9
Narrative Analysis
People tell and retell stories: stories about the first day of classes, stories about how they dealt with adversity, stories about how they came to see themselves in a particular light. People tell coming-out stories and growing-up stories and stories about how they dealt with oppression. Stories are one of the ways in which we produce and reproduce social Knowledge-and try to make sense of our place in the social world.
Qualitative data are typically full of narratives and stories. Sometimes, data collection efforts are explicitly aimed at gathering life stories, as when interviewers collect oral histories or conduct biographical interviews (Anderson, Armitage, Jack, and Wittner 1990; Denzin 1989; Smith 1998). Other times, stories can be recorded in ethnographic field notes or in the process of conducting semistructured or unstructured interviews. Texts and documents, like diaries and first-person accounts, may contain stories. Robert Franzosi (1998) reminds us that even advertisements may contain stories that can be analyzed.
The method for analyzing these kinds of stories is called narrative analysis. Drawing on the same kinds of techniques for interpretation and analysis of texts that literary scholars use, narrative analysis encourages social researchers to pay attention to the language used to describe experiences and to focus on the structure of stories. Rather than viewing the language that people use as unimportant, narrative analysis assumes that language conveys
meaning and that how a story is told is as important as what is said. This type of analysis is relatively new within sociology; it is more firmly established in anthropology and education.
Unlike the methods for analyzing data discussed in Chapter 8, narrative analysis provides techni4ues for looking at stories as a whole. Chapter 8 focused on breaking down materials (including stories) into smaller pieces, or themes, for analysis. Sometimes, however, we might want to understand the various elements of the story and how it is told. We might want to analyze the audiences h)r a particular story, the kinds of cultural resources that arc a00000vailahle for telling stories, or the kinds of social contexts that surround particular types of stories.
WHAT IS NARRATIVE?
Scholars in a variety of fields, ranging from literary criticism to folklore to nursing to law to business, use narrative analysis in a number of ways. (See Riessman 1993 for a good discussion of the varieties of narrative analysis). There is also disagreement about what a narrative is. Some people argue that narratives and stories are distinct. The story is what happened, according to Franzosi (1998), and the narrative is the telling of it. For our purposes (and following Coffey and Atkinson 1996), we won’t worry too much about the distinctions between stories and narratives. Nor will we worry about some of the more complex methods of literally analysis. Instead, we’ll use a relatively simple version.
We can think of a narrative as a kind of story told by someone (a "narrator") with a beginning, middle, and an end. Usually, a story has some kind of plot, or action. In Western traditions, stories arc often told chronologically, but this isn't the only way that stories may be structured (Riessman 1993). Nor can all kinds of talk be considered a story. For example, in a typical semi structured interview, you might move back and forth between relatively brief 4ucstions and answers, asking interviewees how they feel or what they think. But people can discuss their feelings or describe something without necessarily telling a story.
Let's return to our campus parking example. Perhaps you're interested in how students think about the parking problem at your university, so you interview students about their experiences trying to park their cars and their feelings about it. In the following extract, notice that the student is talking about how she feels. She is not telling a story, although we could imagine this extract appearing within a narrative.
2.
INTERVIEWER: Do you ever park your car on campus? STUDENT: Yes.
INTERVlEWER: What do you think about the parking problem on this campus?
STUDENT: I hate trying to park on this campus, I really do. It seems like there are lots of parking spaces for faculty and staff, and none for students.
In the preceding extract, notice that there is no action-and hence, no story.
Yet interviews can also encourage people to tell stories. By asking opened questions about people's experiences, you can often elicit a story in response. In the next extract, notice how the interviewee tells a story about parking on campus with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your experiences parking on campus. STUDENT: The last time-I was so mad. I was late to class, and I drove to the A lot where there are sometimes a few spaces. I circled around. Nothing. So I went to the B lot. There was a space-not really a space, not a regular space with a line-but a little bit of space where I could squeeze in. I didn't want to miss class, so I just parked. When I came back, my car had been towed. It cost me 50 bucks to get the car back. I was so pissed off.
Notice how in this extract something happened: She went to park her car, there weren't any legal spaces, she parked anyway, and her car was towed.
THE STRUCTURE OF STORIES
Stories have a kind of structure or logic to them. One of the most widely used models for understanding the structure of stories comes from the sociolinguist William Labov (1978; see Coffey and Atkinson 1996, pp. 57-58, for a good summary). Labov argues that all stories have a similar structure. There are six basic elements to a story, which Labov says occur in sequence: abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, results, and coda (or finish narrative). All stories do not have every single element, but a story must at least have some action. Something must happen in order for a story to occur.
The first element, the abstract, provides an introduction to the story. It signals that a story is about to begin. People might introduce the beginning of a story in a variety of ways. "Once upon a time" is a classic way of opening
A fairy tale, for example. You know when you hear or opener that a particular kind of story is about to follow. Conversation analysts (sociologists who study the structure of conversation) like Harvey Sacks (1974) note that there are some standard ways to "properly" begin a story. Storytellers have to establish, first, that they have the floor, or the right to speak. Small children often begin stories by prefacing them with "You know what?" The typical response, "What?" gives them permission to begin. If you think about it, you can probably come up with a number of ways in which people signal a story. (For starters, how about "You'll never guess what happened to me" or "You won't believe what just happened.")
