The Narrative Practice Research Network is excited to share this special issue of The Qualitative Report showcasing NPRN members’ innovative work at the intersections of narrative therapy/community work and qualitative research.
NPRN spent 12 months working with researchers and practitioners to develop this collection, beginning with a symposium at Dulwich Centre in November 2023.
The Qualitative Report is a Q1 peer-reviewed journal dedicated to developing qualitative, critical and collaborative research. It has a long history of engagement with family therapy and narrative practice.
These papers are available on an Open Access basis here and on TQR’s website. More papers will be added as they are published throughout December 2024.
Narrative practice and research: A special issue of The Qualitative Report
Narrative Practice Research Network special issue introduction: Qualitative research meets narrative therapy and community work: A confluence of practice and politics (Denborough et al., 2024)
Denborough, D., Nettle, C., St. George, S., & Wulff, D. (2024). Narrative Practice Research Network special issue introduction: Qualitative research meets narrative therapy and community work: A confluence of practice and politics. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 9-21. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7825
Abstract:
This special issue, a collaboration between The Qualitative Report and the Narrative Practice Research Network, is a rich and diverse collection of papers linking Narrative Therapy/Community Work and qualitative research. In four sections, authors explore narrative practice research innovations, practitioners doing research and influencing practice via Research as Daily Practice, insider knowledge/insider research towards broader social movement politics, and research in service of broader change. The special issue organizers and contributors hope this collection leads to more conversation and collaboration.
Time travelling with Ron Chenail, Sally St. George, Dan Wulff, and David Denborough: An interview about connecting histories of family therapy, narrative therapy and qualitative research (Denborough, 2024)
Denborough, D. (2024). Time travelling with Ron Chenail, Sally St. George, Dan Wulff, and David Denborough: An interview about connecting histories of family therapy, narrative therapy and qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7799
Abstract:
Dear Readers, we have a question for you: Do you know about the origins and history of the journals you decide to submit your manuscripts to for publication? We are most pleased to present to you an interview with the three Co-Editors-in-Chief of TQR (Ron Chenail, Sally St. George, and Dan Wulff) and David Denborough of Dulwich Centre delving into the origins of TQR in the early 1990s. The roots of TQR were intertwined with family therapy authors and practitioners (Tom Andersen, Michael White, and many others) and that continues today. We think that you will find these historical relationships and influences to be fascinating and instructive in understanding how one qualitative research journal came into being and how it is positioning itself to go forward. We are using this interview to introduce this special issue on practice-based research, in particular, narrative therapy and research.
Continuing to become other: Responding to the complexities of the shifting subject in qualitative research through a narrative therapy lens (Penwarden, 2024)
Penwarden, S. (2024). Continuing to become other: Responding to the complexities of the shifting subject in qualitative research through a narrative therapy lens. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 22-35. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7800
Abstract:
According to anthropologist Bruner (1987), “stories may have endings, but stories are never over” (p. 17). This notion, of people continuing to tell and retell their life stories to craft preferred ways of living, is a key concept within narrative therapy (Denborough, 2014). However, this concept of the subject whose stories change over time is, at face value, a challenge to the validity of qualitative research data which is seen as enduring over time. Bearing in mind St. Pierre’s (2021) call to continue to reinvent qualitative research in line with the poststructuralist moment, I consider what it might offer qualitative research to view a participant not as static and fixed, but as unfinalized across time. In this regard, I utilize narrative therapy’s view of a person as shifting over time (Combs & Freedman, 2016). I propose three sets of implications for a fluid view of a person for qualitative research: methodological implications in viewing interviews as a slice of life, or as part of longitudinal stories; implications for a researcher in how they relate to their limited knowledge claims with epistemic humility; and practice innovations to invite participants to acknowledge their own unfinalizability and potential to change over time. These implications invite a researcher to ally with the implicitly therapeutic possibilities of qualitative research, which not only describe what is, but opens potential to know what may be.
