Paul MerciecaSchool of Education

Curtin Universityp.mercieca@curtin.edu.au

9266 4224

Narrative Research

As qualitative* research it is the study of how people experience their world and of the meanings they attribute to experiences.

It has been used in literature, history, art, film, theology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, sociolinguistics, health and education.

The scope of the narrative •an entire life •a life episode •emerging series of stories

Key characteristics of narrative• Theme• Plot – predicaments, resolutions• Structure – beginning, middle, end• Characters• First person narration• Setting and Time

Types of Narrative Research • Autobiographies• Biographies• Life writing• Personal narratives• Narrative interviews• Life stories & life histories• Oral histories• Autoethnographies

Narrative Research in Education

Increased emphasis on:

teacher reflection and teacher knowledge - what teachers know, how they think, how they develop and how they make decisions in the classroom

empowering teacher voices through collaborative research

Narrative Research Process

Set aside a lot of timeIdentify a phenomenon to explore and select relevant

individualsReview literature, identify conceptual framework and pose

research questions.Consider the researcher-participant relationship (access to

the research site, reciprocity, equality and ethics)Devise data collection and analysis methodsIn restorying, collaborate with the participant to validate

accuracy of analysis

Data Collection Often via interviews and reliant on participant

recollections or via written documents by the participant

Sometimes using emails, diaries, journals, lesson plans, newsletters,, photographs, notes, cards etc. that might relate to the specific phenomenon under investigation.

Narrative AnalysisTranscription - this is always a form of translation

and selection - what is included and excluded?

How long should the recording be to make it feasible?

Retranscription: Focus on key elements of the story, using codes.

Restorying - organising the key codes into a sequence

Key aspects of stories How Scripts become Stories

Scripts are the core of personal narratives (Labov & Waletzky, 1967).

They are used for all kinds of familiar routines like getting dressed.

Stories expand on scripts by incorporating particular events and adding

evaluative elements which reveal the narrator's viewpoint

Thus stories will evaluate a script as good, bad, successful, tragic,

surprising etc.

In analysis focus on

how elements are sequenced, why some elements are evaluated differentlyhow the past, present and future interact Setting, characters’ actions, motivations, problem and resolutions

Triangulation Vital for trustworthiness Criticisms of fictionality best countered by use of

multiple data sources and collaborative negotiation of the written account

In moving to the general from the particular be modest in the claims made.

Labovian AnalysisThis is a touch structural but a useful start, looking at 6 story elements - abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution and coda.

Thesapproach assumes elements are revealed entirely by clause relations, leaving out attention to participant interaction.

Labov’s approach (1997) also includes attention to reportability, credibility, causality, praise/blame, viewpoint and objectivity. These aspects form two groups of three.

Reportability

Causality

Credibility

Reportability

Credibility Causality

Reportabil

ity

Causality

Credibility

Praise & Blame

Viewpoint

Objectivity

Rhetorical Analysis of NarrativeBurke’s ‘dramatistic’ pentad (1969) - act, scene, agent, agency,

and purpose - looks at rhetoric via grammatical resources deployed – how people explain their actions.

There is an overlap with Labov - ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’, but agency and purpose pay more attention to ‘how’ and ‘why’.

Pentadic ratios can be used to define the central relationship of any story:

Act-Agent Act-Agency Act-Scene Act-Purpose

Agent-Act Agent-Agency Agent-Scene Agent-Purpose

Agency-Act Agency-Agent Agency-Scene Agency-Purpose

Scene-Act Scene-Agent Scene-Agency Scene-Purpose

Purpose-Act Purpose-Agent Purpose-Agency Purpose-Scene

Dramaturgical Analysis - GoffmanDoes the narrative spring from a ‘Master Narrative’?Goffman’s ‘dramaturgical’ approach (1959) attends to the way

stories are performed. He built on Burke’s pentad and looked at ‘framing’ (1974) - the way individual experiences unconsciously promote or conceal particular perceptions of reality. Studies of the media stress more deliberation (Gitlin, 1980, Entman, 1993) , but this can present frames as limiting rather than enabling.

Identification of frames can be conjectural, but first and third persons plural and generalizing synecdoches such as collective singulars (eg ‘the lads’) can be revealing (Reisigl & Wodak 2001, p.83)

Bell and Riessman

Bell (1988) analysed use of language – how people say what they do and who they are.

Riessman (1993, 2002) focussed on metaphors/idioms, general use of language, flashbacks, flashforwards, turning points and asides.

Themes add to the complexity of a story

Themes add depth to the insight about understanding an individual’s experiences

Thematic analysis can be incorporated into the overall research design, though by itself it tends to fragment informant experiences into code-able categories

Thematic Analysis – as an extra dimension

Blending Narrative/Rhetorical/Dramaturgical Analysis

Such a syndetic procedure can involve the following:

•Identification of personal timelines for informants

•Identification of narrative segments or ‘stories’

•Reduction of stories to a core

•Analysis of stories into patterns

•Micro-analysis of key segments

•Exploration of thematic/logical connections between stories

•Identification of causal and dynamic aspects of story-building

•Analysis of how people say what they do and who they are

•Examination of the connections between talker and listener

•Inclusion of interviewer utterances in analysis

TranscriptionSome prefer not to delegate transcription to be sure there is not selective excision as a result of difficulty in hearing what was said.

