Narrative research and the challenge of accumulating knowledge

Author: Josselson, Ruthellen¹

Source: Narrative Inquiry, Volume 16, Number 1, 2006 , pp. 3-10(8)

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Purchase options

The full text electronic article is available for purchase. You will be able to download the full text electronic article after payment.

$36.48 plus tax Refund Policy

More like this?

In this: publication
By this: publisher
In this Subject: Literature
By this author: Josselson, Ruthellen

Content Key:

- Free

- New

- Open Access

- Subscribed

- Free Trial

Abstract:

Narrative research has produced an array of richly-detailed expositions of life as lived, well-interpreted studies full of nuance and insight that befit the complexity of human lives. This paper inquires into the necessity and possibilities of amalgamation of knowledge obtained through narrative research. As narrative studies, with their accompanying interpretations, accumulate, how do we “add them up?” What would a meta-analysis of narrative studies look like? The challenge that confronts us is how assimilate narrative understanding at a conceptual level in a way that does not return to a modernist frame, treating the various research reports as “facts” — but rather to treat them as situated interpretations. Conversation is offered as a metaphor and context within which knowledge is to be understood.

Keywords: Conversation; Hermeneutics; Narrative Research

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1075/ni.16.1.03jos

Affiliations: 1: Fielding Graduate University