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    Sandelowski Tellingstories PDF

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    Vinit Gupta

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    Telling Stories: Narrative Approaches in Qualitative Research Margarete Sandelowski Thee ia new atmo ars dsiptnes to narative ke ing—the inputs hfecentsinioordar and meaning. In Os ape nantes pried as ramen forendertanding the {abet and inert data in uate earch. Examples of ference epee fe erate ranted ith ther kinds uate analysand trish a natives i considered. * mls ne mark of the turn away from positivism andl toward interpretation in the behavioral and social sciences has been a renewed attention to the human “impulse to narrate” (White, 1980, p.5). Mourning the devaluation of nar rativesas sources of knowledge, and emphasizing the moral force, healing power, and emancipatory thrust of stories, scholars across the disciplines have (re) discovered the narrative nature of human beings (Banks, 1982; Bell, 1988; Brody, 1987; Heilbrun, 1988; Polkinghorne, 1988). Many scholars now view physicians and patients, analysts and analysands, feldworkers and natives, and researchers and subjectsaspartnersengaged in the distinctively “historic and hermeneutic” (Banks, 19R2, p, 23) activity of storytelling. Patients, analysands,natives, and subjects recount the events of their lives and narrate them into temporal order and meaning and physicians, analvsts, fieldworkers, and re- searchers, in urn, narrate their versions of those lives in their clinical case studies, research reports and scientific treatises. Such diverse phenomena as ethnography (E. Bruner, 1986), psychoanalysis (Spence, 1982, 1987), the ite ‘course (Cohiler, 1982), the life history (Peacock, 1984), the research interview (Mishler, 1986), the physician-patient relationship (Brody, 1987), developmental theories (Gergen & Gergen, 1986), and everyday explanations (Gergen, 1988) hhave been viewed as having traditions, forms and structures exemplifying the narrative, as opposed to the logico-scien: tific, mode of thought (J. Bruner, 1986), Scientists under the influence of such interpretive tradi= tions as phenomenology, hermeneutics, symbolic interactionism, and feminist and cultural criticism have developed “literary consciousness” (Marcus, 1986, p.262), ‘Volume 23, Number 3, Fall 1991 assuming standpoints and employing techniques once dis- tinetively associated with literaryanalysisand criticism. Newly preoccupied with forms of expression, literary devices, rhe~ torical conventions, and the reading and writing of texts of experience (including bodies, lives, and literature) scholars. now see the story in the study, the tale in the theory, the parable in the principle, and the drama in the life (Bordo, 1990; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Rosaldo, 1989; Ruby, 1982; Sacks, 1987; Suleiman, 1986; Turner & Bruner, 1986). Sci entific texts, for example, have been viewed asKuhnian tales where theories are presumed to be largely governed by prevailing plotsandaestheticforms (E. Bruner, 1986; Gergen & Gergen, 1986). Such literary devices and narrative con- ventions as the use of the third person and passive voice in ‘ypical science reports and the severing of method from resultsand from interpretation are deemed “anti-narrative” strategies that separate authors from their texts and mask the narrativity of science (Myerhoff & Ruby, 1982, p. 22) The study of narratives has linked the seiences with history, literature and everyday life to reflect the increasing reflex. ivigy that characterizes contemporary inquiry and furthers the postmodern deconstruction of the already tenuous boundariesamong disciplinesand realms ofmeaning (Ruby, 1989) This (re) conceptualization of human beingsas narrators and of their products as texts be interpreted constitutes a potentially critical moment for nursing scholars (especially those engaged in qualitative inquiry) because itreveals, and suggests solutions for, analvic problems drat have typically been disguised in conventional theory-and-method debates about objectivity and validity. These analytic problems in- volve the ambiguous nature of truth, the metaphoric nature bf language in communicating a putatively objective realty, the temporality and liminality of human beings’ interpre- tation of theirlives, the historical and sociocultural constraints against which individuals labor to impart information about themselves to other individuals who, in turn, labor to listen, and, most significantly, the inherently contradictory project of making something scientific out of everything biographi- ‘al (Barthes, 1982a; Geertz, 1988). Margarete Sandelowsti, 1. Ph.D. Aloha Aas Associate Pro- fessor, Dept. of women's ang Chilarems Healer, Unversiy OF Correspondence to school of Nursing, 7480 Carrington nal university oF Wort Carona, cnapel HI, NC 2750, ‘Accepted for publication October 7,183. 