Narrative Analysis
Narrative analysis refers to a family of analytic methods for interpreting texts that have in common a storied form. As in all families, there is conflict and disagreement among those holding different perspectives.
The term narrative is illusive, carrying many meanings and used in a variety of ways by different scholars, often used synonymously with story. In the familiar everyday form, a speaker connects events to a sequence that is consequential for later action and for the meanings listeners are supposed to take away from the story. Events are perceived as important, selected, organized, connected, and evaluated as meaningful for a particular listener.
Narrative analysts ask the following questions: For whom was the story constructed and for what purpose? How is it composed? What cultural resources does it draw on or take for granted? What storehouse of cultural plots does it call up? What does the story accomplish? Are there gaps and inconsistencies that might suggest preferred, alternative, or counter narratives? There are many ways to narrate an experience: How a speaker, writer, or visual artist chooses to do it is significant, suggesting lines of inquiry that would be missed without focused attention or close reading. Some investigators in the social sciences attend to language, form, and social context (including audience) more than others do.
Elliot Mishler contrasts category-centered approaches in social research, which strip individuals of agency and consciousness, with case-based approaches that can restore agency in research and theory; individuals are respected as subjects with histories and intentions. The study of cases can generate categories or, to put it differently, theoretical generalization; the histories of the physical and social sciences are full of examples where theoretical propositions were derived from close study of individual instances. Narrative analysis joins this long tradition of case-centered inquiry, interrogating stories developed in interviews and fieldwork and in archival documents and visual media.