What is … Narrative

Analysis?

Methods@Manchester

Dr Vanessa May
Realities (Part of the ESRC National Centre for Research
Methods)
and
Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal
Life
Today’s talk

• Why analyse narratives?

• Narrative analysis is…
• How did we get here?
• How it’s done
• The kinds of question that narrative analysts ask (with examples)
• Where can I find out more?

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Why analyse narratives?

• When you want someone to know who you are, what do you do?
• When you experience anything, how do you make sense of it?
• How do you communicate your experiences to another person?

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Why analyse narratives?

• All of the above require some form of story-telling, of conveying

thoughts, experiences and identities in the form of narrative
• Events presented as non-random, ie linked in a meaningful
way (causality, plot)
• Some form of chronology and movement through time

• Narrative analysts argue that it is important to retain this

fundamental narrative aspect of much of the data that social
scientists collect

• Narratives are everywhere!

• Narrative is a basic human way of making sense of the world –
we lead ‘storied lives’ (Riessman, 1993)
• In other words, narrative is constitutive of reality as well as of
identity/subjectivity

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Narrative analysis is…
• … the study of any narrative texts, such as:
• narratives found the private, public or political realms
• ‘naturally occurring’ narratives
• oral or written narratives collected for research purposes
• public/policy documents or media texts
• ‘Text’ is broadly defined: mainly oral and written texts, but also
photographs, films or even dance performances

• Interdisciplinary by nature…
• …and therefore not a single uniform method but rather an umbrella
term for an eclectic mix of methodological approaches…
• …informed by numerous theoretical orientations (e.g. hermeneutics,
existentialism, phenomenology and interactionism)
• Utilised by researchers in a variety of disciplines: sociology, psychology,
political science, anthropology, education, health, …

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

How did we get here?

• Origins in literary theory and narratology

• Firmly established within the social sciences since the 1990s

• Various textbooks (e.g., Riessman, 2008; Andrews et al.,
2008)
• Dedicated journal Narrative Inquiry

• Part of the ‘linguistic’ or ‘narrative’ turn in the social sciences

• The importance of language in constructing reality
• Focus on linguistic conventions (in this case sociocultural
narratives) and on the work that words do in society and in
social interaction

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Language as a social tool

• Language not understood as directly mirroring an underlying

reality but rather as a social tool
• Language is used to do things: to categorise, name and label
things and people, and to make things happen
• But see e.g. Shenhav (2006) and McBeth et al. (2005) for an
alternative view of language

• The link between language and power

• Language is not neutral – the power to name things (cf
Foucault, 1980 on ‘regimes of truth’)

• Focus on meaning and interpretation

• Who is narrating to whom and to what aim
• The historical, social and local/interactional context of
narration is important as well
Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods
How it’s done
• Lieblich et al. (1998) divide approaches to narrative analysis along two
axes:
• holistic – categorical
• form – content
• Riessman (2008) adds to this two more types of narrative analysis:
• The performative or dialogical aspect of narrative
• Visual narratives

• Most narrative studies:

• are holistic in nature, paying attention to the sequencing of themes
within narratives, thus foregrounding the ‘specifically narrative
aspects of texts’ meaning’ (Squire, 2008: 50) and preserving ‘the
sequential and structural features that are hallmarks of narrative’
(Riessman, 2008: 12)
• focus on both form and content; both the told (the content of what is
said) and on the telling (how it is told)
• limit the number of narratives analysed, and present findings in the
form of case studies

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

The kinds of question that narrative analysts ask: Collective
narratives

• The social world is storied (e.g., Shotter, 1993; Weedon, 2004)

• Who ‘we’ are as a group of people (e.g., nation, class, culture,
gender)
• Collective ways of understanding how things (should) work
(e.g., political and policy narratives)
• Linked with institutions, expert knowledge and power (e.g.,
medical profession)

• Narrative analysis can be used to examine how narratives both

reflect and shape social contexts

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

• How collective narratives reflect power relations
• whose narratives ‘stick’ and why, whose narratives are
excluded, and what the effects of this are

• How narratives are used to accomplish particular social ends

• e.g. sanction certain forms of knowledge, exclude or include
particular social groups, enact institutional routines, or
construct social identities (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2008:
382)
• power inequalities with regards to who is in a position to
accomplish social consequences through narrative (Pedriana,
2006; Squire et al., 2008: 4)

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Example 1
Constructing the ideal breast cancer patient (Davis, 2008)

• Analysis of eleven documents produced by the National Cancer Institute

(US) on the topic of breast cancer.
• These publications ‘represent a major source of medical information
for women about breast cancer’ (Davis, 2008: 68)
• Why important?
• Because ‘medical discourse holds a certain legitimacy and power by
virtue of its institutional status and scientific affiliation’ (Davis, 2008:
65), constructing idealized social identities for people with this illness
• Why narrative analysis?
• Narratives focus on values, making narrative analysis useful for
highlighting the values expressed or implied in a particular text …
• …and consequently, ‘narratives about cancer will be a product of, and
will reflect, human valuing ‘(Davis, 2008: 68)