161 “Teg Soi: NaraneAppronhesin Qaatve Rech Narrative approachesto the study oflivesreveal the extent to which these problems have been conditioned by empiti- cal rather than narrative or biographical standards of ruth, and by a preoccupation with obtaining information at the expense of understanding expression, AnthropologistJames Peacock, for example, observed that the narrative pattern- ing in life history is important in is own right, but has be ignored and “cannibalized to feed analyses at other levels (1984, p. 96). Narrative analyses of texts force scholars to attend first to what is placed immediately before them — stories— before transforming them into descriptions and. theories ofthe lives they represent. Narrative analyses reveal the discontinuities between story and experience and focus ‘on discourse: on the tellings themselves and the devices Individuals use to make meaning in stories. By contrast, analytic techniques, such as content analysis and constant ‘comparison (as wypically used in nursing research) that ‘emphasize informational content, assume a close corre: spondence berwcen a telling and the experience that is tald and ignore such features of talk as asides and the storied. placement (as opposed to actual sequencing) of events. Narrative as an interactive and interpretive product is the focus even before it becomes subject to the researcher's purposes. The interview and the research reportneed to be rescued from efforts to standardize and scientize them and. be reclaimed as occasions for storytelling (Denzin, 19893; Mishler, 1986). Because lives are understood as and shaped. by narratives, narrative approaches to inquiry parallel the ways individuals inquire about experience (Cohler, 1982) and, in a sense, naturalize (or remove some of the art from) the research process Like other scholars practiced in the empirical realm but dran to the aesthetic and synoptic visions of literature and. history by virtue of their human subject matter, we nursing scholars remain largely “literary innocents,” (Geertz, 1088, p. 24) unschooled in the techniques of the historian an biographer, and only marginally concerned with the re- flexivityand silences of tak (Barthes, 1982;). Recent nursing publications have addressed the dilemmas of discourse (Dickson, 1990; Hays, 1989) and nurses conducting quali- tative studies typically create conditions in which stories are told: yet, we have notexplored direct the storied nature of human interpretation and placed it at the center of our analyses. Accordingly, in this paper I consider narrative asa, framework for: a) understanding the human being as sub- _jectof nursing inquiry:b) conceptualizing theinterview; and (©) analyzing and interpreting interview data. Although narrative knowing assumes that all the parties in inquiry — research subjects, researchers, and readers of research — are narrators and places them in a hermeneutic circle of interpretation, I focus here on issues distinctively related to research respondents as narrators and on the interpretive possibilities for nursing in their narrations. I begin with a necessarily abbreviated overview of narrative knowing. In Search of Stories A prevailing conceptualization of narrative is that itisone ofmany modes of transforming knowing into telling (Mishler, 1986). Competing views of narrative are that it is che paradigmatic mode in which experience is shared and that ‘experience itself is storied, or it has a narrative pattern, Human beingsare “immersed innarratve,"telling themselves stories in a “virtually uninterrupted monologue” 162 (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 160) and tirelesl listening 0 and ‘ecognizingin heironm stores the toriesotothers Literary Scholar Roland Barthes (1982b) noted the “prodigious vx Fiery of genres” constituting naratives that ace present in language, image, gesture and myth, painting and conversa tion: Narraines assume many forms. They are heard, sen nd read: they are tol, performed, painted, sculpted and ‘mitten, ‘They are international, tranehistorical and trans Citra: ‘simply there, lke life sel (p. 252) ‘Narraiviteacron te dsciplines have many vewsof what ateling must consis of tobe labeled as narrative, variously tmphasiring sch Factors as rhythm and pacing, ime and place, human agency, categoriesofnaratorsand audiences, Eomplicating action and plot (Bal, 1985; Chatman, 1978; Polkinghorne, 198; Toolan, 1988)” Literarycrite Seymour Chatman (1973), for example, viewed narratives a having both contentandexpression thatare manifestedin diferent media, sich asthe novel film oF painting. Narratives are Composed ofastoryorfabala, comprised of actions happen: ings characters, setngs,discoumse oF plot — the way the Stony is communicated. ‘The same story clements may ac: Condingly, be ditferentiy plowed, resulting na variety of narratives, (Nursing theories might be viewed as different tarratives produced by diferent emplotmnents of nurse patient, environment and health). Sociolingust Witkam Tibor (1972) viewed acomplete oral narrative as composed ‘ofan abstract oF what the store is about an orientation, ot thewho, when, where and whatof the story:some compliat ingaction.orthe then-shathappend’san elation, othe somata resolution, or the whatfinally happend? and a Coda, ora signal thatthe story is over and return to the present (Aconventional seienafe research report a clinical fase suid may be viewed as orl or written narratives) ‘Generally, narratives are understood as sores that ine ciude a temporal ordering of events and an effort to make ‘Out ofthose events: to render, or to ign, the experiences of personein-isein a personally and eltorally Coherent, plaisblemanner, Narration eathresholdactty snthaeiecapairesa narrator sinterpretation