful of when
telling stories
Where and how RESEARCHERS/PARTICIPANTS/STORYTELLERS
―break into storytelling mode,‖ i.e., how storytelling differs from what
was going on and/or talked about before
How RESEARCHERS/PARTICIPANTS/STORYTELLERS manage their
telling in terms of the formal (structural) properties of how they weave
place, time and characters (content) into plot-like themes
How RESEARCHERS/PARTICIPANTS/STORYTELLERS manage to
hold the floor throughout their storytelling activity, and keep their
audience engaged
How RESEARCHERS/PARTICIPANTS/STORYTELLERS end their
storytelling activity and return to the here-and-now of the story-telling
situation
(Bamberg, 2012, p. 201).

What are your concerns
regarding narrative inquiry?

Issues with restorying the
narrative
The social constructionist perspective is that all ‗narratives sit at the intersection of
history, biography, and society‘ (Liamputtong and Ezzy 2005: 132); they are dependent
on the context of the teller and the listener; and are not intended to represent ‗truth‘.
Foucault warned social scientists to be alert to the danger that their explanations and
diagnoses, when disseminated, could lead to further subjugation (Gergen and Gergen
2003).
Fine (2003) cautioned about the danger of writing about those who have been
'othered‘, and pointed out the inherent risk of romanticising narratives.
There is also a need for qualitative researchers to be aware of their own power when
conducting research to ‗help‘ the other (Fine 2003).
A further dilemma in this approach is that of the moral and ethical stance taken by the
researcher. (Hunter, 2010, p.45)

The equal right to speak?
Another significant difference between narrative and many other
qualitative methodological approaches is the extent to which the
researcher‘s story becomes intrinsic to the study.
Through my own desire to explore the experiences I have shared … I
realise how my biography fueled my intuition… I, too, lead a storied life
and the research relationship is part of my experiential text (Winkler
2003, 399)
Making oneself apparent via such reflexivity carries with it a danger.
One risks making oneself more central to the discourse, pushing ‗other‘
voices out to the margins (Edwards and Ribbens 1998).
A way of remedying this danger, as, several of the contributors do in
this Special Issue, is to adhere to the Bakhtinian concept of polyphony,
or equality of utterance, where both narrator and listener exist on the
same plane and have equal right to speak (Bakhtin 1986). Trahar p. 261

Do you believe in the equal right
to speak and how do you
practice this principle as a
researcher?

The route to the truth?
One allegation is that researchers often re-present narratives as if they
were ‗authentic‘ when: Autobiographical accounts are no more
‗authentic than other modes of representation: a narrative of a personal
experience is not a clear route into ‗the truth‘, either about the reported
events, or of the teller‘s private experience … (Atkinson and Delamont
2006, p. 166)
These critics look for ‗the supporting evidence and argument given by
the researcher‘ (Polkinghorne 2007, p. 476) for the claim that is made.
Trahar, p. 262

Is it our job as researchers to
deliver the truth?

Resisting an impoverished
system of meaning
A further criticism leveled at narrative researchers is that, in their
concern to represent the meanings that individuals ascribe to their lived
experience, they resist what Fox in her article defines as ‗a globalised,
homogenised, impoverished system of meaning‘, and are opposed to
collective understanding being derived from their work.
Trahar, p. 262

What is the value of an individual
standpoint as opposed to the collective
understanding?

Concerns regarding "narrative
imperialism"
The expansionist ―impulse by students of narrative to claim more and
more territory… [which] can stretch the concept of narrative to the point
that we lose sight of what is distinctive about it‖ (Phelan, 2005, p. 206).
Though in my view narrative inquiry and narrative paradigm basically
overlap, other visions may stress the distance between them,
conceiving the first as a much broader landscape than indicated by the
latter.
Spector-Mersel, Gabriela (2010). Narrative research: Time for a paradigm. Narrative Inquiry 20(1), 204–224. p. 221

References
Bamberg, M. (2012). Why Narrative? Narrative Inquiry 22:1, 202-210.
Chase S E 2005 ‗Narrative inquiry: Multiple lenses, approaches, voices‘ in N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) The Sage
Handbook of Qualitative Research Sage Publications,Thousand Oaks, CA: 651-80
Clandinin (2006) Situating Narrative Inquiry. Handbook of Narrative Inquiry pp. 1-34
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Los Angeles: Sage.
Hendry, P.M. (2010) Narrative as Inquiry. The Journal of Educational Research, 103: 72-80.
Hunter, S (2010) Analysing and representing narrative data: the long and winding road. Current Narrtives. 1(2) 42-54.
Johnson, L. (2012). An inquiry into inquiry: Learning to become a literacy researcher. English Teaching: Practice and
Critique. 11(2) 81-93.
Trahar, S. (2008). It starts with once upon a time... Compare. 38(3), 259-266.

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