qualitative- narrative analysis

Question 1

What paradigm does narrative analysis belong to?

Answer 1

social constructionist

Question 2

What is Narrative?

Answer 2

• Narrative often used synonymously with “story”
• Westernized definitions: structured, temporal, linear. Beginning, middle and end
• Not true for all narratives: trauma survivors
• Plot = NB
• The aspect at the core of all narratives, that which separates them from other forms of communication, is contingency of events.

Question 3

Narrative Psychology

Answer 3

“ Narrative Psychology is concerned with the structure, content and function of the stories that we tell each other and ourselves in social interaction. It accepts that we live in a storied world and that we interpret the interactions of others and ourselves through the stories that we exchange. Through narrative we not only shape the world and ourselves but they are shaped for us through narrative.” Murray (2003)

Question 4

Narratives as social constructions

Answer 4

• The stories we tell are social constructions
• Not merely factual accounts of events as they happened
• Rather narratives are versions of the truth, are fluid and ever changing
• We draw on existing cultural plot lines and discourses to create our own stories
• Narratives are not neutral, they “do things”

Question 5

Narratives and Identity

Answer 5

The narrative analyst’s key interest lies in which stories participants choose to convey, how they portray these stories, and the identities which they consequentially construct through these stories

Therefore a primary task for the narrative analyst is exploring what the narrative unit under analysis “does” or accomplishes.

Riessman suggests that narratives may be used by individuals (either consciously or unconsciously) to “remember, argue, justify, persuade, engage, entertain, and even mislead” their audience.

When an individual tells a story about their life, they are performing a preferred version of their identity which they wish to display to the specific audience

Question 6

Narrative Research Process

Answer 6

1. research question
2. research design and data collection
3. transcription
4. analysis interpretation
5. present findings

Question 7

1. Narrative research questions

Answer 7

eg.What kinds of identities do women construct in their stories about violence in their relationships? (Boonzaier, 2008)
How do men construct and negotiate their identities as men, fathers and husbands in relation to their identities as clients through the stories they tell? (Huysamen, 2013)
How do recovering drug addicts create meaning from their stories of addiction and recovery? (Adams, 2010)

Question 8

2. Recruitment and Interviewing

Answer 8

Decide how you will recruit your sample?

Narrative interviews
-Usually unstructured
-Broad, open-ended questions that invite stories
“tell me about what it is like being a father from when you first found out that you will be a father”
-Participant = active agent, determines the pace and direction of interview
-Interviewer: More passive, good listener, follows up with questions.

Question 9

Episodic interviews

Answer 9

-More focused specific issue
-Aim: not to become a question and answer session
-Invite participant to give extended accounts about their experience
“tell me about a positive experience you have had with a client”

Question 10

Life history interviews

Answer 10

-“ tell me the story of your life”
-“tell me about how you experienced your disability
throughout your life”
-Sexual history taking

Question 11

Narrative Interviews

Answer 11

Invite Stories:
Narrative researchers place the collection of narrative accounts at the center stage of their interview. They ask for narrative accounts and encourage them wherever possible. (Murray, 2003)

Question 12

3. Narrative Data Analysis (how can we analyse narratives?)

Answer 12

1. structure of the story
2. content of the story
3. social context of the story

Question 13

Analysing the structure of stories

Answer 13

Abstract= provides intro/summary to the story

orientation= set the scene

complicating action= central details

evaluation= so what? why is the story important

results= punch line

coda/afterword= conclusion, reflection

Question 14

Other types of Story Structures

Answer 14

Success Tales
Tragedies
Coming out stories
Cautionary tales
Conversion narratives

Question 15

Analysing CONTENT of stories

Answer 15

-Inductive approach: Finding the themes within the narratives

But remembering to keep the story whole! Story becomes unit of analysis.
1. Make summary of each participant’s life story/interview.
What is the narrative about?
2. Identify the most contrasting narratives
How is the same topic constructed differently by participants?
3. Identify other distinctive narratives
4. Identify any other remaining types of narratives
5. Organize each participants transcripts according to these narratives/categories

Question 16

Analysing SOCIAL CONTEXT of stories

Answer 16

1. Analyzing the broader socio-political context:
   - How are people’s stories reflective of broader cultural stories on the topic?
   - Which social discourses do people draw on in their narratives?
2. Analysing the interview Context:
   - This type of analysis pays attention to the interpersonal research context (interview-participant relationship)
   - This approach requires:
   - -Detailed Transcription
   - -Great reflexivity on the part of the researcher.

Question 17

Types of questions the researcher may ask themselves during analysis on interview context

Answer 17

• How did the way I phrased questions facilitate the telling of certain stories and inhibit others?
• How did my own intersecting identities (age, race, class, gender, sexuality, level of education, religion) influence how I perceived the topic of study, the participant’s responses, and how I perceived the participant himself?
• How did my intersecting identities affect how the participants perceived me?
• How did my intersecting identities affect the kinds of narratives participants chose to tell me?

Question 18

social context analysis: performative narrative analysis

Answer 18

• Acknowledges that stories do not just passively exist or appear, rather they are performed.
• Focus of the researcher is not exclusively on the told, but also on the telling
• Central to any performance is the audience to whom the performance is directed.
• Teller selects which stories to tell and how these stories are told based on who the audience is perceived to be - a preferred version of the self is performed for the audience
• Audience is viewed as central to the narrative and as highly implicated in its construction and meaning
• Narratives arising from the research interviews are analysed as a product of the joint construction of knowledge and meaning between the researcher and the participant.

Question 19

social context analysis: dialogic approach narrative analysis

Answer 19

To assume that a person can create any identity they wish for themselves through their narratives could be seen to be quite individualistic

Imagined dialogues play a central role in our daily lives: they exist alongside actual dialogues with real others, interwoven with actual interactions, they constitute an essential part of our narrative construction of the world.