The second clement, the orientation, provides basic information: Who was involved? What happened? When? Where? The orientation provides enough information for the listener to figure out the setting and the main actors in the story. Then comes the complication: What happened next? How did events become complicated? The complication is a necessary part of stories; without it, there is no way for the story line to advance.
The evaluation answers the "so what" question: Why is this important?
It helps the listener establish why she or he should hear the storyteller out. Perhaps the story is a cautionary tale or a success story. Or perhaps it is a tale of conversion: I used to be <In active drunk, hut now I am sober.
The results tell what happened at the end-the punch line. Usually, stories resolve in one way or another. A common clement of stories is a surprise ending or a twist in the plot, but not all stories have this kind of resolution. Finally, the coda, or conclusion, wraps up and lets the listener (or reader) know that the story has ended.
In our parking story, notice the following elements: The abstract is provided in part by the interviewer, who asks the student to tell about her experiences parking on campus. The student signals that she is ready to begin the story by stating, "The last time-I was so mad." The next few lines provide the orientation, in which the student tells how she was late to class and couldn't find a parking space. Then, in the complication, she discusses how she drove to another lot, still couldn't find legal space, and parked anyway. In the evaluation, she notes that she didn't want to be late to class, implying that looking for a legal space would cause her to be even later. In the results, we find that her car was towed. And in the coda, she lets the interviewee know that her story is finished by closing with, "I was so pissed off"
Abstract: [interviewer: Tell me about your experiences parking on campus.] The last time-I was so mad.
Orientation: I was late to class, and I drove to the A lot where there are sometimes a Few spaces. I circled around. Nothing.
Complication: So I went to the B lot. There was a space-not really a space, not a regular space with a line-but a little bit of space where I could squeeze in.
Evaluation: I didn't want to miss class, so I just parked.
Results: When I came back, my car had been towed. It cost me 50 bucks to get the car back.
Coda: I was so pissed off.
Sometimes, storytellers will move back and forth among the various elements before closing. Other times, storytellers will edit their stories (Gubrium and Holstein 1998), changing their perspective and their position within the story. For example, in our parking narrative, the storyteller might draw out the narrative.
STUDENT: The last time-I was so mad. I was late to class, and I drove to the A lot where there are sometimes a few spaces. I circled around. Nothing. So I went to the B lot. There was a space-not really a space, not a regular space with a line-but a little bit of space where I could squeeze in. I didn't want to miss class, so I just parked. When I came back, my car had been towed. It cost me 50 bucks to get the car back. I was so pissed off. Now, I know I shouldn’t getting in, they really should get towed. But I didn’t really think I was in the way.
In this telling of the story, notice in the italicized sentences how the storyteller shifts perspective. On the once hand, she's angry that she was towed. She didn't want to be late for class, so she squeezed into an illegal space. She invokes a sense of herself as a good student-one who is not late for class- even as she admits to shady parking practices. But as the story continues, notice that she doesn't justify all illegal parking. In fact, she admits that maybe she shouldn't have parked where she did, but she didn't see herself as being "r ally in the way." Those who are "really in the way" deserve to be towed. In this way, the storyteller shifts her perspective and invites the listener to pay attention to multiple aspects of the parking problem.
OTHER STRUCTURES OF STORIES
Some narrative analysts find the chronological ordering of Labov's model too restrictive (Becker 1999; Gee 1991; Riessman 1993). Rather than simply locating the abstract, orientation, and so forth, they suggest that analysts
try to organize the narratives into stanzas, like poems, or try alternative ways for presenting and analyzing the story line.
For example, Bettina Becker (1999) wanted to understand the experiences of older people with chronic pain. She found that the attempt to force some of the narratives of research participants into a strict chronological order made the stories seem less coherent. One research participant in particular, Mrs. Green, seemed to talk in circles and repeat herself Becker found that transcribing the narrative into stanzas, like a poem, enabled her to capture more clearly the circularity and repetition of the narrative. She also found that the form, because it ways unusual (at least within sociology and the social sciences), encouraged a critical reading (Becker 1999), a point that others have argued as well (Richardson 1992; Riessman 1993). It enabled readers to identify with the narrator, Mrs. Green, in a way that more traditional analyses would not. Becker cClI1cd her transcription of Mrs. Green's story "PAIN STORY: 'Nothing Much'."In the story, Mrs. Green talks about having had arthritis since her thirties. Now in her eighties, she needs a walker (which she calls a "frame") to walk around. She connects her arthritis with her childhood experiences of repeatedly getting wet with her Father.
"Oh no, oh I can't tell you much but,
I had it since I was about, well thirty I suppose, being better getting 'Norse and worse.
"But I mean before that,
I used to go out and on the rounds with my father and get wet, and dry and wet and dry,
and that's how I think I got it.
"You know all this arthritis and that, before I used to get myself wet,
and then it would dry on me,
day after day probably,
when I was out with my father.
"And, it's not until this last year or so, that I've been like I am now,
I could move about more you know, and it didn't ache so much.
"Rut now, it takes me a long time to get around and you know, (use this frame now,
so that's about, you know, all there is really, nothing much." (Becker 1999, pp. 77-78)
Notice how placing the story into poetic form creates a very different feel than the more structured narrative of student parking. Mrs. Green's story
doesn't lend itself to a chronological analysis. The stanzas seem to contain relatively complete thoughts that give readers insight into Mrs. Green's experience of pain.