CH AP T ER

11 Practicing Narrative Inquiry

Arthur P. Bochner and Nicholas A. Riggs

Abstract
This chapter focuses on the intellectual, philosophical, empirical, and pragmatic development of the
turn toward narrative, tracing the rise of narrative inquiry as it evolved in the aftermath of the crisis
of representation in the social sciences. Narrative inquiry seeks to humanize the human sciences,
placing people, meaning and personal identity at the center, inviting the development of reflexive,
relational, and interpretive methodologies and drawing attention not only on the actual but also to the
possible and the good. The chapter synthesizes the changing methodological and ethical orientations
of qualitative researchers associated with narrative inquiry; explores the divergent standpoints of
small- story and big- story researchers, draws attention to the differences between narrative analysis
and narratives-under-analysis; and reveals narrative practices that seek to help people form better
relationships, overcome oppressive canonical identities, amplify or reclaim moral agency, and cope better
with contingencies and difficulties experienced over the course of life.
Key Words: narrative, storytelling, narrative identity, reflexive methodologies, small stories, narrative
analysis, autoethnography, qualitative inquiry, acts of meaning, interpretive social science

We grasp our lives in a narrative. In order to have a sense of

who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become,
and of where we are going.
– Charles Taylor (1989)

We tell stories because that’s what we have to do. It’s what we’re
all about. We care for one another with the stories we place in
each other’s memory; they are our food for thought, and life.
– Richard Zaner (2004)

People are constantly telling stories. We tell sto- them up (Hacking, 1999). The same can be said
ries to ourselves and stories to others; stories about about the stories we tell about ourselves. On this
ourselves and stories about other selves. Apparently, view, one’s self—my-self or your-self—can be
self-telling is a human preoccupation. We assume understood as a telling (Schafer, 1980) and a con-
there is something akin to a “self ” to tell stories to or sequence of “relational being” (Gergen, 2009). As
about. As we tell stories about others, we construct a result, the idea of a unified, fixed, and singular
images or meanings of them and their actions, cat- self ontologically prior to and apart from a person’s
egorizing or classifying them—in a sense, making living experience is replaced by the notion of a

195
multiple, fluid, and negotiated identity that is con- inheritance (Goodall, 2005). In the grip of stories,
tinuously under narrative construction—a process we absorb the lore of the past and find expression
that is never complete as long as we live and interact for codifying our dreams about the future. We
with others. watch the characters in these stories work through
Moreover, telling stories is one of the primary the dramatic plots and troubles of a lifetime. We
ways we “reckon with time” (Ricoeur, 1981, p. 169). learn to feel and identify with some, but not all, of
We are historical beings who live in the present, the characters. The plots of these stories introduce
under the weight of the past and the uncertainty of us to good and evil, love and hate, heaven and hell,
the future. Our language alerts us to a consciousness right and wrong, birth and death, war and peace,
of there and then, here and now, and sooner or later. suffering and healing, and a wide swath between the
We are called on to make sense of and remember extremes. Throughout our lives, we are coached to
the past in order to move ahead and attend to the keep some stories private and to guard these secret
future. Thus, time, memory, and narrative are inex- stories as if our lives depended on protecting and
tricably linked. keeping them safely out of sight or earshot.
A newborn baby is devoid of story. Still, each of In the meantime, we find we must move on,
us is born into a world of stories and storytellers, living out and through our storied existence.
ready to be shaped and fashioned by the narratives Sometimes, we find ourselves in stories we would
to which we will be exposed. Whether we like it or rather not be living. Often, we re-story our lives,
not, our lives are rooted in narratives and narrative revising the meaning of the tales in which we have
practices. We depend on stories almost as much as been immersed, constructing new storylines to help
we depend on the air we breathe. Air keeps us alive; us exert control over life’s possibilities, ambiguities,
stories give meaning to our lives. They become our and limitations. In some of our stories, we claim
equipment for living. As Myerhoff (2007, p. 18) ourselves as heroes; in others, we are dreamers; in
observed, “It is almost as if we are born with an still others, we are traumatized victims or survi-
inconclusion and until we fill that gap with story, vors. Other people in our lives are characters in our
we are not entirely sure, not only what our lives stories, and we are characters in theirs (Bochner,
mean, not only what secrets require our attention, 2002; Parry, 1991). A storied life is a negotiated
but that we are there at all.” life collaboratively enacted and performed in dia-
When we are children, we soak up cautionary logue with the other characters with whom we are
tales that shape and guide us. We are exposed to connected. Thus, the stories we live out are a rela-
fairy tales and tall tales, ballads and legends, myths tional, co-authored production. As Arthur Frank
and fables, epics and folklore. From The Arabian (1997, p. 43) says, “Stories are the ongoing work
Nights to Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Aesop’s Fables, Uncle of turning mere existence into a life that is social,
Remus stories (see Joel Chandler Harris, 1881) and and moral, and affirms the existence of the teller as
beyond, the plots and moral precepts of the human a human being.” It turns out that the stories we tell
dramas into which we have been born are transmit- are not only about our lives; they are part of our lives
ted to us in stories. Along the storied highway of (Rosenwald & Ochberg, 1992).
life, we meet monsters and heroes, fantastic crea- The philosopher Heidegger (1889–1976) con-
tures with extraordinary, magical powers, saints and strued humans as “beings whose lives are at issue or in
evil-doers, beauties and beasts. Over and over again, question” (Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999,
we hear, “Once upon a time,” “Happily ever after,” p. 220). Similarly, Ricoeur (1985, p. 263) wrote
and “The moral of the story.. . . ” Gradually, we accu- that “On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet
mulate a reserve of stories to which we can appeal this brief period when we appear in the world is the
when the occasion calls for it. If we get in trouble, time in which all meaningful questions arise.” In
we may even summon a story to save our skin. other words, we are self- and other-interpreting ani-
As students and as family members, we read, mals for whom being is constituted in and by ques-
write, and listen to stories, learning to compare and tions about what is important, good, or meaningful.
analyze them. The stories to which we are exposed To be a person, I am compelled to ask what kind
tell us who we are; where and how we are located of life is worth living and to measure the meaning-
in ethnic, family, and cultural history; where we fulness of my life against some version of the good
have come from, where we may be going, and acceptable to me, which requires a narrative under-
with whom. Passed to us by our elders and sig- standing—“a sense of what I have become which
nificant others, these stories become our narrative can only be given in a story” (Taylor, 1989, p. 48).

196 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

 Thus, the human condition is largely a narra- narrative could serve as a root metaphor for a revi-
tive condition. Storytelling is the means by which talized social psychology grew out of conversations
we represent our experiences to ourselves and to in 1979 with three of the most profoundly influ-
others; it is how we communicate and make sense ential narrative theorists—historians Louis Mink
of our lives; it is how we fill our lives with mean- (1970) and Hayden White (1975, 1980) and the
ing. To study persons is to study beings existing in narrative theologian Stephen Crites (1971)—while
narrative and socially constituted by stories. From he was a visitor at the Center for the Humanities
bedtime stories to life reviews—across the span of at Wesleyan University. Although Mink and White
our lives—we listen to stories and tell stories of our were deeply skeptical of narrative’s capacity to rep-
own. Myerhoff (2007, p. 18) called this passionate resent real events—“stories are not lived but told”
craving for story a “narrative urge,” while Fisher (Mink, 1970, p. 557)— both affirmed narrative’s
marked it as an Archimedean point signified by the constitutive role in history’s search for and claim to
phrase Homo narrans (Fisher, 1984, 1987). knowledge, as well its formidable power to provide
a framework that can make the past intelligible. In
The Rise of Narrative Inquiry in Crites’ (1971) manifesto on narrative, he resisted
the temptation to view narrative as merely one way
the Social Sciences
It seems as if a lot of people have been waking up
to organize and make sense of experience, arguing
after a long and strange slumber, asking: Why don’t
instead that everything experienced is experienced
we study people? Mark Freeman (1998, p. 27)
narratively—human life is storied life all the way
down and back. Acknowledging the significance of
It took a long time for the social sciences to time and memory, Crites (1971) argued that human
come to narrative (Bochner, 2014). Not until 1982, consciousness takes an inherently narrative form.
when Donald Spence published Narrative Truth and Prior to the publication of the books authored
Historical Truth, a book that challenged one of the by Spence (1982) and Sarbin (1986), the term “nar-
foundational premises of psychoanalysis, did psy- rative” had no recognizable status in psychology
chology begin to show a concerted effort to under- either as a methodological orientation or as a topic
stand how individuals are shaped and changed by of research in the study of personal, interpersonal,
the stories in which they live and act (Josselson or therapeutic relationships. By 1992, however,
and Lieblich, 1997). Spence (1982) argued that Krieswirth (1992) felt it necessary to account for
psychoanalysis was not akin to an archaeological what he called “the narrative turn” in the human sci-
excavation of a person’s historical past, as Freud ences. Not only was psychology turning toward nar-
(1914) had argued, but rather involved a collabora- rative but so were economics (McCloskey, 1990),
tive construction of a coherent and credible story law (Farber & Sherry, 1993), education (Connelly
shaped out of bits and pieces of disclosed memories, & Clandinen, 1990), history (Mink, Fay, Golob, &
imagination, and associations. It wasn’t the events Vann, 1987; White, 1987), psychoanalysis (Coles,
themselves, but the meanings attributed to events, 1989; Schafer, 1980; Spence, 1982), psychotherapy
that shaped a person, and these meanings could (White & Epston, 1990), sociology (Richardson,
be reframed and reshaped into a story that gave 1990), and ethnography (Turner & Bruner, 1986).
new hope and promise to a despondent individual Between 1986 and 1994, Bruner published his
plagued by doubt, despair, and/or dejection. essay on “life as narrative” (Bruner, 1987) and his
Four years later, Theodore Sarbin (1986) pub- books on “possible worlds” (1986) and “acts of mean-
lished Narrative Psychology, an edited collection of ing” (Bruner, 1990); Polkinghorne (1988) urged
essays and research monographs that focused on a fuller appreciation of the realm of meaning, and
“the storied nature of human conduct.” Reacting hence narrative, as a core concern for all the human
to “the epistemological crisis in social psychology,” sciences; McAdams (1985) defined identity as a
Sarbin (1986, p. vii) offered narrative psychology as psychosocial problem of arriving at a coherent life
“a viable alternative to the positivist paradigm” of story; Rosenwald and Ochberg (1992) introduced a
psychological research, one which could pull psy- critical-cultural perspective for investigating the sto-
chology out of its state of disillusionment by replac- ries people tell about their lives; Mair (1989) made
ing the mechanistic and reductionist postulates of the case for a narratively grounded “poetics of experi-
positivism with a humanistic paradigm highlight- ence”; Parry (1991), Schafer (1992), and White and
ing story making, storytelling and story compre- Epston (1990) proposed a framework for narratively
hension (Sarbin, 1986). Sarbin’s conviction that based therapies; Shotter and Gergen (1989) edited

