Novella Node of NCRMTraining event

Molly Andrewsm.andrews@uel.ac.uk

Centre for Narrative Researchwww.uel.ac.uk/cnr/index.htm

Telling, listening to, and making sense of in-depth

personal narratives

Agenda

• Relationship between narrative and story– Personal story exercise

• Looking at data– Interview questions– Transcripts– Making meaning/analysis

• Narrative and ethics

PART ONE:INTRODUCING

NARRATIVE RESEARCH

Key narrative questions

• How are stories structured?• Who produces them and by what

means?• What are the mechanisms by which

they are consumed?• How are narratives silenced, contested

or accepted?• What are other stories which give this

story its meaning (counter-narratives)?-

Universality of narrative

Narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mine, painting…., stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news item, conversation. Moreover, under this almost infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind (sic) and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative… it is simply there, like life itself.

-Roland Barthes

Riessman’s additions to Barthes’ list

• Memoir• Biography• Autobiography• Diaries• Archival documents• Social service and health records• Other organisational documents• Scientific theories• Fold ballads• Photographs• Other art work

A word of caution…

One might think that a concept which brings together the world religions, all of Western philosophy, large-scale statistical correlations in the social sciences, every biography and autobiography that’s ever been written, every work of fiction and my account of losing a pet cat obscures more than it illuminates. Narratives are stories and stories are not simple.

- Ian Craib

Wide range in definition of narratives, but….

A fundamental criterion of narrative is surely contingency. Whatever the content, stories demand the consequential linking of events or ideas. Narrative shaping entails imposing a meaningful pattern on what would otherwise be random and disconnected.

-Phil Salmon

The classic model (Aristotelian)• Action: representation of events, experiences

and emotions• ‘of a certain amplitude’ (size)• Classic structure: beginning, middle, end• Emplotment: the ordering of the incidents, the

‘lifeblood of the narrative’• ‘peripeteia’ – a breach in the expected state of

things

Narratives depict a rupture from the expected, interpretive because they mirror the world, rather than copy it exactly.

- Adopted from Riessman 2008

What do narratives ‘do’?

…narratives, as sense-making tools, inevitably do things – for people, for social institutions, for culture, and more.

-Mark Freeman

Narratives are strategic, functional, and purposeful… Individuals use the narrative form to remember, argue, justify, persuade, engage, entertain, and even mislead an audience. Groups use stories to mobilize others, and to foster a sense of belonging. Narratives do political work.

-Catherine Kohler Riessman

PART TWO:PERSONAL NARRATIVES

The self is a story which is forever being rewritten (Bruner 1994)

The importance of stories

"human beings think, perceive, imagine and make moral choices according to narrative structure”

Theodore Sarbin

The activity of being human is intricately tied to the activity of telling and listening to stories. Stories are not only the way in which we come to ascribe significance to experiences we and others have had; they are one of the primary means through which we constitute our very selves.

Personal narratives

• Event vs. experience narratives• One, amongst many, forms of narrative• Even when stories are told by individuals,

they are always located within a wider context; ‘cultural stockpot of stories’

• Stories of the self changing over time• Audience – for whom, and to whom, is this

story told? Stories are always shaped by their ‘listeners’

• Relationship between what is said, and is not, and perhaps cannot be said?

Relationship between narratives and identity

• Stories relate not only to a self who is, or was, but also to a self who might have been, or still might be; critical role of imagination and the world of the possible

• Location/positioning; Indicators of belonging; who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’

• Constructing/accessing framework of meaning of ‘the other’

“Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created"

Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate lecture

But…

• Which stories do we tell?• Which stories do we omit?• When do we start the story in this place?

Why end it here?• Who do we tell these stories to?• What stories do we tell ourselves?• How do we interpret the stories of others?• How do we interpret their attempts to

make sense of our stories?• Do we ever tell the same story twice?

Cultural memory and personal narratives

• Critique of traditional notions of memory; memory is located in culture

• Relationship between individual and cultural memory/amnesia; memory frames and social practices; memory as a ‘cultural vehicle’ (Lambek and Antze 1996)

• The concept of memory is a cultural-historical phenomenon

• Rupture and continuity of narratives

• Relationship between told and untold aspects of experience; social conditions and tellable stories

What happens when we ‘lose’ our stories?

Work-shopping stories

Pair offTake two copies of text – give one to me, one

to your partnerWithout looking at the text, describe to your

partner the experience you wrote aboutNow let your partner read what you have

writtenHow is it different? Similar? Which rendition

do you think more accurately reflects your experience of the story you are telling?

Now change roles, and repeat.

Your stories • Choice of footwear• professional stories

– Getting on a course– Attending a conference– First day of a course– Professional placement

• Engagement stories• Class reunion• Migration• 9/11• Revisiting childhood decisons/experiences• Getting a pet

Your story

• How did you pick this particular story?• Who did you think of as your audience• Difference between writing and telling of

story• The past in the present• Considerations of ‘tell-ability’; cultural

context, emotional exposure, etc.