The experience and identity interview: Narrative therapy in research interviewing (Conti et al., 2024)
Conti, J. E., Calder, J. T. M., & Rankin, R. (2024). The experience and identity interview: Narrative therapy in research interviewing. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 36-61. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7801
Abstract:
In this paper we introduce “The Experience and Identity Interview” (EII) and demonstrate ways that this qualitative research interview can be used to engage participants in talk that scaffolds between their experiences, the meanings they ascribe to these, and their identity (re)negotiations. In doing so, there is scope to generate rich interview data that addresses a range of research questions. Drawing on the paradigm of narrative therapy, the EII generates a collaborative dialogical space wherein both researchers and research participants may co-contribute to the unpacking of normative discourses that shape participants’ usual ways of speaking about their lived experiences, thereby revealing previously hidden identities. In this paper we demonstrate the key phases of the EII and illustrate its efficacy in generating rich qualitative research data. Importantly, we propose that the EII also upholds a crucial ethical principle in qualitative interviewing: to empower participants as active agents in telling the stories of their lives. This is uniquely achieved in the EII through interview questions that invite participants to engage in (re)authoring conversations that reconnect them to key identity narratives that have been lost to dominant storylines. In doing so, researchers are well-placed to mitigate the risk of potential harm through minimizing the reproduction of problematic narratives that can have real effects on participants’ lives.
Exploring the incommensurability of the interview in postqualitative research: A narrative practice-informed approach (Strauven, 2024)
Strauven, S. (2024). Exploring the incommensurability of the interview in postqualitative research: A narrative practice-informed approach. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 62-81. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7802
Abstract:
My starting point in this paper is the question of whether the interview, as a method to contribute knowledge, has become incommensurable and thus superfluous within post-qualitative research frameworks. I take seriously the critiques posited by scholars in the field of post-qualitative inquiry and seek to clarify the generative possibilities of aligning interviews with a post-structural paradigm. My incorporation of narrative practices into this exploration not only grounds the discussion in a narrative practice-based methodology but also offers readers practical ideas for addressing the challenges of paradigmatic congruency. This approach signals a methodological innovation, and I propose a practical process for scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in reflecting on their interview practices and methodological responsibilities. In doing so, I hope this paper can serve as a resource for those seeking to navigate the intricate landscape of qualitative research methodologies, contributing to ongoing discussions and advancing the field with narrative-practice informed research practices.
How might one practice? Producing possibilities through co-research as a daily practice of a minor science (Mullkoff, 2024)
Mullkoff, M. (2024). How might one practice? Producing possibilities through co-research as a daily practice of a minor science. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 82-95. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7803
Abstract:
Narrative practice is a broad field which includes therapy, community work, and research methods, all of which are less rigidly defined as they are connected through resonant ethics. In this paper I explore a practice I have developed in my early years as a narrative therapist asking the question, “If coming to talk to me were part of a Project— although not necessarily the first part, nor the most important part—what would that Project be called?” Through a reflexive process of aspiring towards narrative research principles of co-research, committing to relational ethics (which is grounded and contextual, rather than codified), and engaging with alternative theories of research (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Epston, 1999; Epston & White, 1992; St. George et al., 2015), I come to the understanding of my therapy practice as “Co-Research as Daily Practice of a Minor Science.” I present the “findings” of this research, as it pertains to the Project Question, and explore the ways that conducting the research will impact the way I use the Project Question in therapy sessions. Rather than the modernist notion that evidence-based practices are how one ought to practice, this process produces possibilities for how one might practice.
Designing research to produce usable knowledge from archives that have significant ethical and privacy constraints (Semeschuk, 2024)
Semeschuk, K. (2024). Designing research to produce usable knowledge from archives that have significant ethical and privacy constraints. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 96-106. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7804
Abstract:
Archives are sometimes imagined to be dusty repositories of historical documents. The considerations of care and ethical practice at the heart of qualitative research with active participants may not seem relevant. However, when archives contain sensitive information about people, living or no longer living, and those people cannot be consulted about the use of the materials, significant ethical issues arise. This paper offers innovative ways of balancing a desire to explore the treasures of a highly sensitive archive with rigorous attention to the rights and interests of those whose stories the archive holds. Based on research with a video archive of recorded therapy sessions left by Michael White, the co-originator of narrative therapy, my paper sets out a series of innovative responses to ethical considerations about the right to privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity. These include strategies to anonymize data while retaining context, re-presenting material in the archive so that it could be shared, creating a role for an advocate on behalf of people recorded in the archive, and using subjective learnings from the archive as a basis for collective practice-based research. This enabled the generation of research findings that are directly applicable to practitioners. The practices described make possible an “opening” of a previously locked archive. They also set out a possible pathway for others seeking to conduct research with highly sensitive archives.