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 1 97
a collection of essays that examined the narrative 1993) was a response to the questionable ethics and
textuality of the self; Richardson (1990) argued for doubtful appropriateness of standard methodologi-
a sociology that narrated lives instead of abstract- cal practices in the social sciences (Apter, 1996). In
ing forces; Ellis and Bochner (1992) developed the the human sciences, we are supposed to be studying
methodology of co-constructed personal narratives people, observing their lived experiences, and try-
and promoted the idea of performed autobiographi- ing to understand their lives, and narratives come
cal research stories that would give audiences the closer to representing the contexts and integrity
kind of experiential, emotional immediacy lacking in of those lives than do questionnaires and graphs
traditional forms of research; Tedlock (1991) and E. (Freeman, 1997, 1998a). Thus, the narrative turn
Bruner (1986) described the emergence of narrative is widely viewed as an expression of dissatisfaction
ethnography; Langellier (1989) gave credibility to with received views of knowledge, in particular a
the study of personal narratives as a means of validat- rejection of positivist and postpositivist social sci-
ing the voices of marginal and silenced individuals ence. But the enthusiasm for narrative inquiry was
and groups; Connelly and Clandinin (1990) under- sparked as much by existential, ontological, and
scored the ways in which educational research can be moral concerns as by a methodological change of
viewed as stories on several levels; Coles (1989) called heart. Narrative is as much about the possible as it
for more stories and less theory in order to open up is about the actual. Many of those drawn to nar-
the moral imagination of teachers, researchers, and rative inquiry wanted to imagine, discover, or
psychiatrists; Josselson and Lieblich (1993) initiated create new and better ways of living. As Freeman
an annual publication focused on the study of life (1998a, p. 46) said, “We need to understand lives
narrative in psychology that would call attention to and indeed to live lives differently if we are to avoid
people telling their own stories about what had been further fragmentation, isolation, and disconnection
significant in their lives; and Freeman (1993) drew from each other.”
attention to the neglect of and importance for the Now, nearly a full generation later, we can say
autobiographical subject and memoir in psychology. confidently that the turn toward narrative in the
Krieswirth (1992, p. 629) pointed out what had by social sciences is not a passing fancy. Nor is it a
then become obvious: “As anyone aware of the cur- movement confined to a small group of disgruntled,
rent intellectual scene has probably noticed, there has renegade, eccentric, self-indulgent, and/or alien-
recently been a virtual explosion of interest in narra- ated individuals, as Atkinson (1997) argued (see
tive and in theorizing about narrative.” e.g., Bochner, 2001; Sparkes, 2001, for responses
As the end of the twentieth century approached, to Atkinson’s arguments). On the contrary, the
the narrative turn accelerated and intensified. In par- inspiration for the narrative turn penetrates deep
ticular, personal narratives (Clandinin & Connelly, into the conscience of those who embrace it. To
1994; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Langellier, 1999), comprehend the sources of this inspiration, one
life histories (Freeman, 1993; Tierney, 2000), life must understand the demographic, intellectual,
stories (McAdams, 1993), testimonios (Beverley, social, and cultural conditions under which the
2000), poeticized bodies (Pelias, 1999), and mem- most recent generations of researchers and graduate
oirs (Couser, 1997; Freeman, 1993; Miller, 2000) students in the social sciences have been educated.
became widely viewed as significant materials and They have been exposed to a far different concep-
methods for conducting inquiry, as well as major tion of how and for what purposes knowledge is
topics of research across the human sciences (see e.g., produced than academics entering the social sci-
Church, 1995; Denzin 1997; Ellis & Bochner, 1996; ences prior to the 1990s.
Gubrium & Holstein, 1997; Plummer, 2001). By
the turn of the century, Denzin and Lincoln (2000, Turning away from the Correspondence
p. 3) could conclude, “Now, at the beginning of the Theory of Knowledge
21st century, the narrative turn has been taken.” A turn toward something can be seen as a turn
away from something else. To understand the
Why Narrative? context in which researchers in the human sci-
In the 1990s, narrative inquiry became a rallying ences began to turn toward narrative, it is helpful
point for those of us who believed that the human to consider how the postmodernism and post-
sciences needed to become more human. To some structuralism of the time was challenging some
extent, the burst of enthusiasm for personal nar- of the most venerable notions about scientific
rative and the study of lives (Josselson & Lieblich, knowledge and truth.

198 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

 Early in the 1960s, Kuhn (1962) used the his- should understand language not as simply a tool
tory of science to show that the building-block for mirroring what is describable about reality, but
model of science lacked foundations. According rather as an ongoing and constitutive quality of real-
to Kuhn (1962), scientific revolutions were more ity (Bochner & Waugh, 1995). What it is possible
akin to conversions—from one paradigm to to say about the world involves the indistinguish-
another—than to discoveries. Taking up where able provocations of the world and the interventions
Kuhn left off, Rorty (1979, 1982), Toulmin of language by which we make claims about that
(1969), Feyerabend (1975), and Sellars (1963) world. In short, the world we social scientists seek to
illustrated how the “facts” scientists see are inex- describe does not exist in the form of the sentences
tricably connected to the vocabulary they use to we write when we theorize about it (Rorty, 1989).
represent them. At about the same time, Lyotard Thus, the cultural context of social science
(1984) debunked the belief in a unified totality of research that launched the turn toward narra-
knowledge, questioning whether master narratives tive was one in which some of the most venerable
(or general theories) were either possible or desir- notions about scientific truth and knowledge were
able; Barthes (1977), Derrida (1978, 1981), and being contested (Denzin, 1997; Lyotard, 1984).
Foucault (1970) effectively obliterated the mod- The traditional ideas of an objectively accessible
ernist conception of the author, altering how we reality and a scientific method turned out to be,
understand the connections among authors, texts, in Richard Rorty’s (1982, p. 195) words, “nei-
and readers/audiences; Bakhtin (1981) broad- ther clear nor useful.” What was needed, argued
ened the interpretive space available to the reader Rorty (1982, p. 195), was an approach to social
of a social science text by encouraging multiple science “which emphasizes the utility of narra-
perspectives, unsettled meanings, plural voices, tives and vocabularies rather than the objectivity
and local knowledge that transgresses claims to of laws and theories.” Sensing that this was one
a unitary body of theory; feminist critical theo- of those rare “experimental moments” (Marcus &
rists such as Harding (1991), Clough (1994), Fisher, 1999) akin to a Kuhnian paradigm clash
Harstock (1983), and Smith (1990, 1992) pro- (Kuhn, 1970), advocates of a meaning-centered,
moted the unique and marginalized standpoints interpretive, and qualitative social science rapidly
and particularities of women; and multicultural began to introduce new models and methodolo-
textualists such as Trinh (1989, 1992), Anzaldúa gies applicable to a paradigm of narrative inquiry
(1987), and Behar (1993, 1996) exposed how the (Spector-Mersel, 2010), such as systematic socio-
complexities of race, class, sexuality, disability, logical introspection (Ellis, 1991), biographi-
and ethnicity are woven into the fabric of con- cal method (Denzin, 1991), personal experience
crete, personal lived experiences. methods (Clandinin & Connelly, 1994), feminist
By the mid-1980s, the social sciences were methods (Reinharz, 1992), consciousness-raising
experiencing “a crisis of representation” casting a methods (Hollway, 1989), co-constructed narrative
shadow of doubt on the validity and efficacy of the (Bochner & Ellis, 1992), and interactive interview-
theory of language on which orthodox approaches ing (Ellis, Kiesinger, & Tillmann-Healy, 1997), and
to scientific knowledge were based (Clifford, 1988; to propose new subfields of inquiry sympathetic
Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Geertz, 1988; Marcus & to the shift toward more personal, emotional, and
Fisher, 1986; Turner & Bruner, 1986). This “cor- story-based forms of inquiry such as personal soci-
respondence theory of knowledge” hinged on the ology (Higgins & Johnson, 1988), autobiographi-
assumption that language can achieve the denota- cal sociology (Friedman, 1990), private sociology
tive and referential function of describing objects (Shostak, 1996), emotional sociology (Ellis, 1991),
in a world out there, apart from and independent indigenous anthropology (Tedlock, 1991), autoan-
of language users (Bochner & Waugh, 1995; Rorty, thropolgy (Strathern, 1997), anthropology of the
1967, 1982, 1989). To hold to this assumption was self (Kondo, 1990), anthropology at home (Jackson,
to grant that the words used in scientific descrip- 1987), anthropological poetics (Brady, 1991), auto-
tions do not specify a world, but rather represent the ethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 1996; Bochner &
world, and that words can denote what is out there Ellis, 2002), and autoethnographic performance
in the world apart from, or prior to, the interpreta- (Park-Fuller, 1998).
tions (or descriptions) of researchers who use them. Disputing the capacity of language and speech
Beginning with Kuhn (1962), however, the to mirror experience (Rorty, 1979), postmodern-
history and philosophy of science showed that we ists revealed that there was no access to the world

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 19 9
unmediated by language. No methods exist that moral endeavor that puts human meanings and val-
can warrant a claim to describe reality as real- ues into motion (Bochner, 2002, 2012; Bochner &
ity would describe herself if she could talk (Rorty, Ellis, 2002; Chase, 2011; Denzin, 1997; Denzin &
1982). Because the world can’t speak for itself, all Lincoln, 2000, 2005, 2011; Ellis, 1995, 2004; Ellis
attempts to represent the world involve transform- & Bochner, 1996, 2000; Geertz, 1995; Gergen &
ing a speechless reality into a discursive form that Gergen, 2000, 2012).
makes sense. To the extent that descriptions of the
social world thus involve translating “knowing” into Changing Demographics: Evolution of a
“telling,” they may be viewed as narratives (White, New Academic Culture of Inquiry
1980). Thus, all social science writing is a narrative Students entering graduate schools in the 1990s
production saturated by gaps between experience thus began their lives as researchers and scholars
and its expression. under a cloud of epistemological doubt. During
Representing social reality accurately in language this period, a dramatic shift took place in the
is a problem because the constitutive quality of lan- demographic composition of the graduate student
guage creates experience and necessarily transforms population. There was a rapid increase in the enroll-
any data it describes. If language is not simply a tool ment of women, middle- and lower-class people,
for mirroring reality, but is rather an ongoing and blacks and Hispanics, and students from Third- and
constitutive part of reality, then our research agenda Fourth-World countries (Geertz, 1995). Gradually,
needs to take into account how, as social scientists, these demographic changes led to a globalization of
we are part of the world we investigate and the ways the curriculum and courses that stressed a greater
we use language to make and change it. Accordingly, appreciation for divergent rationalities grounded in
our focus becomes showing how meaning is per- cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and class diversity
formed and negotiated by and between speakers (Shweder, 1991). Prepared by their lived histories to
(research participants) and interpreters (researchers) understand how a vocabulary of neutrality, objectiv-
(Bochner & Waugh, 1995), a distinctively narrative ity, and scientific detachment could easily function
project (Bruner, 1990). as a tool of oppression and domination, these new-
In a succession of handbook articles dealing comers hungered for a research agenda that reso-
with perspectives on inquiry, Bochner (1984, 1994, nated with their lives and lived experiences. In the
2002) argued that the legitimation of this sort of aftermath of postmodernism, they were reluctant to
meaning-centered, narrative inquiry is contingent view the task of producing knowledge and repre-
on breaking free of certain disciplinary norms per- senting reality as unproblematic. They understood
vasive across the human sciences that idealize the research as a social process, as much a product of
significance of abstractions over details, stability interaction as of observation, and one inextricably
over change, and graphs over stories. The problem, bound to the embodied experiences and participa-
he reasoned, is not with science per se, but with a tion of the investigating self. Already inspired to
reverent and idealized view of science that positions question conventionality, power, and a monolithic
science above the contingencies of language and view of research practices, and now reinforced by
outside the circle of historical and cultural inter- sustained critiques of orthodox writing practices,
ests (Bochner, 2002; Bochner & Waugh, 1995). institutionalized knowledge production, and the
Although academic disciplines that have been crisis of representation, they were eager to locate
deeply entrenched in the correspondence theory of engaging, creative, and useful alternatives to the
knowledge, such as mainstream psychology, sociol- existing models of research. Inevitably, they were
ogy, and communication studies, have been slow to drawn toward a radical democratization of the
respond to the challenges posed by the crisis of rep- research process—an intention to minimize the
resentation, a new generation of social and human power differential between researchers and partici-
scientists who understand language as a means of pants (subjects)—one that placed a greater empha-
dealing with the world have responded by open- sis on activism, social justice, and applied research
ing new vistas of inquiry, experimenting with new (Denzin & Lincoln, 2001, 2004; Tedlock, 1991).
research practices, and turning increasingly toward Ultimately, a new research vocabulary evolved that
narrative, interpretive, autoethnographic, perfor- emphasized terms such as autoethnography (Ellis
mative, and other qualitative approaches to inquiry & Bochner, 2000; Holman Jones, 2005; Holman
that emphasize ways in which research in the human Jones, Adams, & Ellis, 2013; Spry, 2011); perfor-
sciences is a relational, political, performative, and mance ethnography (Alexander, 2005; Denzin,

