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

2. ‘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)

4. 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?

5. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. Visual narratives/ collective narratives

9. 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