A review of the edited collection, Narrative research now: Critical perspectives on the promise of stories (Lainson, 2024)
Lainson, K. (2024). A review of the edited collection, Narrative research now: Critical perspectives on the promise of stories. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 107-111. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7805
Abstract:
Narrative Research Now: Critical Perspectives on the Promise of Stories, edited by Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn (2024), is a compelling and engagingly written collection of research projects, or stories, that showcase use of narrative in research. This review, written through the lens of a narrative therapy and community work practitioner-researcher, asks what resonances and points of interest the collection may hold for the narrative therapy and practice research field. Congruent themes highlighted include nuanced ethical caretaking, concern for matters of social justice, bringing forth subordinated knowledge, centering lived experience, paying attention to the politics of representation, and researcher transparency when grappling with complex decision-making. Traversing diverse social, ethical, and creative terrains, while carrying people at its heart, this wonderfully crafted collection is an exciting offering. This review proposes that in its interlacing of storytelling, academic endeavor, and context-relevant ethics to produce meaningful, transformative research innovations, Narrative Research Now has much to offer narrative therapy and community work practitioner-researchers by way of inspiration, companionship, consultation, and possibility.
Researcher as insider: Bringing together narrative therapy practices and feminist lived experience methodologies in the context of suicide research (Sather, 2024)
Sather, M. (2024). Researcher as insider: Bringing together narrative therapy practices and feminist lived experience methodologies in the context of suicide research. The Qualitative Report, 29(1), 112–129. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7806
Abstract:
This paper contains a demonstration of the value of feminist insider research. Through bringing together principles of feminist insider research, narrative therapy theory and practice, and my positionality as a researcher, a narrative therapist, and a woman who lost her husband to suicide, I developed a research methodology that was sensitive and effective in exploring the lived experiences and insider knowledge of women who have lost a male partner to suicide. Careful utilisation of my insider positionality benefited the research in multiple ways, from recruitment and care of participants to data analysis and knowledge production, to the generation of research outcomes that were meaningful to participants and practitioners as well as academics. In this paper, I reflect critically on my positionality and how it was brought to bear on this research, noting the power relations involved as well as the access that my status granted me, and the (tacit) knowledges that I could draw from during the research process. This paper is filled with the benefits to research conducted from an insider position, particularly for topics associated with shame and stigma, as well as offers of possible responses to the complexities involved.
Revisiting insider practices: Ethical considerations, practices, and hopes for doing community work and narrative research in and about our own communities (Sostar et al., 2024)
Sostar, T., Fawaz, N. V., Trimble, E., Markarian, T. O., & Noble, B. (2024). Revisiting insider practices: Ethical considerations, practices, and hopes for doing community work and narrative research in and about our own communities. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 129–150. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7807
Abstract:
In this paper, we describe the hopes, considerations, and questions of a narrative practice research collaboration among three closely connected transgender (trans) and/or non-binary collaborators, in a collection of work meant to support trans, non-binary, and gender expansive life and in response to trans death at a time of increasing hostility toward trans communities. We apply a specific focus on inquiring into how to do narrative therapy and community work research in and about our own communities, and what the ethical, relational and methodological practices for this work might be. We do this through reflecting on existing literature related to insider research in the field of narrative therapy and community work and in qualitative research more broadly, reflecting on our own practices of collaboration, and imagining possibilities for ourselves and other researchers working with and within their own communities. We describe our insider-outsider-insider positioning, how we understand this to be shaping our work, and share our ongoing curiosities about how to move through this work together.
Resisting ableism in research design (Hosking, 2024)
Hosking, G. (2024). Resisting ableism in research design. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 151–168. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7808
Abstract:
This paper explores how ableist assumptions can unintentionally create barriers to participation in research by those of non-normative bodies or minds. In traditional epistemology, bodies are considered “universal” rather than “specific,” and the universal body is coded as fully able-bodied and independent with brain and body adhering to normative standards of the White heterosexual English-speaking male. In this article, I present a story of “enabling participation” for those of diverse body capacity in my work with young women living with chronic illness. Specifically, I explore the accommodations and adaptions I made to my research design to account for the non-normative form and function of my participants’ bodies and my own. Using the method of participant action research, the research participants became research co-collaborators as we collectively developed resources based on insider knowledge. Through sharing the story of my research, I invite other researchers to consider ways of enabling participation for a diverse array of bodies and minds in their own research.