200 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

2003); investigative poetry (Hartnett & Engles, and modernist social science subscribe to the ideal
2005); co-constructed narrative and collaborative of a reflexive, relational, dialogic, and collaborative
autoethnography (Bochner & Ellis, 1992, 1995; process grounded in the following eight precepts of
Ellis & Bochner, 1992; Ellis & Rawicki, 2013), distinctively interpretive social science:
appreciative and action research (Greenwood &
1. The researcher is part of the research data.
Levin, 2005), feminist praxis (Dillard & Okpalaoka,
2. A social science text always is composed by
2011), transformative research for social justice
a particular somebody someplace; writing and/or
(Mertens, Sullivan, & Stace, 2011), performance,
performing research is part of the inquiry.
and lived experience—each rooted in some extent
3. Research involves the emotionality and
to a turn toward narrative.
subjectivity of both researchers and participants.
In retrospect, then, the turn toward narrative
4. The relationship between researchers and
inquiry and qualitative research in the human
research participants should be democratic.
sciences appears to have been a consequence of
5. Researchers ought to accept an ethical
intellectual, social, and cultural changes—most
obligation to give something important back to the
notably the crisis in representation; greater access
people they study and write about.
to previously marginalized minority populations
6. What researchers write should be written for
who, in turn, championed the need to give voice
participants as much as about them, researchers
to silenced narratives and marginalized groups and
and participants should be accountable to each
communities; and a growing commitment to use
other, the researcher’s voice should not dominate
research to make a difference personally, emotion-
the voices of participants.
ally, politically, and culturally. Initially reactive, the
7. Research should be about what could be (not
turn toward narrative became proactive. Social sci-
just about what has been).
entists drawn to narrative inquiry now are pursu-
8. The reader or audience should be conceived
ing constructive responses to the agitating critiques
as a co-participant, not as a spectator, and should
of realism, modernism, and the correspondence
be given opportunities to think with (not just
theory of language. On the whole, they view these
about) the research story (or findings).
critiques not as an end but as a beginning, not as a
reason for despair but as a cause for hope, not as a Thus, the goals of much of narrative inquiry are
curtain closing on the excesses and illusions of the to keep conversation going (about matters crucial
past, but as a door opening to a future that is ripe to living well); to activate subjectivity, feeling, and
with possibilities and promise. As Gergen (1999) identification in readers or listeners; to raise con-
advised, we should be careful not to undermine the sciousness; to promote empathy and social justice;
critical impulse, but, at the same time, we should and to encourage activism—in short, to show what
be inspired by what we have learned from these cri- it can mean to live a good life and create a just
tiques to emphasize the creation of alternatives. If society.
language is the medium of expression we use to cre-
ate our reality, then we need to investigate what we Definitions, Assumptions, and Goals
can do with language to create the kind of realities Due to the immense breadth and volume of
in which we want to live. work on narrative across the human sciences, the
In light of the cultural, philosophical, and epis- focus of this chapter must be selective. Given the
temic context in which the turn toward narrative space limitations of a single chapter, we could not
inquiry originated—the desire for a more human- possibly do justice to the wide range of historical,
and justice-focused social science and the rejection critical, cultural, philosophical, literary, rhetorical,
of the correspondence theory of truth—researchers cinematic, feminist, psychoanalytic, therapeutic,
championing an interpretive and narrative orienta- developmental, discursive, and linguistic studies of
tion for the human sciences substantially altered narrative, or to the huge corpus of significant works
how they understood and construed the research on storytelling within the fields of folklore and oral
process, particularly their relational, ethical, and traditions. Thus, we have chosen to move away from
procedural obligations to the people they studied. the predominantly textual, structural, and semiotic
Although not all narrative inquiry in the human sci- concerns of those who focus primarily on narrative
ences embodies this understanding of the research production (most notably literary, discursive, and/
process, many of those who took the turn toward or linguistic works classified under the rubric nar-
narrative and turned away from realist, positivist, ratology, where narrative is an end in itself ) and

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 20 1
toward a focus on storytelling as a communicative the partner, the administrator, the survivor, the
activity, where the emphasis is on how humans researcher, and the like. Normally, the stories people
use language to endow experience with meanings. tell follow certain conventions of storytelling; that
Consequently, we will emphasize the “narrative fab- is, most stories contain similar elements and follow
ric of the self,” what psychologist Mark Freeman similar patterns of development. These include:
(1998a, p. 461) has called “the poetic dimension of
1. People depicted as characters in the story
narrative,” reflecting each person’s struggle to make
2. A scene, place, or context in which the
language adequate to experience, including the
story occurs
experience of one’s self.
3. An epiphany or crisis of some sort that
Many scholars and practitioners of narrative
provides dramatic tension, around which the
across the human sciences are deeply immersed in
emplotted events depicted in the story revolve and
and intrigued by what is called the “narrative iden-
toward which a resolution and/or explanation is
tity thesis”—the question of how stories shape and
pointed
can reshape a person’s identity. Narrative identity
4. A temporal ordering of events
research focuses on the stories people tell about
5. A point or moral to the story that provides an
themselves either in mundane, everyday interac-
explanation and gives meaning and value to the
tions—small stories—or in retrospective accounts
experiences depicted
ranging from episodic stories about epiphanies or
personal troubles to full-blown life histories—big Storytellers portray the people in their stories,
stories. Researchers seek to understand how people including themselves, as characters: protagonists,
look back on their lives and how they have coped antagonists, heroes, victim, or survivors. Usually,
in the past with the contingencies, difficulties, the stories they tell revolve around an epiphany or
and challenges of lived experience, as well as how dramatic event. The events take place somewhere,
their identities are made communicatively, through sometime—in a scene that can provide context and
everyday interactions with others. These stories may give setting, framing, and texturing to the story. The
be told within the context of a particular relation- point or goal of the story is to come to terms with,
ship, such as first-person accounts of a friendship explain, or understand the event(s): Why did this
or marriage; outside the relationship in the context happen to me? How can I understand what these
of a research interview, conversation or dialogue; or experiences mean? What lessons have I learned?
as part of a researcher’s extended participation in How have I been changed?
a community. Although Strawson’s (2004) depic- The events depicted in a story occur over time.
tion of the narrative identity thesis as an intellec- Most—although by no means all—personal stories
tual fashion and more likely “an affliction . . . than a are told in an order that follows linear, chronologi-
prerequisite for a good life” (p. 50) has stirred con- cal time, giving the sense of a beginning, middle,
siderable attention in recent years, we concur with and ending. The endpoint is particularly important
Battersby’s (2006) assessment that Strawson’s argu- not only because it represents the goal toward which
ment is riddled with unsupported assertions, poorly the events or actions are pointed, and thus gives the
defined and imprecise concepts, and the lack of an story its capacity for drama and closure, but also
alternative perspective on the relationship between because it is imbued with value—there is a moral to
self and narrative, and with Eakin’s (2008) observa- the story. “Could we ever narrativize without moral-
tion that “we are embedded in a narrative identity izing?” asks Hayden White (1980, p. 27), a question
system whether we like it or not” (p. 16). Thus, in answered by MacIntyre’s (1981, p. 456) insistence
light of the space available to us in this chapter, that: “Narrative requires an evaluative framework
we are not inclined to give attention to this par- in which good and bad character helps to produce
ticular assault on the narrative identity thesis. Still, unfortunate or happy outcomes.”
Strawson (2004) has contributed some fresh ques- When people tell stories, they interpret and give
tions for debate and discussion. Readers interested meaning to the experiences depicted in their stories.
in a detailed dialogue with the anti-narrative iden- The act of telling is always a performance, a pro-
tity thesis should consult the collection of essays cess of interpretation and communication in which
edited by Hutto (2007). the teller and listener collaborate in sense-making.
In this chapter, we assume that stories are social After all, meaning does not exist independent of or
performances at least insofar as they involve a teller prior to the interpretation of experience. In other
and an audience—the husband or wife, the friend, words, experience is not the same as story. Indeed,

202 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

the burden of the academic storyteller is to find the and limitations we encounter when we attempt to
story in the experience (Stone, 1988) and to try to become authors of our own stories.
make it the experience of those who listen to the
story. Storytelling attaches meanings to experiences. Stretching What We Mean by Stories
In the process of interpreting experiences through The question, “what is a story?” has been talked
storytelling, people activate subjectivity, emotional- about endlessly (Myerhoff, 2007). Most narrativ-
ity, and available frames of narrative intelligibility. ists insist on beginnings, middles, and endings,
Once told, the storied experiences become constitu- but LeGuin (1989) extends the definition of a
tive of the storyteller’s life. The story not only depicts story by pointing to a runic inscription, translated
life, it also shapes it reflexively. Stories are in a contin- as “Tolfink was here,” carved into a stone located
ual process of production, open to editing, revision, in a twelfth-century church in Wales. In the spirit
and transformation (Ellis, 2009). As Rosenwald of Primo Levi (1989) and Virginia Woolf (1976),
(1992, p. 275) observed, “Not only does the past LeGuin (1989) highlights Tolfink’s refusal to dis-
live in the present, but it also appears different at solve into his surroundings. Tolfink “was a reliable
every new turn we take.” narrator,” LeGuin claims (p. 29), because his carv-
Narratives lived, told, and anticipated occur in ing bears witness to existence—that someone was
a cultural context and are influenced by canoni- there—as well as to the brevity of life (Myerhoff,
cal stories circulating in everyday life. Often, the 2007). Thus, one useful way of understanding the
frames of intelligibility that function as narrative motivating urge and desired consequences of acts
resources are canonical and cultural stories. But of storytelling is as a primordial, existential form of
people are not condemned to live out the stories bearing witness to human being and human suffer-
passed on through cultural productions such as ing—an effort to claim or reclaim one’s humanity.
cinema, television, music, and other forms of pop- Of course, not all stories deal with the existential
ular communication or through traditions passed epics, twists of fate, dilemmas, or dramas of finite
on and/or promoted by cultural institutions such human experience or with the painful contradictions
as families, schools, synagogues, or churches. If of a symbolic identity joined to an imperfect and
our stories never thwarted or contested received limited body (Becker, 1973). Crites (1971, p. 296)
and canonical ones, we would have no expectation emphasized how humans live “from the sublime to
of change, no account of conflict, no demand to the ridiculous,” noting that our life experiences range
account for our actions, and no sense of agency. from the sacred to the mundane “and the mundane
Evidently, humans have a dazzling capacity to stories are also among the most important means by
reform or reframe the meanings of their actions which people articulate and clarify their sense of the
through stories. As Rosenwald (1992) points out, world” (Crites, 1971, p. 296).
there is always an uncomfortable tension between A somewhat different conception of the ridicu-
restless desire and stabilizing conventions. lous, one that nevertheless attempts to turn greater
In narrative inquiry, researchers must stay wary attention to the realm of the mundane, has been
of the temptation to treat the stories people tell as advanced by Bamberg (2007), who laments the dis-
“maps,” “mirrors,” or “reflections” of the experiences proportionate emphasis placed on “big” as opposed
they depict. Instead, stories should be recognized as to “small” stories. Bemoaning the neglect of everyday,
fluid, co-constructed, meaning-centered reproduc- interpersonal interactions—the real stories of our
tions and performances of experience achieved in lives (Bamberg, 2004)—through which identity is
the context of relationships and subject to negotia- negotiated, Bamberg (2004, 2006), Georgakopoulou
ble frames of intelligibility and the desire for conti- and Goustos (2004) and Georgakopoulou (2006,
nuity and coherence over time. Usually, storytellers 2006a, 2007) have exhorted researchers to concen-
have options and alternatives (Carr, 1986). Over trate on small stories. Although small stories are “not
the course of our lives, we reframe, revise, remake, particularly interesting or tellable” and “not even
retell, and relive our stories (Ellis, 2009). necessarily recognized as stories” (Bamberg, 2006,
Often, narrative inquiry functions as a mode of p. 63), researchers focusing on small stories want
research that invites readers to think with stories to rectify what they interpret as the privileged and
(Frank, 1995). Readers are invited to enter into dia- quasi-ontological status of big stories in narrative
logue with narratives that depict the difficult choices inquiry. The term “small stories” refers to “the small-
about how to act that we all face over the course ness of talk, where fleeting moments of narrative ori-
of our lives and to contemplate the possibilities entation to the world (Hymes, 1996) can be easily

