Narrative Inquiry and Transformative Possibilities Jane Speedy, University of Bristol Maynooth, 2009

‘Among my people, questions are often answered with stories ‘Among my people, questions are often answered with stories. The first story almost always evokes another, which summons another, until the answer to the question has become several stories long. A sequence of tales is thought to offer broader and deeper insight than a single story alone.’ Pinkola Estes, C. (1993) The gift of story: A wise tale about what is enough, Rider, London, (p.i)

Outsider witness responses What are the expressions of life that struck a chord for you? Did any images spring to mind? What stories from your own life did this account evoke? Did witnessing this account make any difference, were you taken anywhere unexpected?

The stories I want to tell you will light up part of my life and leave the rest in darkness. You don’t need to know everything. There is no everything. The stories themselves make the meaning. The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit up moments and the rest is dark. (Winterson, 2004:134)

Why are they narrative conversations? We are interested in the narrative constructions of identity We are interrogating the sediments, traces and clues to plot, time, place and space We are concerned not only with issues of description and personal transformation, but also with emancipation * auto/biographical time, cultural time, mythical time, social-relational time, narrative time over time)

Landscape of consciousness (meanings) Post-structuralist Interviewing in Practice …where are the gaps, cracks and liminal spaces? Where are the social relational spaces and what are the sustaining and non-sustaining discourses at play Landscape of consciousness (meanings) Past present Future Landscape of action & practices (events)

Visual narratives/ collective narratives

Booklist and further reading Written narratives Richardson, L and St Pierre, E (2005) Writing: a method of inquiry, in Denzin, N and Lincoln, Y (Eds.) Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Spoken Narratives White, M and Epston, D (1991) Narrative means to therapeutic ends, Norton, new York Bird , J (2004) Talk that Sings: therapy in a new linguistic key, Edge Press, Auckland Visual Narratives Arnheim, R (1997) Visual Thinking, Los Angeles: UCP Luttrell, W (2003) Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds, New York: Routledge Collective narratives Davies, B and Gannon, S (2006) Doing Collective Biography, Milton Keynes, Open University Press Over views Riessman, C (2008) Narrative methods for the human Sciences, Thousand oaks: Sage Speedy, J (2008) Narrative inquiry and Psychotherapy, Hound Mills: Palgrave