Research as respect: Elevating the knowledge and stories of men at an Aboriginal-controlled residential alcohol and drug recovery service (Hammersley et al., 2024)
Hammersley, M., Stanley, L., & Smith, G. (2024). Research as respect: Elevating the knowledge and stories of men at an Aboriginal-controlled residential alcohol and drug recovery service. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 169–189. https://doi.org/ 10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7809
Abstract:
This conversation between an Aboriginal Elder, an Aboriginal senior manager/practitioner, and a non-Aboriginal narrative therapist/groupworker centres on a social research project they undertook with men residing in an Aboriginal men’s alcohol and other drug recovery service in Melbourne, Australia. The men were invited to contribute accounts of what was important in their lives and the practices that supported positive developments in their time at the facility. The men, manager, and a community Elder directed a research process that prioritised the use of these accounts to contribute to the lives of other men. The men resident at the facility provided access to transcripts of narrative therapy counselling and groupwork sessions, which were then examined using a narrative inquiry methodology. The men described the importance to them of identities as Aboriginal men, fathers, and family and community members. They gave accounts of how the service had contributed to significant developments in these identities. Key themes included the Aboriginal-managed nature of the service, providing an environment free from judgment, supporting recovery, healing, and re-connection with culture. Relationships with staff differed from those experienced by the men in other services: including respect for culture, being “on the same level,” sharing of experiences, and different approaches to role boundaries. As an outcome of the research, training materials were produced from the words of participants to promote respectful support and therapeutic practices. The project also illuminated the contributions that people subject to therapy, casework, and research make to the professional and personal lives of practitioners and researchers. In the words of Elder Les Stanley, “In a research project like this, everyone changes.”
Amplifying Ratego stories and knowledges: A co-research initiative with young mothers in social movements in East Africa (Mrema et al., 2024)
Mrema, D., Orawo, P. N., Otieno, L., Jha, J., Kalisa, J., & Nyirinkwaya, S. (2024). Amplifying Ratego stories and knowledges: A co-research initiative with young mothers in social movements in East Africa. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 190–218. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7810
Abstract:
Young mothers can be negatively affected by dominant and degrading cultural narratives; their stories of resistance and activism are often rendered invisible in broader social contexts. Informed by collective narrative practice methodologies, we undertook a counter-storytelling research project to elicit and acknowledge the stories of survival and sustenance of young mothers in social movements responding to sexual and gender-based violence in East Africa. We facilitated storytelling circles, incorporating various story and knowledges collection methods. Our approach involved documenting collective experiences and counter-narratives, exchanging stories between communities, and inviting young mothers to respond to other participants’ stories. The telling and retelling of stories of survival and resistance in the face of hardship appeared to be a healing and reinvigorating process which affirmed young mothers’ desire to create social change for themselves, their children, and their communities. The ethics of interweaving individual and collective voices, language justice, collaborative editing, and telling stories in participants’ preferred ways involving songs, dances, and artefacts beyond the written word proved to be significant in the process. Enabling the telling and witnessing of personal and collective stories through means beyond written and spoken words proved valuable in eliciting important topics and ethics for collaborative inquiries with activist young mothers.
Research as seeking help: Searching for liberative knowledge: An interview with Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese (Tamasese & Denborough, 2024)
Abstract:
Indigenous methodologies have been transforming social science research. In this interview, Pasifika researcher, policy analyst, and community worker, Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese, speaks with narrative therapist David Denborough about the Just Therapy Team’s significant contributions to developing Pasifika research methods that resist colonizing assumptions and honour culture and relationship. Rather than seeking to establish the researcher as knowledge holder, The Just Therapy Team’s research is guided by values of liberation, sacredness, and belonging to seek solutions to issues affecting communities. Taimalieutu describes the development of innovative research methods capable of eliciting Indigenous knowledges about gender relations and mental health in Samoa to support communities in addressing interpersonal violence. This involved finding ways to work beyond text, embracing art and spirituality, and grappling with the complexities of translation.
Building a community of inquiry around narrative practice (McLeod, 2024)
Abstract:
This paper offers a commentary and reflection on papers included in the Narrative Practice Research Network Special Issue of The Qualitative Report. A brief introductory account is offered around the distinctive nature of narrative therapy and community work, in contrast to more widely used models of therapy. Challenges and dilemmas associated with research into counselling and psychotherapy are discussed. It is suggested that the work of the Narrative Practice Research Network represents a promising means of addressing these challenges through a combination of grounding in practice, commitment to an ethics of care, and creative reconceptualization of standard research tools such as qualitative interviews. The paper then moves on to consider possibilities around the further development of the Narrative Practice Research Network as a community of inquiry that supports dialogue among narrative researchers and practitioners, service users, and colleagues from other disciplines. The paper concludes by identifying the task of decolonialization of both therapy practice and research as an essential dimension of this field of work.
Sarah Penwarden introduces her paper, “Continuing to become other: Responding to the complexities of the shifting subject in qualitative research through a narrative therapy lens,” which is included in the special issue of The Qualitative Report.
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