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Characterisation

• Identified a primary narrative based on a generally consistent set of

underlying values and expectations, ‘a robust narrative focused on an
ideal of women who can be treated successfully and who can look forward
to recovery from breast cancer’ (Davis, 2008: 68)
• Analysed six dimensions of narrative: characters, setting, events,
audience, causal relations, and themes

• Characters
• Main characters: Villain: Breast Cancer (dangerous, deadly, but also
susceptible to medical treatment); Hero: The Doctor (competent,
knowledgeable, the expert); Heroine: The Patient (fearful, strong,
willing to fight); Helpers: Treatment, Medical Technology (can see into
the patient’s body, finds, fights and destroys the cancer)
• Supporting characters: The Body; Patient’s Partner; Family; Friends;
Volunteer workers; Health Care Team; Pain -- ‘The cancer patient is
surrounded by a group of caring, helpful others; people at work; and
loving friends and relatives.’ (Davis, 2008: 70)

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Events

• The constructed plotline is a temporal sequence of events in six parts:

1) Presymptomatic: ‘The “woman” is diligent about engaging in early
detection practices in the presymptomatic stage of the narrative.’ (Davis,
2008: 71)
2) Symptomatic: When the woman finds an irregularity, something that
might be breast cancer, she immediately seeks out her doctor so that he
or she can verify the symptoms
3) Diagnosis: the woman ‘becomes a “patient”; the doctor determines what
treatment is most appropriate and administers that treatment’ (Davis,
2008: 71)
4) Treatment: the patient educates herself about cancer and treatment,
communicates with her doctor and addresses her fears
5) Recovery: the patient heals physically and emotionally, facing and
conquering her fears about cancer and about dying, maintaining high
levels of communication with her doctor, family and friends
6) Postrecovery: the woman picks up her life and returns ‘back to normal’,
she has become a ‘cancer survivor’ and has been (positively) transformed
by the experience

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Themes

1) Risk: all women are at risk of breast cancer

2) Control: the doctor is ultimately in control of the cancer
treatment, but the patient maintains control by educating herself
so that she can participate fully in her treatment

• The cancer narrative medicalizes the woman’s experiences beyond

the cancer
• The patient is encouraged to address all her concerns (also
non-medical) to her doctor, although in reality doctors are
often ill-trained to deal with the psychological or social issues
that their patients might face
• The breast cancer patient’s life post-cancer is also
medicalized: she is urged to keep monitoring herself for signs
of a reoccurrence of the cancer

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

The kinds of question that narrative analysts ask:
First-person accounts

• Narrative frameworks are shared cultural tools that offer us a repertoire of

possible stories, but also set limits on what can be told (Lawler, 2002:
242-243)
• Interested in how individuals draw upon these sociocultural narratives
• e.g. the role that dominant narratives play in the lives of stigmatised
or marginalised people, and the counter-narratives that they may
draw upon to alleviate any stigma (e.g., Andrews, 2002; May, 2004)

• What people do with narrative and how narratives are used to accomplish
certain ends
• e.g. constructing an identity, persuading the listener/audience of
something (e.g., May, 2008)

• How narratives are created in dialogue

• The effect of the broader social and local interaction context as well as
of the social position of the narrator and the audience (e.g., Riessman,
2003; Conway, 2008; Presser, 2005)

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Example 2
Power and narrative in interviews with violent offenders
(Presser, 2005)

• Longitudinal qualitative interviews with men who had committed

serious violent crimes, including murder, assault and rape

• The context of ‘discursive control’ that shapes the men’s accounts

should be included as data
• the macrolevel effects on speech: the broader social, economic
and political context (the men’s race/ethnicity and class)
• the microlevel feature of talk: the research context (Presser
the researcher, the men as the incarcerated offenders)

• The relations of power between interviewer and participant should

be seen as part of interview data and systematically analysed

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Analysing the ‘what’

• Presser’s analysis was a mixture of both holistic and thematic, and focused
on both content and form
• Cross-sectional and holistic analyses of the cases
• Beginning from the ‘what’ and then shifting to an examination of the
‘how’ of talk

1) Data coded according to sociologically interesting themes (e.g.,

statements about desistance and peers) and focusing on the coherence of
the narratives and of the identities the men portrayed
2) Moved on to focus on eight aspects of the narratives, including ‘social
distinctions that the men drew, the men’s talk about their true selves, talk
about the self over time’ (Presser, 2005: 2074).
3) Developed a second generation of themes focusing on the men’s
constructions of a moral self

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Analysing the ‘how’

• Aim was to capture fully ‘the interaction between researcher and

participant’, ‘the flow of the interview, including the texture of interaction’
(Presser, 2005: 2075)