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 20 3
missed out by an analytical lens which only looks co-constructing reality, but should the process of
out for fully-fledged stories” (Georgakopoulou, communication by which their identities are made
2007, p. 146). Narrative gets “taken down to size” and/or changed be called storying? Is there a point
(Freeman, 2007, p. 156) in research on small stories at which an utterance or set of utterances can be
as investigators attempt to show how identity is con- too small or devoid of the elements of narrative
structed interpersonally, closer to the action of every- reasonably to be called a story? Are the interactants
day life, and how images of the self are “thoroughly themselves assuming a position akin to what Arthur
moored in social life” (p. 156). Frank (2010) called “the standpoint of the story-
In our opinion, the tensions between advocates of teller?” Bamberg (2006a) has referred to some of his
big and small stories are unfortunate and potentially own interactional examples of identity in the pro-
obstructive. As Freeman (2006, p. 132) observed, cess of being made as “story-like,” which evokes a
“There is plenty of meaning to go around,” and it question about how much like a story an utterance
is not a question of which type of story is truer to or a set of utterances needs to be for us to consider
life. Big and small stories simply represent “different it or them a story.
regions of life,” and neither can provide privileged
access to truth (Freeman, 2006, p. 137). Genres of Narrative Inquiry
Human beings are relational beings (Gergen, One way of sorting the different agendas of
2009) whose identities rest on relationships with narrative inquiry is to make distinctions between
others. We are bound up with others, and our different types of narrative research. For exam-
understanding of ourselves rests on our connec- ple, Polkinghorne (1995) differentiated two dis-
tions to others, whether casual or intimate. Thus, tinct types of narrative inquiry that correspond to
the question of how identity is made in interper- Bruner’s (1986) distinction between paradigmatic
sonal interaction deserves serious and concentrated and narrative reasoning. In Polkinghorne’s (1995)
attention. Small-story advocates, however, should schema, analysis of narratives refers to storytelling
not need to take an oppositional stance toward projects that are grounded on pragmatic reason-
big-story inquiry in order to justify or defend their ing. These projects treat stories as “data” and use
concern for how identity work is accomplished. The “analysis” to arrive at themes that hold across stories
mundane and the sacred stand side by side; they or on delineating types of stories and/or storylines.
do not compete with each other. They can best be Grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000, 2005; Glasser
conceived, in our opinion, as preferences for taking & Strauss, 1967), in which researchers work induc-
certain points of view toward our subject matter— tively from the ground of the stories upward and
narrative. In Rorty’s (1982) words, these different present the analysis in the form of a traditional
views are “not issue(s) to be resolved, only. . . differ- social science report, is one method commonly
ences to be lived with” (p. 197). used to analyze narratives. Later in this chapter, we
Still, we think it may be necessary for small-story will provide a more detailed discussion of various
researchers to address the grounds on which one can approaches to the analysis of narrative, including
conclude that identity is a narrative achievement, modes of conversation and discourse analysis akin
as well as what kind of identity work we are talk- to the small-story orientation of Bamberg (2006a,
ing about (Eakin, 2008; Neisser, 1988). Scholars of 2007) and Georgakopoulou (2006, 2006a, 2007).
small stories want us to stretch the meaning of story In Polkinghorne’s (1995) second type of narra-
to accommodate their conception of storying as an tive inquiry, which he calls narrative analysis, the
interactional activity through which identities are research product is a story—a case, a biography,
created and negotiated. But by extending the idea a life history, an autobiography, an autoethnogra-
of a story in this fashion, these researchers beg the phy—that is composed by the researcher to repre-
question of whether a process referred to as “story- sent the events, characters, and issues that he or she
ing” ought to produce something akin to a story has studied. Polkinghorne (1995) clarifies the dif-
replete with many of the elements we ordinarily ferences between the products of an analysis of nar-
associate with narrative—plot, character, scene, an rative and a narrative analysis. Whereas an analysis
ethical standpoint subject to evaluation, or the kind of narrative(s) ends in abstractions, such as a set of
of bearing witness to which LeGuin (1989) referred themes, narrative analysis takes the form of a story.
to in her discussion of Tolfink’s carving. No doubt, Unfortunately, this distinction can be confusing.
interactants in these small story studies are organiz- For example, Riessman (1993) has written a meth-
ing and negotiating the meanings of experience and odological primer titled Narrative Analysis, but,

204 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

within Polkinghorne’s (1995) typology, the kinds of p. 6). Frank’s observation coincides with Denzin’s
narrative inquiry on which she focuses would fall (1997) insistence that the living dialogue inspired
under analysis of narrative not narrative analysis. by appreciative narrative inquiry needs to be set off
Beginning in graduate school, most social sci- from traditional empiricist approaches to the analy-
entists are taught that research projects aren’t com- sis of narratives. Following Trinh (1989, p. 141),
pleted until the dots have been connected. Thus, it Denzin (1997) opposes the inclination to turn a
should come as no surprise that a great deal of nar- story told into a story analyzed because, in effect,
rative inquiry focuses on identifying themes and/or the meaning of the story is sacrificed at the altar
storylines. But the themes of a story don’t necessar- of methodological rigor. Then we lose what makes
ily tell us what the story does, how it works, what a story a story: “They (the analysts) only hear and
relationships it shapes or animates, or how it pulls read the story from within a set of predetermined
people together or breaks them apart. Moreover, structural categories. They do not hear the story as
narratives are typically analyzed from the perspec- it was told” (Denzin, 1997, p. 249).
tive of the analyst, who often holds preconceived Ordinarily, we understand or identify with char-
notions or hypotheses based on previous research acters in a story through a plot that ties together
literature about what he or she is likely to find (or what happens and invites readers or listeners to
discover) in the stories being studied. Stated simply, evaluate the meanings of the actors’ actions and
the standpoint of the analyst will be different from decisions. Here is the place where we enter an ethi-
the standpoint of the storyteller, and these differing cal dimension in which narratives invite evaluations
standpoints affect how the listener/researcher will of “goodness” and “character,” evoking reflections,
hear, understand, and interpret the story. evaluations, and reactions and calling up concerns
Narrative inquiry is confronted by the troubling about such things as “faithfulness,” “thoughtful-
fact that what a story means to an analyst may be ness,” and “responsiveness.” Often, we find our-
quite different from what a story means to the story- selves evaluating or coming to terms with the degree
teller. Often, the storyteller wants a listener/analyst/ to which characters have participated with and for
researcher to “get into” his or her story, whereas a others (Ricoeur, 1992).
story analyst, especially a researcher, may be cen- Dwelling in the moral space of narrative intro-
trally interested in what he or she can “get out” or duces an ethical standard that could be applied—
“take away” from a story (Greenspan, 1998). We we think should be applied—to the ways in which
see a world of difference between treating stories as researchers relate and respond to the stories and
“data” for analysis—thus privileging the standpoint storytellers they behold as well. To enact this ethi-
of the analyst—and encountering stories experi- cal stance would alter what it means to be rigorous
entially—thus privileging the standpoint of the or to conduct methodical analysis. Frank (2010)
storyteller. In the former case, how a story makes insists that analysts need to be answerable to the
sense is strictly a scientific/analytic question; in the storytellers whose stories they elicit and/or witness.
latter case, it’s an ethical and relational one. In the Yet, the kind of analysis favored by hyperorthodox
former instance, the researcher wants to go beyond empiricists often takes the form of reductionism
the story, to think about it and use it for the sake and thus “reduces stories to inert material devoid
of advancing sociology, psychology, or communica- of spirit” (Frank, 2010, p. 6) and indifferent to the
tion theory; in the latter instance, storytelling is a storyteller’s inspirations and interpretations.
means of being with others, of thinking with their Ironically, the so-called methodical research
stories in order to understand and care for them. practices denounced by Frank (2010) are some of
Paul Atkinson (2006, 2010) represents the the same ones condemned during the crisis of rep-
hyperorthodox camp of narrative inquiry, which resentation that initially inspired the narrative turn.
sees no alternative but to subject stories to rigor- By treating narratives as unexceptional and narra-
ous and methodical analysis. Indeed, he condemns tive inquiry as no different from any other kind of
any form of narrative inquiry that enters into a social science inquiry, hyperorthodox narrativists
story “appreciatively” and from the standpoint of implicitly dispute the very moral, ethical, political,
the storyteller. But as Arthur Frank (2010, p. 5), and ideological grounds on which the narrative turn
a self-proclaimed “narrative exceptionalist,” points rests. Narrative exceptionalists, on the other hand,
out, reluctance to take the standpoint of the story- embrace drastically different views of objectivity
teller risks failing to “recognize why the story mat- and rigor, as well as what it means to be methodical.
ters deeply to the person telling it” (Frank, 2010, They see their work as itself a form of storytelling

