Reading :: Engaging in Narrative Inquiry, 2ed

Engaging in Narrative Inquiry, 2ed

by D. Jean Clandinin

I’ve been interested in narrative inquiry since reading Boje’s book on narrative methods for organizational and communication research, and I dipped my toe into it when analyzing some of our data on small town Texas. But when I taught a recent survey on research methods, I decided that I needed to learn more about it. So I picked up this book by well-known narrative inquiry researcher D. Jean Clandinin. It’s a methods book, suitable for advanced undergraduates, and it covers the basics of narrative research well.

Clandinin introduces this approach well, grounding it in Dewey, Bateson, and Bruner (p.4), defining it, and outlining its epistemological and ontological commitments. She sees narrative inquiry as both a methodology and a phenomenon (p.6), both designed and lived out (p.19), and reviews its practice through several examples from doctoral research. 

To be honest, though, I came away from this book less excited about narrative inquiry than I had been before reading it. It’s understandable that a heavily qualitative and interpretive research approach would question concepts such as rigor. But, as presented, narrative inquiry is framed more as a way for the researcher to experience something for themselves and to convey their own experience to others. Consequently, later chapters focus more on the creative styles that narrative researchers can use. In contrast, I was looking more for a structured approach that could make narrative inquiry, if not more rigorous, at least more regularized and followable. But this is an issue related to what I want to do with my research, not with the book itself, which is clear and well described. If you’re interested in narrative inquiry, definitely pick it up.