“Narratives bring into the open rich, detailed and often personal perspectives” (Hyvärinen, 2009, p. 447). Narrative analysis allows the researcher to explore the way participants make sense of their experiences and offers a way in which the complex ways in which participants make sense of reality can be explored and considered (Andrews, Squire, & Tamboukou, 2008). This approach to analysis values the expression of feelings, signs and symbols in language and prizes how the participants construct meaning (Marshall & Rossman, 2006). According to Marshall and Rossman (2006), this process of analysis is very useful when exploring social change and social identity. Therefore, as the researcher, I was interested in how the participants used language and experiences to construct their own stories and attach meaning as part of their social identity development.
Using narratives as a way to study and research changes in the mind, social interactions and identities is particularly relevant. According to many researchers, substances such as alcohol are linked to changes in the user’s behaviour, consciousness and identity (Denzin, 1987; Milkman & Sunderwirth, 2010; Singer, 1997; Tart, 1986). I used verbal accounts and stories, which served as the data, in order to gain an understanding of how meaning is socially
45
constructed and how changes in the behaviour, state of mind and social interactions occur and are influenced.
The narrative approach was used in this process of psychological inquiry. Narrative identity, as part of the personality itself, and adopted stories of the self (McAdams, 2012), refers to how a person makes sense of the stories of the self and how the narrative self is narrated and shaped in social circumstances and specific settings (McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007).
When a researcher develops new ways of understanding phenomena through exploring specific concepts this can be referred to as a context of discovery (McAdams, 2012). Through the context of discovery (Reichenbach, 1938), researchers explore narratives for broad “patterns, themes, images, and qualitative characterizations” (p. 16) to understand the meaning that people attach to certain concepts, as well as generate new theories about their lives. I used life- narrative to explore new themes and patterns in the stories of adolescent binge drinking behaviour. Through narrative inquiry, I was able to gather and analyse these stories in order to obtain meaning, and information about how adolescents make sense of their selves and how they attach meaning to their behaviour.
Literature refers to three different positions on narrative analysis. During my analysis I situated myself in all three positions, to explore, organise and make sense of the data, as these positions in relation to narrative data analysis interact with each other, together with other dynamic processes which are used, with many other possible means of analysis (Hutchison, 2008; Sussman & Ames, 2001). Larsson, Lilja, Von Braun and Sjöblom (2013) refer to the psychology-based approach to narrative analysis and the understanding of stories. In this approach the researcher aims to understand the participant’s “inner life”, as well as “identity or self-constructions” (Larsson, et al., 2013, p. 1295). Therefore, during my data analysis, I was challenged to look for and understand the deeper and hidden stories, in order to obtain a rich and thick description of the narratives that I gathered.
The sociology-based approach to narrative analysis suggests that stories are grounded in social constructivism as well as post-modernism (Larsson, et al., 2013). This position focuses on how identities and the self are constructed and inspired by postmodernism, as well as acknowledging the role that language plays (Larsson, et al., 2013). I conceded that the stories told by these adolescents about binge drinking behaviour were important, “not only for representing the self but also for negotiating certain aspects of the self when growing up in a specific culture-bound time and place” (Larsson, et al., 2013, p. 1295). Through positioning
46
myself in this approach, I could acknowledge and identify how different characteristics and identities are developed and formed through participation in social interaction processes (Larsson, et al., 2013).
A holistic perspective towards narratives is included in the social work-based position. The social work-based position also focuses on the interactions between people and how human behaviour can be understood (Larsson, et al., 2013). Hutchison (2008) suggests that the social work-based approach to narrative analysis comprises a multidimensional analysis of environmental, personal and dimensions of time, which are all important when aiming to understand human behaviour (Larsson, et. al., 2013).
As a researcher conducting research and using life-narrative analysis, I learnt about how adolescents make sense of stories about binge drinking behaviour through analysing narratives derived from interviews and the documents gathered. This type of narrative gave me a glimpse into how the participants shape their realities, tell their stories and challenge their own social construction. Using narrative analysis enabled me to focus on meaning, and how the participants construct their own reality, which is in line with the social constructivist approach from which I worked.
The purpose of this study was not to develop new theory but rather to understand and make meaning of the stories of adolescents about binge drinking behaviour. I began the analysis by reading through the essays and the transcripts of the interviews to get a feel for the text. After reading through the texts again, I took notes and developed ideas as well as psychological themes as I moved from one essay to the next. An example of this is attached as Appendix D. The interviews were transcribed verbatim to text. After conducting the interviews in the focus groups and gathering the stories from the essays, I worked through the texts to find themes that captured something interesting or important (McAdams, 2012). The data gathered were in Afrikaans, as that was the language the participants felt comfortable speaking. I conducted the data analysis in Afrikaans but translated the quotes I used into English. Esin, Fathi, and Squire (2014) state that athough some stories probably get lost during translation, fresh meanings may develop from the translated extracts. Although new meanings may arise from the text, I acknowledged that some nuances and idioms could not be sufficiently translated into another language (Esin, et al., 2014). Therefore, it was important for me to keep the readers of the thesis in mind during translating, and I aimed to keep it as close to the original text as possible (Esin, et al., 2014). After I identified different themes, I looked for alternative understandings.
47
Alternative understandings always occur (Marshall & Rossman, 2006), therefore I had to look for patterns and themes situated in the essays and the focus group discussions that implied deeper meanings.
3.7 DATA VERIFICATION