Since 19th century, major disciplines such as anthropology and sociology have employed nar- ratives to study human reality (Spector-Mersel, 2010, p.207). However, when the positivist paradigm became dominant, biographical and narrative methods became marginalised, partic- ularly after World War II. Spector-Mersel (2010, p.207) argues that the renewed interest in more interpretative methods would occur only after the 1970's, when quantitative methods turned to be disappointing to appreciate human experience. Narrative was rediscovered as an alternative method of inquiry which enabled to examine ordinary people’s oral narratives of everyday experience, especially those of silenced voices (Spector-Mersel, 2010, p.207). During the 1980s, an increase of ground-breaking publications related to narrative questions, methods and phenomena reflected how a narrative turn penetrated most social science disci- plines, professions and the media (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002, p.329, Spector-Mersel, 2010, p.207). This turn renewed not only narrative methods but also its previous “factist” prem- ises, since narrative had been thought “to reflect an objectified essence, located either within the narrator or outside him''(Spector-Mersel, 2010, p. 207). Instead, the new constructivist—
termed as discursive and postmodern—approach focused on a subjective and relativist reality considering the relationship between the narrative and the phenomenon that it appears to be reflecting. In Spector-Mersel (2010) words, “narratives do not mirror that seeming entity but construct it” (p. 208).
The value of stories, in all aspects of life is emphasised by narrative (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002). Life experiences told through stories help people to understand and reflect on their per- sonal and other individuals’ way of thinking, acting, and reacting. Social, cultural, political, and linguistic narratives are embedded with these stories, within the phenomenon of experience itself (Clandinin, Caine & Lessard, 2018). Moreover, challenging, and disrupting events such as going to the doctor or illness can be described and resolved through “personal experience narratives” (Labov, 1972 in Stephens, 2011, p.64).
Cristine Stephens (2011) argues that narrative psychology is based on the narrative analysis of individual and everyday life stories. The narrator can reflect on illness or disruptive events, describing what sort of self they were, explaining their behaviors and the meanings of those difficulties. When shaping and explaining these actions and from a social psychological stand- point, personal stories are interpreted “within a life situation and life history which includes work, interests and relationships” (Stephens, 2011, p.64). Thus, narrators actively seek to
49 achieve an identity where a sense of self may be changed and adapted to different life circum- stances. Causes of problems and illness can be applied as reference points to explain, and to reconstruct, “their changing relationship with the world” (Stephens, 2011, p.64). Interestingly, when people define who they are to others through stories, Stephens (2011,p.65) argues that rather than sharing the “essential” self, individuals might share a myriad of different identities appropriate to the social context of the telling. In this way, narrative inquiry can approach and understand identity following this approach:
“identity is a storied life composition, a story to live by. Stories to live by are shaped in places and lived in places. They live in actions, in relationships with others, in language, including silences, in gaps and vacancies, in continuities and discontinuities” (Clandinin & Huber, 2002, p. 161–162 in Young & Joe, 2012, p.16).
In this sense, when analysing identity within a story, narrative inquiry works from different dimensions, such as places where the stories are lived, the interactions with others and the importance of temporality when considering continuities or discontinuities. Below, I will re- view key terms and dimensions that underpin and guide a narrative inquiry, and therefore, this study.
John Dewey’s notion of experience is considered by narrative researchers as the key philosoph- ical underpinning of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000 in Lessard, Caine, & Clan- dinin, 2018, p.4). There are two criteria proposed by Dewey— “interaction and continuity enacted in situations”—which underpin the narrative understanding of experience (Lessard et al., 2018, p.4). Interaction and continuity have been connected to three key dimensions or commonplaces by Clandinin and Connelly (2000, in Lessard et al., 2018, p.4). These common- places, or dimensions are identified as sociality, temporality and place (Clandinin, Pushor & Orr, 2007, Lessard et al., 2018, p.4).
The dimension of sociality is originated in Dewey’s criterion of interaction, stating that a per- son is “always in interaction with his/her world attending to both personal and social conditions (Lessard et al., 2018, p.4). Personal conditions have been defined as “the feelings, hopes, desires, aesthetic reactions and moral dispositions” of the inquirer and participants (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006, p.480 in Lessard et al., 2018, p.4). Social conditions refer outward, to the milieu, the conditions within which people’s experiences and events are unfolding (Lessard et al., 2018, p.4). In this sense, there is, simultaneously, a relational aspect of narrative inquiry
50 which aims to understand and interpret the connections between the personal stories and public concerns (Bathmaker & Harnett, 2010).
The dimension of temporality is associated with the second criterion of experience, continuity. Lessard et al. (2018, p.4) highlight that this notion “draws attention to ways in which the past, present, and future of people, places, things, and events are interrelated, that is al- ways in temporal transition, always on the way, in the making”. In this sense, wherever individuals position themselves, whether in an imagined now, past or future, each point grows out of other previous experience and leads to an experiential future.
The dimension of temporality is lined as well to a third dimension, place (Lessard, et al., 2018, p.4). Place is defined as “the specific concrete, physical, and topological boundaries of place or sequences of places where the inquiry and events take place” (Connelly & Clandinin 2006, p.481 in Lessard et al., 2018, p.4). This is connected to narrative researchers’ tasks to look into storytellers’ landscapes and pay attention to specific situations (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002, p.339).