Narrative Inquiry: Responses to Critique

Narrative inquiry methodology challenges traditional research methodologies and “appears to reaffirm the plurality of stories that different cultures and subcultures may tell about themselves” (Hinchman & Hinchman, 1997, p. xiv). For narrative inquiry, no one truth exists, and storytelling often becomes an act of resistance against a dominant paradigm of rationality as the research participant can justify his or her actions or reactions throughout a narrative account. When conducted in a reflexive manner, narrative inquiry provides the possibility of reaching across the divide between researchers and the researched, giving marginalized communities the ability to take part in telling their own stories. In these cases narrative research serves as a conduit across static boundaries and objective notions of researchers gaining unmitigated access to the lives and experiences of their participants. And in so doing, this inquiry affords the reader the potential to see the relationship between the researcher and the researched and consequently the points that are tacitly accented or understated in the act of storytelling.

Plainly stated, narrative research highlights the fact that as long as there have been people, there have been stories by and about people. However, looking beyond the story itself, narrative inquiry focuses on who tells the story and how it is told. As with any other research methodology, narrative inquiry has its critics. We discuss three areas of criticism in the next section: (1) narrative inquiry and questions concerning reliability, objectivity, generalizability, and validity; (2) storytelling as therapeutic rather than analytic; and (3) the authenticity of the representation of narratives by narrative inquirers.

Reliability, Objectivity, Generalizability, and Validity

Such research elements as reliability, objectivity, generalizability, and validity are typically used as part of quantitative research measurement techniques that challenge qualitative research methodologies, including narrative inquiry (Mishler, 1990; Pinnegar & Dayne, 2007). In quantitative research, reliability indicates consistency and stability; objectivity represents separation between researcher and research participant; generalizability demonstrates predictability and control; and validity is equated with certainty (Webster & Mertova, 2007). These quantitative research elements are used as part of attempts to categorize research data and view them from an objective stance, generalizing in order to be efficient. These values and assumptions conflict with the philosophical underpinnings of narrative inquiry, which acknowledges human experience to be dynamic and constantly in a state of flux.

Reliability

Reliability in narrative research most often refers to dependability and trustworthiness of the data (Polkinghorne, 1988). And when considering trustworthiness, a narrative researcher is concerned that the story or narrative is recognizable to the participant storyteller and illustrative of the storyteller's experience. Narrative inquiry focuses on individual stories and experiences that expect and value differences between individuals (Webster & Mertova, 2007). The power of narrative inquiry lies in its ability to mine the unique insights and tacit understandings that inherently reside within and form the basis for the stories that we tell.

Objectivity

Narrative research dismisses the notion that research is a neutral activity. Similar to researchers from varied strands of qualitative research, narrative researchers suggest that the very desire to search for an objective stance within a person's lived experience is subjective in and of itself. Further, in the case of narrative research, the parts of a story that a participant chooses to highlight and the aspects of that story that a researcher most vividly reports are subjective as well. Alan Rumsey (2000) writes, “The landscape is read by walking over it” (p. 172), suggesting that narrative inquiry highlights the ways that each environment or landscape is different. Rumsey gives an example: someone could point to a rock formation and say, “There, that's the story.” Speech relays the message but cannot serve an independent role to tell the whole story. Thus it is not simply the words, the rock, or the person, but instead the actual transaction between all three that is communicated through a narrative that provides rich and meaningful information.

Generalizability

In regard to generalizability, narrative inquirers look for the unique and significant meanings within a particular event. Narrative inquiry studies therefore tend to have a limited number of participants (small sample size) when compared to quantitative studies. This focus on the local and particular, as opposed to an expansive and general unit of analysis, contributes to narrative research's capacity for deep exploration and explanation of a phenomenon (see also Chapter Three, Grounded Theory). Consequently, whereas quantitative methods help researchers understand the what, where, and when of a phenomenon, qualitative approaches, and narrative research in particular, provide insight into how and why a phenomenon occurs (Creswell, 2005).

Validity

In a review of Catherine Riessman's book (2008) on narrative methods, Duque (2009) summarizes Riessman's view that the validity of narrative inquiry lies in a narrative's “ability to inform future studies and contribute to social change by empowering participants” (para. 25). Clearly this is an ambitious aim and is in direct conflict with quantitative approaches to research that aspire to objectivity. Duque concludes, however, that “these issues should serve as impetus for scholarly debates and ‘added diversity’ (Riessman, 2008 p. 200) in the field” (para. 25). We have found that a central part of informing future studies and subsequently empowering our participants in the way that Riessman describes as valid has been our ability to recognize critical events (Webster & Mertova, 2007) in our participants' stories. Critical events are important events recounted by the research participant and, as such, deserve focus from the researcher. Local knowledge informs the story and the researcher about cultural and personal interactions. What constitutes a critical event for narrative researchers is directly related to the relationship between the researcher and the participant. The researcher must be knowledgeable enough about the experiences of the individuals and community that he or she is researching to recognize what is critical and what is peripheral to the stories that participants are relaying. This recognition constitutes a meaningful type of validity.

Validity in narrative research emphasizes the inquirer's and even the participant's desire to understand. Jean McNiff (2007) explores issues of validity through an idea of goodness, focusing specifically on what counts as authentic practice and ethical research accounts. He writes, “I ask whether my work and my account may be judged as good, as I question whether my responsibility is to do good in the world or tell a good story” (p. 309). This conception of good is not simply a question for the researcher. It must be conceptualized against the backdrop of what participants consider to be a good representation, understanding, use, and so forth of their experiences. Further, the research must be conducted in a manner that recognizes that regardless of how detailed an account is, the distance between the research participants and the researcher can never be completely bridged because there is no unmediated access to the research participants' thoughts and actions. To facilitate the researcher's further inquiry into these issues, McNiff offers the following questions for the researcher-inquirer to understand and explain what he or she is doing (p. 310):

• What is my concern?
• Why am I concerned?
• What kind of experience can I describe to show the reasons for my concerns?
• What can I do about it? What will I do about it?

McNiff further explains, “For me, whether my story should be accepted is not a case of whether it abides by the conventions of the orthodox canon but whether the validity I am claiming for it can be justified” (p. 310). Hence what the narrative researcher obtains and subsequently how he or she presents or represents this information challenge status quo approaches to research that place the historically disenfranchised further on the margins by weighting the measures of accuracy and validity on the side of the researcher. Building on McNiff's earlier comments, we argue that narrative inquiry instead holds the potential for participants to play a greater role in justifying the validity of the narratives that researchers construct.

In contrast, in more orthodox approaches to research there is a clearly defined bifurcation between the researcher (rational subject) who produces knowledge and the researched (object under study) from whom the information is mined to create knowledge. Thinking of validity from a narrative perspective invites multiple epistemologies (ways of knowing), ontologies (ways of being), and axiologies (ways of valuing and judging) from research participants. As a result, narrative inquiry offers researchers the space to write stories with the expressed intent of capturing and engaging the experiences of their participants in a more complete and democratic manner than objectivist approaches to research allow. Therefore, the label and influence associated with being the subject or object—or the knower or known—are problematized; as opposed to there being a researcher and a participant, in a narrative inquiry there are costorytellers negotiating the spoken and unspoken landscape, events, understandings, and insights of which a given story consists.

Storytelling as Therapeutic

Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner (2000) write, “If you are a storyteller rather than a story analyst then your goal becomes therapeutic rather than analytic” (p. 745). As educational researchers we do not feel particularly affected by this critique, yet we understand how this could affect researchers in educational psychology, especially in counseling and therapy professions. Regardless of the field in which we situate our inquiry, however, we acknowledge the power of stories to influence people's thinking and subsequently the ways they make sense out of phenomena. For instance, in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January of 2010, American televangelist Pat Robertson is infamously remembered for his comments that the natural disaster that the small island nation faced was the product of a pact that Haiti made with the devil to gain its independence from French imperialists in the early nineteenth century. Despite the absurdity and outright racist connotations inherent in this explanation of Haiti's recent calamities, the decision to conceptualize the events through the narrative that Robertson presents clearly has different implications for an analyst of the tragic events—Does it accurately describe the event?—than for a therapist—Does it provide possibilities for psychic relief for the Haitian population? For narrative research, this distinction (accuracy versus psychic relief) provides the opportunity to contextualize and historicize the explanatory power or validity of Robertson's story against that of the counter-stories of the Haitian population. This distinction also highlights the contested nature of stories in general, causing us to give serious consideration to the perspectives of the story teller, those whom the story is told to, and those about whom the story is told.

Authentic Representation and Reproduction of Narratives

Another criticism of narrative inquiry is that narrative inquirers represent narratives as if they were authentic when the distortion of data may occur in any study. The events of stories may be too traumatic to recall, or the narrator may fear reprisal or simply have forgotten the events. This possible distortion of stories occurs for autobiographical narratives as well. Atkinson and Delamont (2006), for example, commented that

We agree with this critique, noting that cultural conventions shape human experience. As researchers we particularly consider here our research with marginalized populations. We wonder how the research participants were influenced by our cultural background and life experiences. We question whether the research participants were able to tell more or less of their stories—or preferred not to tell certain parts—because of our roles as insiders or outsiders of their respective communities.

So we return to our Haitian example in which Robertson posits a supernatural explanation for the disaster that is rooted in contrasting worldviews between evangelical Christian beliefs and indigenous Haitian religious beliefs. To really understand these ideas a researcher must be familiar with the competing cultural conventions and the historical moments within which they are situated. These conventions are rooted in meta-narratives that powerfully shape our perceptions of everything from finding the best ways to aid the Haitian population to actually providing a rationale—in Robertson's case—for why Haiti is experiencing its current hardships. There is little doubt, however, that if Haitians were able to tell their stories themselves, such issues as the cruelty they experienced under French colonial rule and the continuation of systematic economic isolation by current U.S. policies would provide a different narrative of who had been cavorting with the devil.