Interviews taken in sympathetic and relevant surroundings* where informants feel ‘in the mood’ to talk can involve background noise and occasional interruptions.

The other key reason for personally transcribing interviews is a conviction that transcription is a first stage in analysis.

My transcription conventions Names changed to pseudonyms. Turns initialled and numbered – PM1, PF1, PM2, PF2 etc.Lines within turns numbered - PM1:4 etc.Spaces between turnsQuestion marks for interrogatives/statements if appropriateExclamation marks used sparingly Italics and bolding not used to mark emphasis [ ] Brackets were not used for overlapping [ ] Brackets used for ellipsis – for reader informationSingle quotes for irony, songs, first mentions of places & some colloquialismsDouble quotes for inner quotations.Numbers and words used to represent numbers.Stretched turns and pauses represented by ...........Coughs, sniffs, intakes of breath and sighs not includedExternal interruptions bracketed ( ) and line spacedGaze, gesture and other non-verbal aspects not transcribedMalapropisms not amended ‘Gotta’ , ‘dunno’ ,’ ‘cause’ and ‘em’ here they sounded as such ‘Gunna’ represented by the more common ‘gonna’ ‘t’ was used for the common Northern English ‘to the’

INFORMANT DATE AND TIME

PLACE LENGTH NUMBER OF WORDS

NUMBER OF TURNS

NUMBER OF TOPICS

NOTABLE USES OF COLLOQUIAL, METAPHORICAL OR IDIOMATIC LANGUAGE

PAT FISHER

04.04.06 6.00PM

DURTY NELLY’S PUB, SHAFTO LANE

29 MINS 4041 68 71 32

Northern Soul research‘Pat Fisher’ Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcjDAufhqwQ

My analysisPersonal Northern Soul (NS) timelines for the informants as for example with ‘Pat Fisher’ (PF) below:

1958: Born in Chorley, Lancashire1968-9: Hears ‘Road Runner’ at a fairground in Chorley1972-3: Starts going to local youth club1974: Starts going to Wigan Casino1981: Stops going to Wigan Casino, which closes.1992: Emigrates to Perth, Western Australia1994-5: Discovers Goldmine CDs & starts collecting again1995: Discovers Sydney & Melbourne scenes via internet1996: Runs first soul night at Henry Afrika’s in Subiaco 1997: Runs first soul night at Irish Club in Subiaco in

Macro-narrative 1

• Abstract – You, the informant, are into NS here in WA.• Orientation – You are at a venue for an NS night with others on Friday, Saturday etc.• Complication – You got into NS, maybe dropped out, then got back into it again.• Evaluation – You get many meanings and experiences through involvement in NS.• Resolution – You are still into NS here in Perth, now, running your own soul nights.• Coda – The interview has finished. We could both go home or into the club.

Macro-narrative 2

• Abstract – You, the informant, are into NS here in WA and I am undertaking research into this area• Orientation – We are at a NS venue or pub this afternoon/evening for an interview. An NS night may be in progress.• Complication – I ask some questions and you give me some answers. This may become like a conversation and you tell some stories about your involvement in NS• Evaluation – You get many meanings and experiences through your involvement in NS and may choose to articulate them to me. I attempt to interpret your evaluation.• Resolution – The interview has finished. I have taped it• Coda – We could both go home or into the club to dance. I will listen to the interview later and transcribe it.

Micro-narratives

•Micro-narrative 1: How he got into NS - ‘The Epicentre: it was all around me’ PM1 to PF5

•Micro-narrative 2: What he gets out of NS - ‘The scene in general…’ PM19 to PF23

•Micro-narrative 3: How he dropped out of it - ‘Retirement: burnout’ PM26 to PF33

•Micro-narrative 4: How he got back into it - ‘The Breakthrough: second time around’ PF39 to PF46

•Micro-narrative 5: How he established NS nights at The Irish Club - ‘Putting feelers around: let’s start something going here’

P46 to PF52

Labovian analysis of micro-narrative 1 ‘The Epicentre’(ABSTRACT/ORIENTATION→)PM1: The basic first question is how did you get into it and when...?PF1: Yeah, I’ve been asked this a few times…and I can trace it back to….you know….the

travelling fairgrounds used to come round and they had the ‘Waltzer’PM2: In Chorley?(ORIENTATION/COMPLICATION→)PF2: Yeah….they used to go all over the north of England and they used to play Motown…that’s when I

first heard Junior Walker and it was probably ‘Road Runner’…it was the first time I heard any soul music…to speak of…apart from the pop soul music. I’d never heard this stuff before and I guess that was the first time I really heard this stuff before and I guess that was the first time I really took note of it and I decided I wanted to pursue it a bit more.

PM3: So what year was that then?PF3: I’m figuring…I’ve had a few sleeps since then…I reckon it….I was probably about 14 so that would

be ’72 ….then I went and started going to the local youth club and there was the Motown records and then there’s other stuff. I asked about what it was and they said they called it Northern Soul…and it must’ve been after 1972…maybe 1973…’cause the term was only coined in 1972 and the lads were doing this crazy dancing…like Olympic floor routines…and I was perhaps not totally hooked but certainly very interested at that point and then of course I started going to ‘Wigan [Casino]’, which was just around the corner…..the first time was 1974…ah…just after the first anniversary…guess that would be October…and then that was it! I knew I was going to be into it for the foreseeable future. (←RESOLUTION)

(CODA→)PM4: So that was in’72, it had already started hadn’t it, the scene had been around for quite a while.PF4: ’72 that was the ‘Torch’ era, the ‘Twisted Wheel’ had closed so there was a short break when the

Torch filled the gap and then Wigan started in’73.(EVALUATION→)PM5: So you kind of worked it out for yourself, you weren’t introduced by brothers or…?PF5: No, no, no…I was a single child…Yeah, I was close to the epicentre…so it was all around me.

• Labov’s six elements are all present, if not totally discrete

• Evaluation follows coda, as a brief reprise

• Elements exist within elements, eg the evaluative comments within the complication in PF 2:4-6 - ‘I guess that was the first time I really heard this stuff before and I guess that was the first time I really took note of it’

• This fractal structure reflects the structure of information from utterance to clause to paragraph etc.. Each segment has its own given/new structure. The topic is what is known or given, the comment is what is new or unknown (Halliday, 1994, p. 299).

The abstract and orientation run together, co-constructed by interviewer and informant. Pat’s story appears partly rehearsed - he indicates he has been asked the same question before. His story is his personal ‘foundation’ myth, his own NS cosmology.

As the complication develops in PF2, Pat tells of his move from a passive to more active role, pronouns moving from ‘they’ to ‘I’ and verbs from receptive to active:

PF2: Yeah….they used to go all over the north of England and they used to play Motown…that’s when I first heard Junior Walker and it was probably ‘Road Runner’…it was the first time I heard any soul music…to speak of…apart from the pop soul music. I’d never heard this stuff before and I guess that was the first time I really heard this stuff before and I guess that was the first time I really took note of it and I decided I wanted to pursue it a bit more.

The first group of Labov’s aspects - reportability, credibility and causality - are closely linked.

Pat’s micro-narrative 1 satisfies the basic criteria for reportability - the most significant aspects are revealed and the story has a resolution.

For crediblity, Pat laconically avoids over-dramatisation and is not overly definite about dates – ‘I’ve had a few sleeps since then’ –

In terms of causality, Pat tells of a chain of events leading to his involvement in NS – fairground, youth club, Wigan Casino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5BjusPO3-8

Rhetorical Analysis adapted from Burke via Bell

The people in the travelling fairground, the youth club dancers, Junior Walker and NS itself are all agents, but Pat is clearly the main agent in his own story/drama.

‘Entelechy’, (Burke, 1966, p. 19) ex[;ores how systems of language motivate people to strive towards mastery in areas they perceive as crucial to their identity. People make sense of the world and adopt roles via ‘terministic screens’, grids of intelligibility.

For Pat, the coining of the term NS in 1971 is crucial – he is drawn into a world of NS symbols – ‘I really took note of it and I decided I wanted to pursue it a bit more’ (PF2:6).

His sense of agency becomes more active and soon he projects himself into ‘the foreseeable future’ (PF3:11), determined to learn and master the symbols of NS, which becomes an motivational system. He masters record collecting and dancing and eventually becomes a DJ, organizing national events and a website.

Pat’s agency is still to be seen in the context of the particular influence of the NS in the area close to Wigan.

The ‘Scene-Agent’ ratio shows the magnetic influence of the NS scene in South Lancashire and of ‘Wigan Casino’, NS’s famous venue. Pat admits this – ‘I was close to the epicentre…so it was all around me’.

Dramaturgical Analysis adapted from Goffman via Bell

Pat’s involvement in NS draws on different ‘master-frames’ or meta-narratives - enduring cultural themes. He aligns these different frames into a comfortable fit, by ‘frame bridging’

The first overt master-frame that Pat uses is ‘Group Solidarity’.

In PF 18 he describes how ‘there was no trouble…never any fights…never saw one scrap…everybody was there for the same reason……..the love of the music and the scene in general. I can’t just single out dancing or record collecting…it’s probably a combination of everything…the friendliness and camaraderie has always been there’.

Analysis adapted directly from Bell and Riessman

Pat’s turns are short, but he tells his story by outlining the details and instances of his involvement in NS.

There is no present tense as dramatic narrative and only one example of direct speech, but he uses the past perfect for flashback in PF2/PF4 and present perfect for flashforward in PF16, showing a sense of dynamism, mobility and connection to the present.

He identifies many turning-points eg his first visit to Wigan Casino ‘.....and then that was it! I knew I was going to be in it for the foreseeable future’ PF3:10-11

The turning-points in the informant narrative mark transformative points where cultural production of meaning and personal creation of meaning are fused.

Mercieca, P.D., Chapman A., & O'Neill. M. (2013). To the Ends of the Earth: Northern Soul and Southern Nights in Western Australia. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.