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 20 5
and they seek to talk to, talk with, and inquire as inquiry, these stories break away from the tradi-
empathic witnesses on behalf of their research partici- tional forms of mainstream, representational social
pants. They choose not to color over what they hear science. The focus is less about “knowing” and
with concepts organized into systems of thought of more about living; less about controlling and more
interest to social scientists but of little relevance to about caring; less about reaching immutable truths
participants themselves. By taking the standpoint and more about opening dialogues among differ-
of the storyteller, they promote a social science of ent points of view; less about resolving differences
caring and community, an engaged and passionate and more about learning how to live with them; less
social science that requires researchers to develop about covering life experience with disembodied
caring relationships with the people they study concepts and more about finding ways to personify
instead of standing apart from them in the name of the “untamed wilderness” of lived experience (see
objectivity, rigor, and science (Bochner, 2010). The Jackson, 1995).
narrative exceptionalists eschew the technologies of Instead of going beyond, searching beneath,
disengaged reason and seek instead a social science or edging behind—as Jackson (1995, p. 163) says,
of narrative inquiry in which researchers open their “putting reality on the rack until it reveals objec-
hearts as well as their minds and listen attentively tive truth”—social scientists drawn to this kind of
to stories that feel raw, cut deep, and resist distance artful, poetic social science want their work to pro-
and abstraction (Bochner, 2010). duce “experiences of the experience” (Bochner &
The distinction we have drawn between narra- Ellis, 1992; Ellis & Bochner, 1992). They want their
tive exceptionalists and hyperorthodox narrative readers to enter the experience of others, usually as
analysts may simply reflect the differences between empathic witnesses. By putting themselves in the
those who situate research on storied lives within a place of others, readers or listeners are positioned to
poetic, embodied, ethical, existential, and ontologi- reflect critically on their own experience, to expand
cally driven ideal of narrative inquiry and those who their social capabilities, and to deepen their commit-
still cling to the ideals of scientific knowledge as ment to social justice and caring relationships with
something to be possessed, ordered, and organized others. The goal of this kind of evocative storytell-
into determinate systems of mastery and control. ing, which Richardson (2000) referred to as “creative
In the next two sections of this chapter, we divide analytic practices,” is to put meanings into motion,
narrative inquiry into work that takes the stance of showing how people cope with exceptional, difficult,
the storyteller and work that takes the stance of the and transforming crises in their lives, how they invent
story analyst. We begin by sketching the develop- new ways of speaking when old ways fail them, how
ment of several strands of narrative inquiry that fall they make the absurd sensible and the disastrous
within the rubric of what we consider the stand- manageable, and how they turn calamities into gifts.
point of the storyteller. The corpus of narrative inquiry to which we are
referring offers a distinctive alternative to traditional
Personal Narratives: Putting canons of research practices in the social sciences.
Meanings into Motion These stories seek to activate subjectivity and com-
After Arthur Frank (2000, 2010), we use the pel emotional responses from readers; they long to be
term “standpoint of the storyteller” to refer to used rather than analyzed, to be told and retold rather
personal narratives in which “the language of sci- than theorized and settled, to offer lessons for further
ence merges with the aesthetics of art”(Benson, conversation rather than truths without any rivals,
1993, p. xi). Although many types of life writ- and they promise the companionship of intimate
ing fall within this broad category—illness narra- detail as a substitute for the loneliness of abstracted
tives, autobiographies, memoirs, and so on—we facts. Evocative research stories not only breach ordi-
are concerned principally with works published by nary and canonical inscriptions about living, but also
academics, especially first-person accounts, autoeth- challenge traditional norms of writing and research,
nographies, self-narratives, performative narratives, encouraging social scientists to reconsider the goals
and narrative ethnographies. These research stories of research and the conventions of academic writing,
are a genre of “artful science” (Brady, 1991) inso- as well as to question the venerable divisions between
far as they apply the imaginative power of literary, Snow’s conception (1959) of two cultures of inquiry
dramatic, and poetic forms to create the effect of that segregate literature from social science.
reality, a convincing likeness to life as it is sensed, The narrative turn marked a shift toward a
felt, and lived. As a form of expressive and dialogic more personal social science, one that already was

206 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

proliferating in the mainstream press, new journalism, across cases by focusing on generalization within a
creative nonfiction, literary memoir, autobiography, single case extended over time (Geertz, 1973). Third,
and autopathography (Buford, 1996; Harrington, the text is presented as a story replete with a narrator,
1997; Hawkins, 1993; Parini, 1998; Stone, 1997). characterization, and plotline, akin to forms of writ-
Most of the genres of life writing (see, e.g., Tierney, ing associated with the novel or biography and thus
2000) were shifting toward more intimate, personal, fractures the boundaries that traditionally separate
and self-conscious writing. At about the same time, social science from literature. Fourth, the story often
social science researchers began to embrace less anon- discloses hidden details of private life and highlights
ymous, more personal styles of writing that paralleled emotional experience and thus challenges the ratio-
the focus on personal writing genres in literature, nal actor model of social performance that dominates
nonfiction, and journalism. Among the abundant social science. And fifth, the ebb and flow of relation-
examples of this movement within the social sciences ship experience is depicted in an episodic form that
were special issues of journals such as the Journal of dramatizes the motion of connected lives across the
Contemporary Ethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 1996a), curve of time (Weinstein, 1988) and thus resists the
Qualitative Sociology (Glassner, 1997; Hertz, 1997; standard practice of portraying a relationship as a
Zussman, 1996), and Communication Theory (Geist, snapshot (Ellis, 1993).
1999); the book series Ethnographic Alternatives Academic storytellers who adopt the stance of
edited by Ellis and Bochner (Angrosino, 1998; Banks the storyteller hold a distinctly different under-
& Banks, 1998; Bochner & Ellis, 2001; Brady, standing of the work they want narrative inquiry to
2002; Drew, 2001; Ellis & Bochner, 1996; Goodall, do. They don’t see a split between theory and story
2000; Gray & Sinding, 2003; Holman Jones, 1998, but rather understand the aim of stories as putting
2007; Lagerway, 1998; Lockford, 2004; Markham, meanings into motion (Bochner, 2012a). They
1998; Pelias, 2004; Richardson & Lockridge, 2004; reject the received traditions of empiricism in favor
Tillmann-Healy, 2001; Trujillo, 2004); and a subse- of a relational, dialogic, qualitative, and collab-
quent one edited by Bochner and Ellis (Adams, 2011; orative conception of inquiry (Gergen & Gergen,
Charles, 2007; Ellis, 2009; Frentz, 2008; Goodall, 2012). They are less concerned about representation
2008; Nettles, 2008; Pelias, 2011; Poulos, 2008; and more concerned about communication. Giving
Richardson, 2007; Rushing, 2005; Tamas, 2011); up the illusion of transcendental observation, they
the edited collections by anthropologists (Benson, seek to make narrative inquiry a source of connec-
1993; Brady, 1991; Okely & Callaway, 1992); soci- tion, contact, and relationship between tellers and
ologists (Ellis & Flaherty, 1992; Hertz, 1997; Zola, listeners by eliciting conversation and deliberation
1982), communication researchers (Banks & Banks, about the personal, political, moral, and institu-
1998; Ellis & Bochner, 1996; Perry & Geist, 1997), tional values associated with lived experience. They
psychologists (Lieblich & Josselson, 1997), and edu- see stories as the fundamental human medium of
cators (Hertz, 1997; Tierney & Lincoln, 1997); and being, knowing, and participating in a social world.
the numerous articles, forums, and monographs (e.g., As an academic practice, evocative narrative inquiry
McLaughlin & Tierney, 1993) featured in academic thus shifts the meaning of the activity of theorizing
journals and annuals such as American Anthropologist, from a process of thinking about to one of think-
Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly, Auto/Biography, ing with (Frank, 1995, 2004). Theory merges with
Feminist Studies, Journal of Loss and Trauma, Life story when we invite others to think with a story
Writing, Narrative, Narrative Inquiry, The Narrative rather than about it (Bochner, 1997, 2010). As lis-
Study of Lives, Narrative Inquiry, Qualitative Inquiry, teners or readers, we are not asked merely to receive
Qualitative Communication Research, Sociology of Sport the story or analyze it from a distance, but rather
Journal, Sociological Quarterly, Studies in Symbolic to encounter it, get into it, and engage with it,
Interaction, Symbolic Interaction, Text and Performance using all the senses available to us (Stoller, 1989).
Quarterly, and Women’s International Quarterly. As Frank (1995, p. 23) observed: “To think about
We can identify five distinguishing features of this a story is to reduce it to content and then analyze
type of personal narrative inquiry. First, the author the content . . . to think with a story is to experience
usually writes in the first person, making her- or him- it affecting one’s own life and to find in that effect a
self the object of research (Tedlock, 1991), thus trans- certain truth of one’s own life.”
gressing the conventional separation of researcher The point of an evocative personal narrative is
and subject (Jackson, 1989). Second, the narrative not to turn the story into “data” in order to test or
breaches the traditional focus on generalization verify theoretical propositions and thereby produce

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 2 07
knowledge that can be received by others. Instead, and embodied narration that depart radically from
the objective is to link theory to story by invit- the conventions of rational/analytic social science
ing others to think and feel with the story, staying reporting. If we experience our lives as stories, they
with it, resonating with the story’s moral dilem- asked, then why not represent them as stories? Why
mas, identifying with its ambiguities, examining its shouldn’t social scientists represent life as temporally
contradictions, feeling its nuances, letting the story unfolding narratives and researchers as a vital part of
analyze them (Frank, 2004). We think with a story the action? Their ethnographic alternatives project
from within the framework of our own lives. We ask offered stories that showed the struggles of ordinary
what kind of person we are becoming when we take people coping with difficult contingencies of lived
a story to heart and consider how we can use it for experience—brimming with characters, scenes,
our own purposes, what ethical direction it points us plots, and dialogue—stories that enabled readers to
toward, and what moral commitments it calls out in put themselves in the place of others (Jackson, 1995)
us (Coles, 1989). and consider important aspects of their own lives
Forms of evocative narrative writing and per- in the terms offered by the contexts and details of
formative social science (Gergen & Gergen, 2012; other peoples’ stories, such as how lived experi-
Gray & Sinding, 2003) seek a personal connection ence is riddled with contingencies that concede
between writer/performer and reader/audience. The the incomplete and unfinished qualities of human
stories invite others to think and to feel. To achieve relationships (e.g., Bochner & Ellis, 1992; Bochner,
this goal, a writer/researcher must depart the safe and Ellis, & Tillmann-Healy, 1998, 2000,; Ellis, 1996;
comfortable space of conventional academic writing. Ronai, 1996; Tillmann-Healy, 1996).
Unfortunately, the conventions that regulate (and Both Ethnographic Alternatives and the book series
discipline) academic writing do not encourage forms project that followed, Writing Lives: Ethnographic
of communicating research that can build a personal Narratives, problematized the conventions of writ-
connection between the text and the reader/audi- ing in the social sciences. As scholars, we realize
ence member. Normally, we don’t expect academic that there is no alternative but to turn life into lan-
texts to make our hearts skip a beat (Bochner, 2012; guage. But there is more than one way to do this.
Hyde, 2010). But if our research has something to Traditional social science writing favors the types of
do with human longing, desire, fulfillment, pleasure, events and “data” that are amenable to conceptual
pain, loss, grief, or joy, shouldn’t we hold authors analysis and theoretical explanation. Ambiguous,
to some standard of vulnerability? Can our work vague, and contingent experiences that cannot so
achieve personal importance—can it matter—if the easily be covered by concepts or organized into a
authors aren’t willing to show their faces? Shouldn’t coherent system of thought are bypassed in favor
one of the standards by which social science inquiry of experiences that can be controlled and explained
is judged be the extent to which readers feel the truth (Bruner, 1990). Immediate experience is grist for
of our research stories? the theoretical mill. Moreover, distancing oneself
Seeking to open a space for this kind of personal from the subject matter, like a spectator at a sport-
narrative inquiry, Ellis and Bochner (1996) devel- ing event, is taken as an appropriate and normative
oped a project they called “ethnographic alterna- model of research and writing practices. Thus, social
tives” (Bochner & Ellis, 2002; Ellis & Bochner, science texts usually are written in a third-person,
1996). They took the poststructuralist critique to objectifying, neutral, and scientific voice. Although
mean that social science writing could be usefully contradictions, emotions, and subjectivities may be
conceived as a material intervention into people’s recognized as concrete lived experiences, they usu-
lives, one that not only represents but also creates ally are expressed in forms of writing that dissolve
experience, putting meanings in motion. They concrete events in solutions of abstract analysis. The
believed that research texts, whether first-person reader is left to look through a stained glass window,
accounts or more traditional ethnographic story- to use Edith Turner’s (1993) apt analogy, seeing
telling, could be understood as “acts of meaning” only murky and featureless profiles. The concrete
and, as Bruner (1990) suggested, that’s precisely the details of sensual, emotional, and embodied expe-
work of storytelling. Wanting to create a space in rience are replaced by typologies and abstractions
which social science texts could be viewed as stories that remove events from their context, distancing
and their authors—the researchers—as storytellers, readers from the actions and feelings of particular
Ellis and Bochner (1996) invited scholars to experi- human beings engaged in the joint action of evolv-
ment with various forms of personal, emotional, ing relationships. Readers are not encouraged to see