ofalinksmong ‘lements of the past, present and future at liminal place ‘and eeting moment in ime (Churchill & Churchill, 1982) Narrators are socially postoned to tell stories at given biographical and bistoriealmomenteandunder theinfluence ‘of prowling cultural conventions surrounding storseling. the social contextof narration and the audience forateling (Braner, 1984; Polanyi, 1985; Rowldo, 1989) For example Westerners expect stories to have beginnings, middles nd tends that are meaningfully related to cach other. What in ‘one cultire constutesastorymayin another constitute lic (Tootan, 1988). Whatto one person constititesa good story toliveby forexampl, the traditional marriageantchildrea narrative for women) may to another person constitute a ory that must be resisted (Heilbrun, 1988; Personal Naar fives Group, 1989). Not surprisingly. the narrative conven tions and audiences in everyday conversations differ from those in formal research or clinical imterviews, Moreover, the relaionship between teller and listener i generally symmetrical in the conventional research or clinical in terview situation, ‘sith the interviewerlintencr typically dominantand often directing and even preventing or inter rupting respondenctellers' narrative efforts (Agar & Hobbs, 1982; Fisher, 1988; Fisher & Todd, 1983; Mishler, 1983, 1986; Todd, 1989), IMAGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship, Jn tellings, events are selected and then given cohesion, ‘meaning and direction; they are made to flow and are given a sense of linearity and even inevitability. The problem of telling is illuminated when itis understood as the necessity (of communicating the seeing-things together as one-thing- after another (Polkinghorne, 1988; Rosaldo, 1989). Liter- ary theorist Frank Kermode observed how advantageous it ‘was to find in life the simplicity of narrative order: to be able to say that when one thing happened, another thing hap- pened. The mind is put to rest by the illusion of sequence and order, the appearance of causality and the look of necessity (1967, p. 127). Narratives (like scientific theories) tidy things up — things thar in real life may (or even ought to) be left ving awkwardly around (Flumm, 1989, p. 52). Narration, therefore, constitutes a kind of: a) causal think: ing, in that stories are efforts io explore questionsof human. agency and explain lives; b) historical ( as opposed 0 scientific) understanding that events cannot be explained ‘except in retrospect; c) moral enterprise, in that stories are used to justify and serve as models for ives; and a kind of d) political undertaking, in that individuals often struggle 10 ‘create new narratives to protest a perceived storylessness in the old ones (Freeman, 1984; Heilbrun, 1988; Robinson & Hawpe, 1986, Rosaldo, 1989). ‘The imposition ofa narrative order on life illuminates the differences among what anthropologist Edward Bruner (1984) called a life-aslived (shat actually happened), life- asexperienced (the images, feelings, desires, thoughts, and ‘meanings known to the person whose life iis), and lifes: told (a narrative). Persons would have to be lewer-perfect copies of their culture, with no discrepancies among outer behavior, inner state, and, most importantly, how they chose tocharacterize these behaviorsand statesin stories,for there tobean ideal correspondenceamong their three lives. Alife history, or selfstory, or any personal account is sll a story, a representation of alife ata given moment rather than the lifeitself. Moreover, these representations do not simply re- present, but rather (re)construct lives in every act of telling for, at the very least, the outcome of any one telling is necessarily a revelling. Narrative Techniques Narratives have been studied from a variety of perspec- tives. Mishler (1986) summarized analyses of spoken nar- ratives as emphasizing: a) textual matters, or the syntactic and semantic devices internally connecting parts ofthe text, ) ideational matters, or the referential meaning of what is said; and ) interpersonal matters, or the role relationships between teller and listeneras reflected in speech. Narrative analyses have incorporated sociolinguistic, ethnomethodological and phenomenological techniques, (Agar & Hobbs, 1982; Paget, 1982; Swartz & Swartz, 1987) Narrative research can also be categorized as descriptive and explanatory (Polkinghorne, 1988). In descriptive nar- tative research, the researcher may seek to describe: a) ndividual and group narratives of life stories or particular life episodes: b) the conditions under which one storyline, ‘or emplounent and signification of events, prevails over, ‘coheres with, or conilicts with other storylines: e) the reli. Lionship benvcen individual storiesand the available cultural stock ofstories:and d) the function that certain life episod servesin individuals’ emplotment of their lives. In explana- ‘Volume 23, Number 3, Fall 1991 ling Stree Nara Apprecic in Quatre Rech tory narrative research, the researcher seeks to render an accounting via narrative of why something happened. Several narrative studies suggest approaches that can be developed for nursing inquiry. Susan Bell (1988) analyzed three stories told in the course of an interview with a DES {daughter to show how she became a political woman, Faye Ginsburg (1989) emphasized the narrative devices