PART THREE: LOOKING AT NARRATIVE DATA

Studs Terkel

“Listening, and keeping a curiosity is the key… I am curious about all of it, all the time. ‘Curiosity never killed this cat’ – that’s what I’d like as my epitaph.”

ListeningThe first thing I’d say to any interviewer is… ‘Listen.’ It’s the second thing I’d say too, and the third and the fourth… ‘Listen… listen… listen… listen.’ And if you do, people will talk. They’ll always talk... Don’t push them, don’t rush them, don’t chase them or harass them with getting on to the next question. Let them take their time… Listen and wait are the two essentials, with watch and be aware a close third. A laugh can be a cry of pain, and a silence can be a shout. And God knows how many different meanings there are to a smile. It’s what a person says and how they say it, and where they’re saying it to – to you, to themselves, to the past, the future, the outside world. Those are the basics.

Elizabeth and I are sitting in her living room. The age difference between us is roughly fifty years. This excerpt comes from our first interview together. We have been speaking for more than an hour, when Elizabeth describes an event which took place more than three decades ago. Just before this point in the interview, Elizabeth has told me that, as a mother of four, she spent two weeks in a maximum security prison, as a result of her political protest.

MA: How about your decision to actually break the law, was that a difficult decision for you, or did you feel very convinced that what you were doing was right? How did you think about that decision at the time?

EW: Yes, I took a lot of thinking about it. Because I had been on [a similar protest] the year before, but I hadn’t [broken the law] because of family affairs and so on. The next year I was going again, and there was nobody else from [her town], and I thought well, I wouldn’t go. I mean, nobody’s going this year. I went and sat in the garden and then I felt such a heel. The fact that nobody was going, it was all the more important for me to go, wasn’t it? And if there’s only a few of you going, it’s all the more important that if you do go, you make a stand. But I mean it was such a silly idea to think that just because nobody else was going, well I wouldn’t go. And of course it is more difficult, because things are laid on from your own town to get there… it’s a lot easier. I did talk it over with my husband first, and so on, needless to say. Then I wondered if I ought to go. You know how it is – and you’re aware, and it’s, you know, ‘am I being just an exhibitionist, and showing off?’ …

And I think I dreamed – whatever was the dream? Very often when I’d got a problem like that, and I’m turning it over in my mind, a dream makes it clear. Oh, I know, I dreamed there was a tray and my hands were underneath holding the tray and I was doing a lot, what with the family and the famine relief and one thing and another. I w as doing a lot, and more and more things were piled on this tray, and I s aid ‘Oh Lord, don’t put on any more. I can’t hold it.’ And then when I looked under the tray, it wasn’t may hands that were holding it, it was sort of symbolic hands, large, thick hands that you get on Henry Moore sculptures. And I knew that it wasn’t really me – that if what I was doing was right, one was upheld in another dimension somehow. In here it was right, and it was go ahead. And somehow that made it clear to me, anyway. Somebody else might have interpreted it another way, but from my interpretation, it was that I should go ahead, which I did. And it was trying and difficult, but a very rewarding experience, really.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989

Were all East Germans celebrating?

On the way home [at about 10:30 pm] I noticed many people all running into the same direction... they were all running to the end of the world... the street was full of cars and one could hardly walk at all... I then walked with the stream and got to the border crossing, Bornholmerstrasse… which was the first crossing to be opened. Two hundred meters from here.

The Trabbant, Symbol of East Germany

It was so crammed full with people you couldn’t move. And everybody was pushing through the crossing. The policemen were just standing around, they didn’t know what to do and were completely puzzled. I asked a few people… what was happening. Of course, I know, I could see, but I didn’t actually, I didn’t understand.

Bornholmerstrasee November 9 1989

And I stood there for about a half hour in this crowd and then went home and switched the television on. Then I watched everything on television, transmissions from everywhere, Ku-damm and all other border crossings. And I could see that people were coming over, that is as seen from the west.

.... I was totally paralysed... all this continued for the next few days and it took me a whole week before I went across, Potsdamerstr. It is difficult to describe… this was such a very elementary transformation of one’s existence, of ... the whole world in a way...

Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, August 1962

I’ll try to explain. I have lived.. I have been in Berlin since ‘73 and I have always lived two hundred meters from the wall. And this wall, to me, has become a symbol of captivity in every respect, also in a metaphoric, symbolic sense. And this is what I have been ramming my head against for the last twenty years. And I had, as a way of survival, I had resolved to ignore this wall as far as I could… And I tried to do the same throughout the week, when the wall had gone. I did not only try to suppress the fact that the wall had been there previously, but I also tried to suppress the fact that it had gone. And it didn’t work.

November 10, 1989

When I went across the wall for the first time, I did so at Potsdamer Platz, where there hadn’t been a crossing, they had only torn a hole, simply torn a hole into the wall, yes. And that’s where I wanted to go through, precisely there. I walked through like a sleepwalker. I could not conceive of the idea up to the moment when I was through, that that was possible. Well, and then I stood for a very long time over at the other side in no-man’s land, and could not move forward or backwards. And then I cried, I was totally overwhelmed.

Political narratives: Methodological and Strategic Questions

• Who is telling? Who is not?