208 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

and feel the struggles and emotions of the partici- fateful moments on which our lives turn one way or
pants and thus are deprived of an opportunity to another, one direction or another.
care about the particular people whose struggles Like most social science inquiry, the kind of
nourish the researcher’s hunger for truth. It is not social science writing that takes the standpoint of
hard to figure out why orthodox social science writ- the storyteller aspires to truth, but the kind of truths
ing is not widely read. What is the appeal of an inac- to which it aspires are not literal truths; they’re emo-
cessible, dry, and overly abstract text? tional, dialogic, and collaborative truths. Not Truth
On the whole, social science research articles but truth; not truth but truths. The truths of these
and monographs are confined mainly to what stories exist between storyteller and story listener;
LeGuin (1986) refers to as “the father tongue,” a they dwell in the listeners’ or readers’ engagement
high-minded mode of expression that embraces with the writer’s struggle with adversity, the heart-
objectivity. Spoken from above, the father tongue breaking feelings of stigma and marginalization, the
runs the risk of distancing the writer from the resistance to the authority of canonical discourses,
reader, creating a gap between self and other. What the therapeutic desire to face up to the challenges
is missing from most social science writing is “the of life and to emerge with greater self-knowledge,
mother tongue” (LeGuin, 1986), a binding form of the opposition to the repression of the body, the dif-
subjective and conversational expression that covets ficulty of finding words to make bodily dysfunction
“a turning together,” a relationship between author meaningful, the desire for self-expression, and the
and reader. Voiced in a language of emotions and urge to speak to and assist a community of fellow
personal experience, the mother tongue exposes sufferers. The call of these stories is for engagement
rather than protects the speaker through a medium within and between, not analysis from outside and
that can bring author and reader closer together. at a distance (Bochner, 2014).
The absence of a mother tongue in social science This is not to say, as some critics mistakenly imply
literature reflects the conventions of disembod- (Atkinson, 2010), that writers who take the standpoint
ied writing that extol the virtue of objectivity. As of the storyteller fail to live up to some abstract respon-
LeGuin (1989, p. 151) notes, “People crave objec- sibility of social science called “analysis.” Reflection is
tivity because to be subjective is to be embodied, to the heart of personal narrative and autoethnography.
be a body, vulnerable, violable.” The real discourse As Vivian Gornick (2008) observed, “It is the depth
of reason, she claims, is a wedding of the father to of reflection that makes or breaks it.” The plot of these
mother tongue, which produces “a native tongue.” stories usually revolves around trouble, presenting feel-
When this fusion of voices occurs, which is rare ings and decisions that need to be clarified and under-
indeed, it’s a beautiful thing (Eastman, 2007). stood. The stories function as inquiry; something is
Evocative narratives work the hyphen between being inquired into, interpreted, made sense of, and
the mother tongue and the native tongue. Unlike judged. Facts are important to these academic story-
orthodox social scientists, those who assume the tellers; they can and should be verified. But it is not the
standpoint of the storyteller see themselves first transmission of facts that gives the autoethnographic
and foremost as writers and communicators, not story or personal narrative its significance and evoca-
as reporters or conduits for channeling data from a tive power. Facts don’t tell you what they mean or how
source to a receiver. For these scholars, writing and/ they feel. The burden of the social science storyteller is
or performing stories is an interpretive practice; it’s to make meaning out of all the stuff of memory and
their method for discovering, ordering, and com- experience; how it felt then and how it feels now. That’s
municating what they’ve experienced and what it why the truths of stories can never be stable truths
can mean to and for others. They are committed (Bochner, 2007). Memory is active, dynamic, and ever
to being rigorously empirical, but they don’t take changing. As we grow older and/or change our per-
that conviction as an end in itself. Instead, they spective, our relationship to the events and people of
apply it in tandem with an obligation to make their the past changes too (Hampl, 1999). The past is always
prose accessible, readable, and sensuous. Moreover, open to revision and so, too, are our stories of them
they don’t want to limit what they write about to and what they mean now (Ellis, 2009).
what can be ordered into determinate, disembod-
ied systems of knowledge because that leaves out Narratives-Under-Analysis:
the indeterminate, the ambiguous, the embodied, Research Practices
and the contradictory realms of experience in which Narratives-under-analysis refers to the analysis
so much of life is lived—the shadowy, painful, or of narrative as story-form, what Riessman (2008)

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 20 9
calls “the systematic study of narrative data” (p. 6). function as a means of exploring “how people weave
We prefer the term, narratives-under-analysis to tapestries of story” in order to “reveal the extent to
the misleading term “narrative analysis” because which human intelligence itself is rooted in narrative
it better represents the forms in which this kind ways of knowing, interacting, and communicating”
of narrative inquiry typically are expressed. Most (Herman, 2009, p. 9).
scholars who use the term “narrative analysis” to One of the primary ways in which human beings
describe their work do not analyze narratively. They come to understand themselves and the world in
do not produce analyses in a storied form. Rather, which they live is by making meanings in storied
they abide by and adhere to the conventions of forms. Thus, many narrative analysts view their work
academic prose and procedural (scientific) objec- as an expression of human reasoning and mean-
tivity. Treating narratives as objects to be decon- ing construction—“the principle way that human
structed, they prefer to keep a comfortable distance beings order their experience in time” and “make
(Atkinson & Delamont, 2005) between themselves coherent sense out of seemingly unrelated sequences
and the storytellers whose stories they place under of events” (Worth, 2008, p. 42). Bamberg (2007)
their microscopes. Transforming stories, whether stresses that “narrative analysis is less interested in
big or small, into data amenable to conceptual a narrator who is self-reflecting or searching who s/
analysis and theoretical explanation, these research- he (really) is. Rather, we are interested in narrators
ers usually resist the temptation to ask tellers what who are engaging in the activity of narrating, that
they think they were doing or meaning, choosing is, the activity of giving an account” (p. 170), which
instead to focus on their own inferences and inter- contributes to “a more comprehensive human expe-
pretations—grounded in conventional practices of rience” (Worth, 2008, p. 42) of meaning-making.
sociolinguistic and discourse analysis of what is said For these analysts of narrative practices, it is the how
or told (producing themes or topics), how the tell- and for whom of narrative telling that is highlighted.
ing is organized (its structure), how it is performed, Foregrounding the form and content of stories, they
and/or how it functions intersubjectively. As ana- seek to understand how personal identity is made in
lysts, these researchers normally get the first and everyday, mundane interaction, which necessitates
the last word. Stories are wrestled from the sensual, careful attention to the parameters of storytelling
emotional, and embodied contexts of the storytell- contexts. Thus, the work of narrative-under-analysis
ers’ lives and turned into texts that can be served involves the process of producing texts for analysis,
up to the analyst’s interests in producing snippets of applying systematic methodological and analytical
talk that document types or genres of speech acts or strategies to examine these texts, and arriving at
conversational maneuvers. Stories are subjected first conclusions about the different forms and stra-
to interpretive practices of transcription, then to tegic moves of storytelling, including inferences
further interpretive practices of one form or another about intentions or motives of narrator(s). Whereas
aimed at grounded clarification of the meaning of evocative narrative takes the standpoint of the sto-
the texts and their interactive production. To most ryteller, narratives-under-analysis normatively are
researchers who place narratives-under-analysis, governed by an analytical standpoint that positions
stories are no different from any other kind of data the researcher as “other” to the storytellers whose
to which rigorous qualitative and/or quantitative texts are to be analyzed.
methods can be applied (Atkinson, 2010).
There are a broad array of questions and issues to Models of Analysis
which narratives-under-analysis have been applied. Although most analysts still cling to one ver-
According to Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zibler sion or another of scientific rigor, Herman (2009)
(1998), a study that analyzes narrative works with situates narrative analysis within a humanistic,
data that have been “collected as a story (a life story poststructural perspective that turns away from
provided in an interview or literary work) or in a dif- modernist and received views of scientific inquiry
ferent manner (field notes of an anthropologist who and thus fits squarely within the narrative turn.
writes up his or her observations as a narrative or in Focusing on the performance of narrative or nar-
personal letters). It can be the object of the research or rativity, narratives-under-analysis should ideally
a means for the study of another question. It may be take into account the dispositions of tellers and
for comparison among groups, to learn about a social listeners and pay close attention to the relationship
phenomenon or historical period, or to explore a per- between text and context. Assuming a critical and
sonality” (pp. 2–3). Or, narratives-under-analysis can reflexive stance toward the structuralist tradition