• Presser created memos on each research participant

• a running summary of how the men’s accounts unfolded and what
appeared to be going on between Presser and the research participant

• The men’s narratives did not constitute ‘the authentic story of the narrator
– none exists’; rather, the accounts were co-constructed, influenced by
the relations between Presser and her research participants (Presser,
2005: 2087)
• Presser examines her own role as a collaborator in the men’s narratives –
the accounts they provide are a ‘situated, collaborative negotiation of
narrated identities’ (Presser, 2005: 2070)

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

‘Doing’ gender in interaction

• Both Presser and the men she interviewed were using ‘their gender
relations with each other to affirm an appropriately gendered self’
(Presser, 2005: 2073)

• In enacting their ‘decent selves’ to her, the men she interviewed were also
positioning her as a heterosexual woman
• e.g. ‘chivalrous masculinity’ such as offering Presser advice on men
was a popular way of ‘doing’ gender in all the interviews
• ‘Such chivalry positions the female other in terms of hegemonic
femininity, encompassing vulnerability and heterosexuality’, but the
darker side of such chivalry is ‘its assertion of authority’ (Presser,
2005: 2079)

• But Presser also positioned herself in gendered ways

• e.g. alleviating tension in situations, not challenging the men’s
accounts

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

Where can I find out more?

• Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London:

• http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/index.htm
• Narrative research @ Anglia Ruskin University containing support
materials for narrative analysis:
• http://web.anglia.ac.uk/narratives/index.phtml
• A web resource for narrative psychology:
• http://web.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/narpsych/narpsych.html

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

References

• Andrews, Molly (2002) ‘Introduction: Counter-narratives and the power to oppose’, Narrative
Inquiry, 12: 1-6.
• Andrews, Molly, Squire, Corinne & Tamboukou, Maria (eds) (2008) Doing Narrative Research,
London: Sage.
• Conway, Daniel (2008) ‘Masculinities and narrating the past: Experiences of researching white men
who refused to serve in the apartheid army’, Qualitative Research, 8(3): 347-354.
• Davis, Elizabeth M. (2008) ‘Risky business: Medical discourse, breast cancer, and narrative’,
Qualitative Health Research, 18(1): 65-76.
• De Fina, Anna & Georgakopoulou, Alexandra (2008) ‘Analysing narratives as practices’, Qualitative
Research, 8(3): 379-387.
• Foucault, Michel (1980) ‘Truth and power: An interview’, in Gordon, Colin (ed.) Power/Knowledge:
Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
• Lawler, Steph (2002) ‘Narrative in social research’, in May, Tim (ed.) Qualitative Research in
Action, London: Sage. (pp.242-258).
• Lieblich, Amia, Tuval-Maschiach, Rivka & Zilber, Tamar (1998) Narrative Research: Reading,
Analysis, and Interpretation, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• May, Vanessa (2004) ‘Narrative identity and the re-conceptualization of lone motherhood’,
Narrative Inquiry, 14: 169-189.
• May, Vanessa (2008) ‘On being a ‘good’ mother: The moral presentation of self’, Sociology, 42:
470–486.
• McBeth, Mark K., Shanahan, Elizabeth A. & Jones, Michael D. (2005) ’The science of storytelling:
Measuring policy beliefs in Greater Yellowstone’, Society & Natural Resources, 18(5): 413-429

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

References continued

• Pedriana, Nicholas (2006) ‘From protective to equal treatment: Legal framing

processes and transformation of the women’s movement in the 1960s’, American
Journal of Sociology, 111(6): 1718-61.
• Presser, Lois (2005) ‘Negotiating power and narrative in research: Implications for
feminist methodology’, Signs, 30(4): 2067-2090.
• Shotter, John (1993) Cultural Politics of Everyday Life. Buckingham: Open University
Press.
• Riessman, Catherine Kohler (1993) Narrative Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Riessman, Catherine Kohler (2003) ‘Performing identities in illness narrative:
Masculinity and multiple sclerosis’, Qualitative Research, 3(1): 5-33.
• Riessman, Catherine Kohler (2008) Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences, Los
Angeles, CA: Sage.
• Shenhav, Shaul R. (2006) ‘Political narratives and political reality’, International
Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique, 27(3): 245-262.
• Squire, Corinne (2008) ‘Experience-centred and culturally-oriented approaches to
narrative’, in Andrews, Molly, Squire, Corinne & Tamboukou, Maria (eds), Doing
Narrative Research, London: Sage.
• Squire, Corinne, Andrews, Molly & Tamboukou, Maria (2008) ‘Introduction: What is
narrative research?’ in Andrews, Molly, Squire, Corinne & Tamboukou, Maria (eds),
Doing Narrative Research, London: Sage.
• Weedon, Chris (2004) Identity and Culture: Narratives of Difference and Belonging,
Open University Press. Maidenhead.

Realities, part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods