Focusing on the analysis of narratives, this book addresses the challenges researchers face in interpreting seemingly chaotic data in social sciences. It offers a comprehensive exploration of storytelling and its societal implications, integrating diverse methodologies for examining both texts and narrative practices. By unifying various approaches, it provides valuable insights for effectively making sense of narrative data.
Taking issue with contemporary trivialisations of the self, this book traces a course of development from the early pragmatists to contemporary constructionist considerations.
Constructing the Life Course offers a social constructionist perspective on personal experience through time. The text shows the variety of ways people use life course imagery in their everyday lives and makes a useful addition to family studies or gerontology courses.
Focusing on the interplay between narrative work and environments, this book presents a detailed framework for analyzing how stories shape and reflect societal contexts. It explores various aspects of narrative work, such as composition and collaboration, alongside environments like local culture and organizational dynamics. Methodologies include interviewing and ethnographic fieldwork, supported by empirical examples. The conclusion examines narrative adequacy, questioning the qualities of compelling stories and effective storytellers.
Exploring the innovative landscape of postmodern interviewing, this book delves into the dynamic nature of interviews as both structured and emergent conversations. It emphasizes reflexivity, poetics, and power as essential components in gathering experiential knowledge. Contributions from various fields, including anthropology, family studies, history, and sociology, highlight the evolving methodologies and theoretical frameworks that redefine the interview process, offering fresh perspectives on its diverse purposes and implications.
Gubrium and Holstein offer a theoretical view of research which reintegrates the traditional emphasis on the "how" and "what" of social life with an understanding of the "why".