Narrative

Narrative is a broad term describing the form of discourse generally known as a story. It may be presented in a number of different ways—through writing and its various forms, such as fiction, autobiography, and poetry; visually, through photographs, paintings or film, using images to document or represent events, or orally, through storytelling, conversation, interview and drama. All narratives tell of experiences and are commonly constructed to highlight a particular aspect or event, offering a powerful means of acknowledging and remembering them. This entry first outlines the key features and history of narrative and then focuses on approaches to narrative within research. The entry ends by summarizing and emphasizing the links between narrative and action research.

A feature of narrative is that it conventionally contains a beginning, a middle and an end and develops through its telling. As the story unfolds, characters, or players, are introduced, and often a character takes on the role of the narrator in a first person story. The unfolding might also take the form of a third person account or dialogue, as in a dramatic presentation or interview. Temporality is central to narrative, as a means of allowing the unfolding sequence of events and of organizing experiences within a time frame.

Aristotle’s Poetics is considered one of the earliest writings to have defined the narrative plot, though Walter Ong’s discourse on orality demonstrates the widespread use of non-linear narratives in oral cultures for transmission of information before written cultures developed. Religious texts such as the Sutras, Qur’an, Torah, Bhagavad Gita and Bible, having their basis in early oral narratives, all use recognized narrative structures to transmit philosophical, humanistic and behavioural guidance.

Narratives can be derived from personal (individual or collective), institutional, cultural or social sources and allow the narrator the capacity for extension and for change. Such changes might come about through framing the story over a longer period, during which further events develop that change the story’s conclusion, or through psychoanalytic intervention, where individuals might seek to perceive themselves differently or to elicit behavioural changes that might change their personal story or their perception of it.

Narratives are often framed within a broader metanarrative or grand narrative which serves as a defining theory into which the local or personal narrative may not fit. Since society itself is storied and, when presented historically or reflectively, frequently biased in favour of those in positions of power, areas of friction emerge between the meta-narrative and the individual narrative. This allows counter-narratives and new social and cultural knowledges and acceptabilities to be produced. Thus, a narrative is also created through the agency of the cultural actors or storytellers who make known these ‘new’ stories.

Action research uses narratives through actively listening to stories of personal experience. This process can affect both the direction of the research and the narratives of other participants within the dynamic, emergent quality of effective action research. As narratives emerge organically, individuals express their own experiences and understandings to give access to deeper and richer knowing than is commonly available in more conventional research modes. The participants or co-researchers gain an awareness of how their ideas have developed, their reactions to specific events and the ways in which they might be dealt with differently. When that process is repeated throughout the participant group, and as the stories gather detail and input from others, additional interpretations emerge to give multi-vocal and multilayered insights to issues.

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