• Why are they telling this particular story? What is the function of the narrative for the speaker? For the listener? Who is the intended audience?

• What are they telling? What is left unsaid?

• Where is the story located in relation to where it is recounted? What kind of cultural translation is necessary, and how is this accomplished?

• When does the story begin? End? How does this influence what story can be told? When did the story occur in relation to when it is being recounted?

• How do the mechanisms which are used for data gathering enhance/limit what can be said (e.g. Tape recorder? Video machine? Art supplies?)

Who is telling? Who is not?:

• Reinhard Weisshuhn: Member of Initiative for Peace and Human Rights. Long-standing reputation as leading opposition figure.

• Who he is not: most East Germans, who either implicitly went along with the oppressive regime or actively colluded with it. Neither is he someone who euphorically embraces the opening of the wall.

• Other ‘who’s in this story: the police; everybody who was pushing through the crossing

Why this particular story?

• The power of the story of ‘the fall of the wall’.

• A ‘counter-narrative’ of reactions to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

What are they telling? What is left unsaid?

• Series of responses to the opening of the Berlin Wall. Identity narrative, revealing the complexity of his emotional response to the events as they unfolded.

• Left unsaid: critical moment both in terms of his own biography and in terms of historical change

Where is the story located in relation to where it is recounted?

Importance of place in this narrative; Bornholmerstr. Versus Potsdammer Platz; the symbolic importance of finding one’s own way through the opening of the wall; a ‘torn hole’

When: questions of time

• time in the narrative (from 10:30 pm Nov 9, 1989 till one week after opening of wall);

• time of recounting (two years later);

• present time – 20th anniversary of fall of wall, Potsdammer Platz

How do the mechanisms which are used for data

gathering enhance/limit potential findings? • Why interviews?

• Use of tape recorder; strengths – unobtrusive, economic, convenient

• Weakness: no visual input, emphasis on what is said (i.e. audible) and sayable

PART FOUR:POINTERS FOR ANALYSIS OF

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

Structure

How is the structure of the narrative organized?

How internally consistent is this story?

How does the story move? Does it wander? Develop logically?

How persuasive is the story?

Audience

• Who is the audience, literal and figurative, for this story?

• Are there any ‘ghost audiences’ who are present in the room?

• How does the speaker perceive you, and how do you think this impacts on what they say/don’t say?

• How do they think you view them?

Meaning

• What does this story mean to the person telling it?• Does the story mean the same thing to this person

now as it did at the time that it happened, or has their perspective on it changed over time?

• What does it mean to you? Does it resonate with any of your own experiences? Are there any reasons it may be difficult for you to take in what your respondent is saying?

The Unspoken

• What is the overall ‘feel’ to this interview? • How does the person tell their story – With

excitement? Hesitation? Sadness?• Observe body language closely (your

respondent and your own). What does this tell you? Did the body language change in the interview?

Summary notes

• Identify the major themes in the interview, what Frisch calls ‘the feel of the life’

• Read other materials which will help you make sense of the themes which you wish to explore

• Select certain passages which best illustrate the points you wish to make

• Look at the questions you asked, and think self-critically how these may have impacted upon what was said

• What are the consistencies/inconsistencies within passages and across the interview?

• Remember that you are trying to access the subjective truth for the person with whom you are speaking, i.e. what the events which they describe to you mean to them; do not confuse your role with that of a therapist, friend, or judge.

• Attend to both the detail of the accounts they provide, as well as to the larger social/historical contexts which will have helped to produce such accounts. If ‘interviews are windows into collective thought processes’ what can you say about the wider implications of the individual account you have recorded?

• What sense can you make of the silences and other ruptures in the interview?

PART FIVE:

ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN NARRATIVE RESEARCH

Ethics: Seven key issues • ownership and intellectual property rights – who owns

the life being studied?• Confidentiality – can this ever be really guaranteed?• Honesty and the scandals of life stories (eg Burgos-

Debray (1984) I, Rigoberta Menchu:An Indian woman in Guatamala)

• Deception – how to present our research focus to those who we study

• Exploitation – what do our participants get out of participating in our research?

• Informed consent – do people really understand what they are agreeing to?

• Hurt and harm – effects of misrepresentation for individuals and communities

Ken Plummer (2001)2

Plus a few more…• Inequalities of interview relationship

• Hierarchical nature of interpretation

• Control over representation

• Potential for exploitation

• Deconstructing assumptions of ‘empowerment’

• Moving from the private to public sphere (Gready)

• Broader impact/unintentional consequences of research

For discussion• By what right can an academic enter the

subjective worlds of other human beings and report back to the wider world on them?

• Must our understanding of someone’s life correspond with their understanding of their life? If they differ, what is the most responsible thing for us to do? Do our intellectual and ethical responsibilities pull us in different directions?

• Should we share our ‘findings’ with our research participants. In what circumstances would it not be desirable to do so?

• How universal are ethics?

Your questions

• How to keep analysis from becoming too descriptive?

• Post-structuralist linguistic turn?• Which research question to focus on?• Voice for the voiceless?• How to keep bias out of analysis?• Differences between narrative research

and oral history?• Impact of interviewer within interview?