Understanding extended narrative sensemaking

How police officers accomplish story work

Bibliographic Data

ID20500357
AuthorsMerlijn Van Hulst (0000-0002-8698-5685, Tilburg University, the Netherlands, corresponding author), Haridimos Tsoukas (University of Cyprus, Cyprus)
Year2023
Volume30
Issue4
Pages730-753
Publication date2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13505084211026878
OpenAlexW3182594157
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited73

Extended narrative sensemaking consists of (a) agents generating actionable stories when faced with unexpected situations to which they need to respond in real time, and (b) emplotting actions that were undertaken and events that occurred during their response, in order to make deeper sense of them afterwards. When sensemakers revisit critical incidents in which there were involved, they join (a) and (b) through story work. In this article, through the study of stories told by police officers in relation to unexpected, impactful incidents, we show how story work is accomplished. We argue that sensemakers simultaneously enact situations, emplot events, and renew identity. Specifically, we demonstrate that police officers strive to accomplish three different things: first, show how, as engaged responders, they were involved in the ongoing enactment of an actionable story (situated agency); secondly, seek to deeper understand, after the event, what happened to them through emplotting their experiences (complexified sense); and thirdly, update their narrative identity by weaving their experience of the handling of the unexpected situation with the rest of their life story (identity renewal). Our account extends current understanding of ongoing narrative sensemaking by showing how agents construct agency, meaning, and identity at once, and how all three are part of an extended, ongoing sensemaking process

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Narrative · Narrative inquiry · Political science · Public relations · Sensemaking · Situated · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Psychology · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Social Psychology

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