21 0 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

it seeks to transplant, Herman’s perspective on Herman’s (2009) model focuses mainly on the
narratives-under-analysis seeks research models elements and characteristics of prototypical nar-
that can apply across the human sciences (Herman, ratives themselves. For Herman (2009), narrative
1999). Herman (1999) refers to the proliferation of is a unique form of knowledge production and
new models as “postclassical narratology” because it communication. His model attempts to account
transforms previous ways of studying narrative by for the “complex transactions that involve produc-
“not just expos[ing] the limits but also exploit[ing] ers of texts or other semiotic artifacts, the texts or
the possibilities of the older, structuralist models” artifacts themselves, and interpreters of these narra-
(p. 3). Thus, new models are situated as a critique of tive productions working to make sense of them in
old ones. Still, modernist and structuralist models, accordance with cultural, institutional, genre-based,
such as the ones developed by Labov and Waletzky and text-specific protocols” (p. 8). He considers
(1967), Barthes (1975), and Gee (1991), continue to narrative not only representational but also rela-
exert a visible influence in narratives-under-analysis tional. Drawing attention to the intersubjective
literature. dimensions of narrative, his four-point model—
Three models developed in the aftermath of the situatedness, event sequencing, worldmaking/world
narrative turn have attracted considerable atten- disruption, and what it’s like—encourages scholars
tion. Riessman’s (1993, 2008) model highlights the to construe narratives as representations situated
notion that narratives are ambiguous and incom- in specific discourses. These discourses are ordered
plete representations of experience and underscores along a timeline in ways that introduce disruption
the ways in which researchers are inevitably involved or disequilibrium into the story-world conveyed
in the production of the narratives they gather or by a narrator’s depiction of a particular experience.
solicit in research. “Meaning is fluid and contex- Beginning with a description of narrative elements,
tual, not fixed and universal,” she writes, and “all we Herman’s (2009) model focuses on how people
have is talk and texts that represent reality partially, account for their experiences in story-forms and on
selectively, and imperfectly” (p. 15). Her model the story-worlds in which these accounts are embed-
of narratives-under-analysis includes five levels of ded and from which interpreters draw meaning.
representation in the research process—attending, Relying on their practical and clinical experience as
telling, transcribing, analyzing, and reading—and psychologists, Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zibler
she stresses that “interpreting experience,” which (1998) classified approaches to narrative analysis into
happens at all five points in the research process, four modes—holistic-content, categorical-content,
“involves representing reality; we create and recre- holistic-form, categorical-form—that could serve
ate voices over and over again during the research as a way of organizing narratives-under-analysis
process” (p. 16). Offering sage advice, especially for research across various social science disciplines.
novices, Riessman (1993) reminds researchers that They drew attention to the connections between
they are obliged to validate their interpretations; that personal identity and social and cultural structures
persuasive writing buttressed by theoretical support of meaning, claiming that by “studying and inter-
and the presentation of alternative interpretations is preting self-narratives, the researcher can access
necessary for showing the salience of analytical find- not only the individual identity and its systems
ings; that correspondence with participants must be of meaning but also the teller’s cultures and social
established in order to remain attentive to what dis- world” (p. 9).
tinguishes different subject positions; that research- Together, these models provide a conceptual and
ers should strive for both global (whole story) and methodological frame of reference for studies that
local (subjective interpretation) coherence in order place narratives under analysis. Still, no widespread
to keep analysis anchored in the embedded and agreement exists regarding the conceptual domain
emergent logic of narrative data; and that narrative for studies using narratives-under-analysis strate-
analysis should be aligned with a pragmatic research gies. Mishler (1995) is one of the few researchers
agenda that avoids canonical approaches to theory to attempt a synthesis and comparative analysis
and method. In a subsequent book, Riessman with the goal of establishing a typology. Framing
(2008) provides a survey of studies that analyzed narrative analysis as a “problem-centered area of
narratives and a guide for designing interviews to inquiry” (p. 88) that employs myriad approaches,
elicit narratives. Together, these publications give philosophies, and methods, his typology can be
useful guidelines for designing and carrying out viewed as a meta-model of the burgeoning field of
analyses of narratives. narratives-under-analysis. Mishler (1995) made an

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 2 11
admirable attempt to produce a coherent synthe- how they may get told, it is imperative to recognize
sis of the field that could strengthen ties between how one is positioned as a researcher on any par-
theory and method and enable comparisons among ticular occasion of telling.
studies, although his call for “more inclusive strate- Riessman (2008) also emphasizes how research-
gies that would provide a more comprehensive and ers “play a major part in constituting the narrative
deeper understanding both of how narratives work data that [they] analyze. Through [their] presence,
and the work they do” (Mishler, 1995, p. 117) sug- and by listening and questioning in particular ways,
gests that considerably more work needs to be done. [they] critically shape the stories participants choose
Josselson (2007) also advocates attention to to tell” (p. 50). Since different analysts carry out
meta-analyses of narrative research. She is especially their investigations in different ways and find them-
keen on the intersubjective and dialogic qualities of selves inserted into the scene or occasion differently
storytelling and storytelling research, expressing the in particular research contexts, it is imperative that
need for developing a knowledge base that allows researchers attend to the ways in which they contex-
scholars to “engage those areas of tensions where tualize and frame the possible subject-positions of
multiple facets of understanding intersect, inter- the storytellers. Storytellers always tell their stories
weave, collide, contradict and show themselves in to somebody in some place and the conversational
their shifting and often paradoxical relation to each partners and surrounding environment can influ-
other” (p. 15). ence what gets told or doesn’t, and how. Thus, it is
We get the distinct impression that narra- crucial to consider the kind of interpersonal bond
tive inquiry is on the cusp of evolving as a disci- that is created between teller and listener. Is the ana-
pline in its own right. In addition to the work of lyst a full, part, or invisible participant in the story-
Josselson (2007) and Mishler (1995), we can point telling interaction? Can the content of the narrative
to Cortazzi’s (1993) early review of the different be interpreted as a fluid construction? Or is it more
disciplinary contributions to narrative inquiry, appropriate to interpret the story that is produced as
which showed the cacophony of approaches to a co-construction?
narratives-under-analysis that scholars have taken, “Discursive negotiation is at the heart of the
and the promise of narrative study for bridging the matter,” writes Kraus (2007, p. 130). Identifying
social sciences and humanities. We anticipate that what counts as a storytelling context and where one
the urge to achieve something akin to disciplinary stands as a researcher and/or analyst in relation to
status for narrative inquiry will continue to inten- the story (and storyteller) involves locating oneself
sify over the coming decade. as a somebody somewhere on a spectrum between
private and public story-worlds, micro and macro
Narratives-Under-Analysis Research levels of human encounter, and emic and etic orien-
Practices tations to narrative data; that is, deciding whether
We turn next to the practical side of narra- or not interactional patterns in storytelling can be
tives-under-analysis research, emphasizing some meaningfully interpreted from within the inter-
of the tensions that researchers confront as they nal storytelling context or require consideration
seek to make appropriate and useful decisions of external, cultural contexts as well. Recognizing
about research practices and methodologies. One these inherent tensions, Riessman (2008) advises
of the most important practical considerations is that because “narration . . . depends on expectations”
positioning. (p. 25), it behooves analysts to establish themselves
Herman (2009) describes the paradigm that as action-oriented and falling somewhere between
governs a considerable number of projects in which approaches that have an intersubjective slant or
narratives are under analysis and in which research- maintain subject/object distinction—especially
ers focus on “occasions of telling” (Ochs & Capps, when preparing for interviews as a means of collect-
2001): “Interviewers are seeking to obtain as much ing narrative data.”
(vernacular) speech from informants as possible, in A second practical consideration involves for-
contrast with conversation among peers in which malizing the narratives to be analyzed. To interpret
participants in the conversation may all be trying to and analyze a story, the researcher must formalize
capture the floor at once in order to tell their own it in one way or another. How this is accomplished
version of the story under dispute” (Herman, 2009, depends not only on the empirical, conceptual, and
p. 35). In light of the researcher’s or interviewer’s theoretical issues with which the analyst is engaged,
potential influence over what stories get told and but also with the toolkit of methodological resources

21 2 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

available. Narratives-under-analysis is largely a pro- merely as subjects or storytellers, but as people who
cess of analytically retelling stories, which inevitably make or co-construct meaning narratively in conver-
risks transforming stories into something unstory- sation. Riessman (2008) urges researchers to be
like. As we mentioned earlier, analysts typically retell mindful of turns in talk, to pay attention to the
stories by way of their analyses and thus express what length of participants’ responses in interviews, and
the stories mean in an analytic, often abstract, form. to be thoughtful and considerate about the ways
This can be a messy business insofar as it requires they probe for details that enrich the narrative.
analysts to earn the trust of readers by showing that She asserts that these aspects of narrative research
the process of analysis respects and maintains the require researchers to “give up control, which can
integrity and coherence of the story and the context create anxiety” (p. 24), especially when the nature of
in which it was told. The text that is fashioned for the subject matter is personally or emotionally sen-
analysis results from decisions by researchers about sitive. “Although we have particular paths we want
what they will examine and in what ways it will be to cover related to the substantive and theoretical
interpreted and contextualized. foci of our studies,” she says, “narrative interviewing
Riessman (2008) observes that approaches to necessitates following participants down their trails”
narratives-under-analysis have recently ranged from (p. 24, emphasis in original). Similar to the orienta-
thematic analysis (where the focus is on “what” is tion of Frank (1995, 2004, 2012), Riessman (2008)
said or what gets “told”); to structural analysis places significant emphasis on the relational dimen-
(where the focus is on the “telling” of the story, how sion of narrativity. Calling attention to the sensi-
it is organized, and the experience of storytelling tive nature of narrative as a fundamental process
itself ); to dialogic/performance analysis (where atten- of identity construction through meaning-making
tion is paid to both thematic and structural compo- and interpersonal bonding, she highlights how nar-
nents and to how talk evolves intersubjectively and ratives “invite us as listeners, readers, and viewers to
collaboratively). enter the perspective of the narrator. Interrogating
Although there are numerous ways to formalize how a skilled storyteller pulls the reader/listener
narratives as texts, analysts must take into account into the story world—and moves us emotionally
“the material ‘facts’ ” (Josselson, 2007, p. 8) as well through imaginative identification—is what narra-
as “the meaningful shape emerging from selected tive analysis can do” (p. 9).
inner and outer experiences” of storytellers (p. 8).
Analysts should be held to a high standard of What’s the Use?
re-presentation, one in which they show sensitivity Narrative Practices for Everyday Life
to the differences between what it may have been [W]e should strive to show the payoffs of our
like to be the storyteller in comparison to what it field, to show, that is, how effectively employing
is like to be the story analyst. Too many analysts the concepts behind the terms of narrative theory
have neglected issues of authority—whose story is can illuminate—and even influence—the wide
it anyway?—and the important question raised by range of cultural phenomena that we study.
Coles (1997): what gives us the right as research- Phelan (2005)
ers to elicit other people’s stories, leave the scene,
and tell their stories to others (Bochner, 2002; We want to conclude our journey along the trail
Plummer, 2001)? Interpretive practices, such as of narrative inquiry by calling attention to some of
narratives-under-analysis, are saturated with ethi- the work that reflects a pragmatic impulse to make
cal questions and dilemmas. As analysts, we must lives better. Once we have analyzed, conceptualized,
remain vigilant and mindful of our obligations to categorized, and theorized narratives, what then?
storytellers and to the parts we ourselves play in pro- How can narrative knowledge be used and applied?
ducing formulated narratives for analysis. Can narrative inquiry achieve its moral calling to
This brings us to a third practical consider- make peoples’ actions and lives more intelligible to
ation—one we have been mentioning repeatedly the people themselves, helping them achieve the
throughout this chapter—researcher engagement humane goal of pronouncing themselves and their
with storytelling participants and their stories, lives “good.” In other words, can narrative inquiry
which returns us to the issue of standpoints. What produce practical tools that help people form better
stance should one take toward the storyteller(s) and relationships, overcome oppressive canonical iden-
their stories? In most cases, the analyst/researcher tity narratives, amplify or reclaim moral agency,
faces the challenge of confirming participants not cope better with contingencies and difficulties