pro- choice and proslifeactivists usedto frame their lives. Marianne Paget (1982) interpreted the meaning of one story of a ‘medical error, attending to dialect, expressive phonology and structure. These studies illustrate how lives can be ‘understood, revealed and transformed in soriesand bythe very ‘act of storteling. Moreover, they demonstrate thatno single ‘method of transcription is adequate to every analytic task and that any transcription is necessarily incomplete. A transcription of a speech event is based on some (often implicit) theory of language, speech and social interaction and, therefore, servesdifferentanalyticpurposes (Atkinson, 1988; Mishler, 1986). For example, verbatim transcripts With strict notations of such features of talk as pauses, repetitions, false starts and asides are necessary for many kinds of narrative analyses based on the assumption of language asa structure, but not for constant comparison the service of generating grounded theory or for content analyses in the service of instrument development where language is assumed to be a transparent vehicle for com ‘municating information. Analysts can look for narrative forms in naturally oceur- ring aecountsand graph individuals’ storylines, labeling life events by age and an interpretation of the respondents evaluation of those events. Respondents an also beasked 10 ‘graph their own story lines, itemizing relevant (varying with the purpose of inquiry) life events, when they occurred and their evaluativeresponses (happy/tinhappy, high/low point). In one study using this storyline technique, the Gergens (1988) found that the most common narrative form used by college students in depicting the first 20 years of their lives was the comedy. Interestingly, this form approximated the ‘ypical middle-class American cultural myth of childhood as happy. of adolescence as time of conilictand ofthe college years as happy again. This finding affirmed the argument ‘hatlife storiesare communal or cultural products with their forms often constrained by the narrative storylines available to communicate them. In addition, the Gergens (1988) found that although respondents agreed that adolescence was a low time, the varied in the selection of events con twibuting to these low points. Again, emphasizing the communal nature of narrative forms, they provocatively suggested that the respondents might have been more influenced by the prevailing cultural narrative about what adolescent life isand must have been than by any specific life fevent perse Using such narrative models, researchers can gain insight {nto the way human beings understand and enact their lives through stories. For example, in my own interviews with infertile couples, T ave noticed that they variously portray themselves as romantic questers who get close to but are continually thwarted from achieving fertility (the often- ‘ited rollercoaster effect), as tragic and ironic heroes fate- fully unaware of and forever marked by their infertility, oras somewhat comic travelers on theroad of tials o parenthood ‘who ultimately prevail after many reversals. These infertility storiesare recognizable to measallstener, readerandwriter 163 “TelingSorer: Narmne Aprachesia Quan Research of infertility stories, and asamember ofa pronatalistculture thatpitiescouples unable voconceive,siews the achievement Df pregnancy as the best resohition to infertility and values persistence in the pursuit of goals until success is achieved. In contrast, one of the respondent couples (especially the wife) protested the familiar cultural narrative that married couples and, most particularly, women, want children of their own, that infertility is tragic and adoption isa second: best way to become a parent. This couple's story stood out from the others because infertility never functioned as a factor moving them away from a goal (biological parent- hood), but rather as one moving them toward a goal (alter- natively presented as voluntary childlessness or adoptive parenthood). This couples’ narrative was characterized by awe-are-different trope; they viewed themselvesas different from other infertile couples in always being more attracted to adoption than pregnancy as a means of achieving par- tenthood, in having experienced ambivalence toward having children at all, and in feeling less anxious about having to wait for a child to adopt than other infertile and adopting couples. Moreover, their characterization of themselves as different rang true when they mentioned that friends had told them that infertility had happened to the right couple because oftheir low investment in pregnancy. Significantly, this couple's story revealed their recognition of, but protest against, typical infertility stories in which infertility isplotted. 38 a negative event, In searching for emplotments, researchers look for the ways respondents (re)sort life events to create differently formed narratives, for a story once told as a wagedy can become a romance of comedy in another telling. Narrative forms reveal individuals’ construction of past and future life events at given moments in time. Analysts ean look for ‘model and variantnarrativeformsin individualsexperiencing ‘common events (pregnancy, illness, hospitalization). Re- versalsin story linesand the steepness of upand

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