Story Archive June 24, 2002 (Page 1 of 1)

Notes from Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research by D. Jean Clandin and F. Michael Connelly

3-Dimensional Narrative Inquiry Space	Interaction (personal/social) Continuity (past, present, future) Place (situation)
Inquirers travel	Interaction (inward and outward) Continuity (forward and backward) Place (travels situated in place)
Inward travels	toward internal conditions (feelings, hopes, aesthetic reactions, moral dispositions)
Outward travels	toward existential conditions of the environment
"being in the midst"
reaching across autobiographical boundaries if possible	narrative analysis starts with autobiography of the researcher (the researchers own narrative of experience) in order to "acknowledge the centrality of the researcher's own experience"
documentation	field --> field texts --> research texts
fall in love (in the field)	coolly observe (while creating field texts)
narrative inquirers...	...be aware of the narratives at work in the research space ...imagine how these many narratives might intersect ...anticipate potential emerging narrative threads ...records actions, doings, and happenings (all are narrative expressions)
field texts	teacher stories autobiographical writing journal writing field notes letters conversation research interviews family stories/stories of family artifacts (documents, photos, memory boxes) life experiences
research texts	theoretical (narrative inquiries begin with experience, not theory) practical, field text-oriented (we shift from living the stories with our participants to retelling the stories in the research text...discovering and constructing meaning in our field texts interpretive-analytic (What are the meanings of our field texts? What does it make a difference to try to figure out the meanings, or possible meanings? Deal with matters of character, place, scene, plot, tension, end point, narrator, context, tone) Look for: patterns, narrative themes, tensions, themes