Narrative Research from Inside and Outside

P ublication of these two books within a few months of each other is a fortunate coincidence.Each author would, I believe, appreciate the other's work, but their disparate approaches provide a fascinating contrast.Although any such dichotomy simplifies, in these two books we find stories viewed from without (Riessman) and stories experienced from within (Archibald).Riessman updates, expands, and to some degree reconceptualizes her 1993 Sage book, Narrative Analysis, which has probably been the most cited methodological source for narrative research.The new version deserves even greater success than its predecessor.For Riessman as a sociologist, method implies some distance between the researcher and those who tell the stories being analyzed.This distance is the topic of considerable reflective concern for Riessman, but it remains as a presupposition.Archibald is a First Nations educator, currently Associate Dean for Indigenous Education at the University of British Columbia.Her book is directed to educators, but deserves a broader readership.Although Archibald is researching the storytelling of Elders in First Nations communities, she always presents herself as a member of those communities; her research participants are very much her Elders.When Archibald tells stories, it is not to analyze them, but rather to use them as resources for getting on with the issues in her own life and the lives of First Nations communities.The two books suggest a distinction between two kinds of narrative interest.In Riessman's work, narrative offers a means to observe the lives of others.But in this use of narrative, Riessman is anything but a naïve realist

Epistemology · Linguistics · Media studies · Narrative · Sociology · Philosophy · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics