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Article published In:
Methodology of Narrative Study: What the first thirty years of Narrative Inquiry have revealed
Edited by Allyssa McCabe and Dorien Van De Mieroop
[Narrative Inquiry 31:1] 2021
► pp. 49–71

Doing narrative analysis from a narratives-as-practices perspective

ORCID logo | Georgetown University
In this paper I lay out some of the main theoretical methodological principles that underlie a narratives-as-practices approach and discuss three foci that emerge from current research and pave the way for future investigations. In particular, I focus on mobility, connectivity, time/space anchoring and chronotopicity as both characteristics of narrative and research areas which allow for an integration of the focus of interactional approaches on emergence with a consideration of the historical and social embedding of narratives into practices. I review recent research that has contributed to this trend in narrative studies and discuss some of the limitations of current work and areas that need further investigation. I advocate for an expansion of research on a wider variety of practices, attention to the characteristics of narrative genres, and in general a stronger critical engagement with ways in which narratives participate in social processes involving power and inequality.
Keywords: narrative practices, stories, storytelling, ethnography, reflexivity, chronotopes
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Narratives-as-practices
    • Practice as a concept
  • Theoretical methodological principles
    • From the bottom up
    • The wholeness of the storytelling event
  • Foci of analysis
    • Mobility
    • Connectivity
    • Time/space anchoring and chronotopicity
  • Current developments in research on narratives-as-practices
  • Discussion and conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 17 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.20067.def
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