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 2 13
experienced over the course of life, and thus live “in a new voice” that can become “a lifeline because
better lives? of its power to reconnect the family and mitigate
Several exemplary cases exist. Beginning in the the effects of its relational traumas” (p. 33). Penn’s
1970s, White and Epston (1990) began a therapy enthusiastic endorsement of the healing effects of
practice that was initially conceived as “a storied writing personal stories about traumatic experiences
therapy” and subsequently became widely rec- has been echoed by Pennebaker (1997), who pres-
ognized as “narrative therapy.” Concerned about ents evidence of the positive health benefits of writ-
the ways in which people and the problems they ing emotionally about the unspoken feelings and
confront become fused, White and Epson (1990) thoughts one experiences while coping with illness
developed a set of externalizing narrative prac- or trauma; Harris (2003), who views personal writ-
tices and interventions designed to alter peoples’ ing as a mode of translating “the physical world into
beliefs that their problems are “internal to their the world of language where there is an interplay
self or the selves of others—that they or others between order and disorder, wounding and repair”
are, in fact, the problem” (White, 2007, p. 9). The (p. 2); DeSalvo (1999), who endorses therapeutic
goal is to make the problem the problem, not the writing as a mode of caring for one’s self, a form of
person—to experience an identity that is separate self-analysis and self-restitution that can shift one’s
from the problem. To achieve this goal, a person perspective and thus help people integrate deeply
must be disabused of the notion that the problem experienced but unexpressed emotions linked to
represents the “truth” about his or her identity. traumatic events provided it is done correctly; and
Construing therapy as a process of “storying” or Herman (1997), who cautions that “as the survi-
“restorying” the lives and experiences of persons vor summons her memories, the need to preserve
who come to them with problems, White and safety must be balanced against the need to face the
Epston (1990) introduced concrete narrative prac- past” (p. 176). For Herman, traumatic memories
tices in the form of therapeutic letters, certificates, are prenarrative, and the work of confronting them
declarations, and other narrative means that pro- involves a process of integrating them into one’s life
mote healing and liberating stories. These prac- story, a narrative practice akin to what Greenspan
tices promote a reflexive stance that can empower (1998) called “recounting,” a struggle between
people to assume a sense of authorship over their meaning and memory that was elegantly captured
experiences and relationships. Empowering peo- by one of the Holocaust survivors he studied, Leon,
ple to live their lives intentionally and with greater who observed: “It is not a story. It has to be made a
personal agency, narrative therapists seek to free story . . . (p. xvi).
their clients to create stories that can provide Frank (2000) is unapologetic about his desire “to
meaning and direction to their lives (Madigan, make ill people’s stories more highly credited pri-
2010; Parry & Doan, 1994; Payne, 2006). marily among the ill themselves and then among
Similarly, Penn (2001) has described the work those who care for them” (p. 136). Frank’s agenda
of a research group in language and writing at the is unequivocally activist and political: “I hope to
Ackerman Institute that focused on the healing shift the dominant cultural conception of illness
effects of narrative writing practices on families away from passivity—the ill person as ‘victim of ’
who are suffering in silence with a chronic illness. disease and then recipient of care—toward activity”
“When we write,” Penn (2001) observes, “we are no (Frank, 1995, p. xi). He sees one of the main chal-
longer being done to: we are doing . . . when we write lenges of illness as the construction of a story that
we construct our listener as one who is looking for- can function as a meaningful and self-validating
ward to hearing from us, not as someone waiting to moral narrative. Recognizing the political, ethical,
withdraw” (p. 50). Penn wants sufferers of chronic and personal consequences of affirming the voices
illness to experience the multiple and sometimes of the afflicted, Kleinman (1988) emphasizes the
competing inner voices, including the listening reflexive quality of personal narratives, observing
and witnessing voice, as co-existing and in need of that “the personal narrative does not merely reflect
expression in order to cope with the issues of identity illness experience, but rather it contributes to the
that chronic illness introduces into their lives. The experience of symptoms and suffering” (p. 49). The
silenced families with whom she works write about ill person must negotiate the spaces between the
their relationships to and feelings about each other domination of cultural scripts of bodily dysfunc-
and their illness. They bring what they’ve written to tion out of which one’s meanings are constructed
their sessions, read them aloud, and express feelings and defined and the situated understanding of one’s

21 4 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

experience that seeks a unique personal meaning This is a border encircled by sharp edges, where
for suffering. Illness narratives need to be told not decisions must be made and mortality cannot be
only because the telling of the story can provide the denied. Still, Zaner (2004) recognizes that “relation-
therapeutic benefits of redemptive understanding, ships are the centerpiece of ethics,” and his stories
but also because of the political consequences of show how one might openly and fearlessly engage
connecting the body to the self, revealing embodi- in such an encounter from the depths of one’s own
ment and emotionality as legitimate and significant subjectivity. Going deep, Zaner (2004) attempts to
mediums of lived experience and inscribing bodily come to grips with questions such as how we can
dysfunction with positive meaning and value (Ellis, live “and make sense of our lives in the face of the
1998). These stories bring suffering bodies out awful happening of chance events” (Zaner, 2004,
of the darkness of the alley into the light of day, p. 101) or what can be said or done when the help
transgressing the taboos against telling and risking one needs simply can’t be provided. In the process
rejection in the name of the right to speak and the of searching, probing, and questioning, he delivers a
longing to be heard (Bochner, 2001). “To tell the heartening and uplifting expression of what ethical
story of one’s affliction,” writes Hawkins (1993, dialogue can mean and do.
p. 190), “becomes a way to distance it from oneself, Nelson (2001), also a narrative ethicist, has
to move beyond it, to repair its damages and return introduced the concept of the counterstory as a
to the living community—in a word, to heal.” means of resistance and repair for people suffer-
On the other side of the illness equation— ing the diminished moral agency associated with
the side of physicians—Charon (Charon, 2008; oppressive canonical identities. “Oppression often
Charon & Montello, 2002) has worked tirelessly to infiltrates a person’s consciousness,” she observes,
develop practices of narrative medicine in which the “as her oppressors want her to, rating herself as they
health practitioner “recognizes suffering, provides rate her” (p. 7). When this happens, a person’s iden-
comfort, and honors the stories of illness” (Charon, tity is damaged. To become a moral agent in one’s
2008, p. ix). She wants health care practitioners to own right, agency must be freed from the grips of
be stirred by stories of illness, which means they oppressive master narratives. An identity damaged
must develop narrative competence. To achieve nar- by oppressive master narratives must be repaired.
rative competence doctors must develop a capacity The counterstory is a purposeful attempt to shift
for close reading, be able to acknowledge their own the meaning of a person’s or community’s social
emotional responses to the suffering they witness, identity by dislodging the oppressive qualities of
and value narrating as a means of engagement as a master narrative. Nelson believes that the com-
well as an ethical obligation. Charon (2007) wants munities in which we are enmeshed impose on and
doctors to bestow attention on patients, to repre- constrain our understanding of ourselves and often
sent what they witness in accessible language and to deprive us of opportunities to become authors of
participate in reflective clinical writing. “Instead of our own actions. Master narratives that construct
depleting us, this [narrative medicine] care replen- images and identities of the elderly, gender, race,
ishes us,” writes Charon (2006), “for our suffering sexuality, and disability can be neutralized by good
helps our patients to bear theirs” (p. 236). counterstories that directly contest the narratives
Attempting to reach deep into the unsettled sub- they resist and repudiate, offering the potential for
jectivity of a clinical ethicist—in this case his own— wide circulation.
Zaner (2004) invites readers to sit at the bedside In the sphere of tourism, Noy (2012) has focused
of some of the most heartbreaking and demand- attention on identifying how subversive countersto-
ing cases of medical morality one could imagine. ries work their way into the performative spaces of
Beleaguered, vexed, and menaced by the emotional historical and memorial sites, which can turn out
and embodied plight of patients teetering on the to be spaces in which meanings can be contested.
edge of oblivion, Zaner (2004) wavers between Usually, these sites are intended to maintain power
hope and despair, enacting a reflexive relatedness and authority over the truth of historical “facts,” in
and openness to otherness through the medium particular how they will be remembered and under-
of storytelling. Here, at the border region of mor- stood. But the same site can mean many different
tality, Zaner (2004) musters the courage to listen things to different people and groups (Noy, 2012)
intensely, focus reflectively, and connect humanely and thus these sites hold the performative potential
in an atmosphere riddled with dreadful contradic- to destabilize and transform the largely ideological
tions, painful ironies, and wretched vulnerabilities. meanings and feelings attached to and promoted

Bo ch n e r, Rig gs 2 15
by these historical places. When tourist spaces are must remain silent; how stories heal and how they
performative “they get people to engage, to move can damage.
around, to carry and create meanings in public
spaces” (p. 147) and, consequently, to introduce Conclusion
and amplify alternative, even subversive, narratives. Small-story researchers have shown that infor-
The coercive power of a story also has been mal, everyday interactions are an important site of
discussed by Freeman (2010) as an expression of subjectivity and meaning-making, a site of narra-
what he calls narrative foreclosure, “the conviction tive performances in which identity is performed
that one’s story is effectively over, that no prospect and negotiated. In moment-to-moment, everyday
exists for opening up a new chapter of one’s life” interaction, people perform and negotiate identities,
(p. 12). To foreclose on a narrative is to become a using small stories to achieve what Goffman (1959)
prisoner of one’s story, to be walled in and weighed once called a working consensus on the definition of
down, obscuring all possibility of narrative free- the situation and to place identity under construc-
dom. Freeman (2010) emphasizes “the poetic labor tion. Big-story researchers, conversely, have shown
of narrative” (p. 152) associated with practices of that human beings have a strong urge to dwell at
hindsight, which can renew or regenerate a narrative the crossroad of narration and reflection. We are his-
frozen in time. The challenge is “to break away from torical creatures who find ourselves thrown into the
them and sap them of their coercive power . . . iden- chaos of a mortal life lived in deep temporality—
tifying and naming” (p. 13) the narrative one has between birth and death, between history and
been living. destiny, between what we have inherited and expe-
Freeman (1997, 2010) has introduced two other rienced from the past and what we anticipate and
narrative practices, one allied with the delayed quality can become in the future (Ricoeur, 1981). In short,
of memory work, the other with decisions about how human life is saturated with “an autobiographical
to act in consequential situations that will later be imperative” (Eakin, 1985, pp. 275–278), a long-
remembered. Moral lateness refers to the recollection ing to make sense of the plural unity of time—past,
and refashioning of memories through which “we see present, and future. As long as we can remember,
now what we couldn’t see then”—that we did not do and remember remembering, we are likely to remain
the right thing. We were blind to the moral choices of steadfast in our determination to recover the past
right or wrong, or good or bad, that we faced on that and stretch what we make of it across the trajectory
occasion. Now, we feel forced to face the remorse, of our lives. Although it is true that we appear to live
regret, or repentance that these memories evoke. Can only in the present, we also “sojourn in the land of
we forgive ourselves? Can we reconcile how we see memory” (Hampl, 1999). Thus, it is more accurate
ourselves now in light of what we did then? to say that we live in between, perpetually moving
Narrative integrity (Freeman, 1997) is a prac- forward into experience and backward into memory.
tice concerned with the other end of the temporal Big-story researchers have shown that the narrative
dimension of narrative, the call of the future, which work of memory, the struggle between meaning and
one day likely will be a memory. As a life practice, memory, involves both listening to and expressing
narrative integrity anticipates how we will remem- what our memories tell us in the hope that our sec-
ber what we are planning to do now or next. One ond and third draft can improve on the first.
day in the future, the story of how I am about to We do not have a crystal ball in which to look
act will be a tale I will look back on either with into the future and anticipate the next turns in
pride and gratification or shame and degradation. narrative inquiry. We will be pleased if narrative
Which will it be? Can I take stock of my options inquiry continues to situate itself within an inter-
and authorize a story that dignifies and honors my mediate zone between science and art, self and oth-
actions? By exercising narrative integrity, we seize an ers, big stories and small stories, and theories and
opportunity to make narrative a part of the fabric of stories, and is understood and regarded as a meeting
our experience and memory as we live it. place for storytellers that promotes multiplicity and
All of these innovations in narrative practices call diversity, where head and heart go hand in hand,
attention to what storytelling does, how it normal- and embodied narrators work to produce a rigorous
izes as well as how it can transgress; how the stories and creative body of scholarship that is passionate,
we tell are constrained by patterns of relationship, political, personal, critical, open-ended, enlighten-
culture, and history; which stories get told and ing, pleasurable, meaningful, useful, and sufficiently
which ones stay untold; who gets to speak and who evocative to keep the conversation going.

21 6 Pract i c i ng Na r r at i ve I nqu iry

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Denzin. interpersonal bonding. In C. Arnold & J. Bowers (Eds.),
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