"Narrative Inquiry." Clandinin, D. Jean, & Connelly, F. Michael. 2000.
Attack of the Quotes:
"By inward, we mean toward the internal conditions, such as feelings, hopes, aesthetic reactions, and moral dispositions. By outward, we mean toward the existential conditions, that is, the environment. Bybackward and forward, we refer to temporality-past, present, and future. We wrote that to experience an experieflce--that is, to do research into an experience-is to experience it simultaneously in these four ways and to ask questions pointing each way. Thus, when one is positioned on this two-dimensional space in any particular inquiry, one asks questions, collects field notes, derives interpretations, and writes a research text that addresses both personal and social issues by looking inward and outward, and addresses temporal issues by looking not only to the event but to its past and to its future" (p. 50).
"What is unsaid, a third use of the terms (and not possible to say with the stories so far presented), is the ambiguity, complexity, difficulty, and uncertainties associated with the doing ofthe inquiry. These doings, the "stuff" of narrative inquiry, can only be sensed and understood from a reading of the full-blown inquiry. Though we do not explore this complexity here, we will come back to it in these and other stories" (p. 55).
Response:
For simply describing what narrative inquiry does (without all the pish posh of theory and concepts in the middle), these guys sure did a whole lot of yacking and took their good old time getting it done. For that alone, I condemn this piece to the ceremonial bonfire at semester’s end. (Don’t claim to have cut out all the useless bits and then replace them with different useless bits. If you say you’re going to keep it short, sweet, and simple, follow through or feel readers’ collective wrath.)
(By the by, I felt like strangling the teacher, Karen Whelan, whining about failing a kid. Obviously, there is a certain degree of subjectivity in some parts of grading, but come on. How can you always mark a kid as failing? Easy, you put the failing mark on the paper when they fail. If that happens to be all the time, so be it. The fact of the matter is, if a kid is not performing on grade level, you don’t say, “That’s okay. You tried you best. I’ll pass you anyway.” You say, “Kid, I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to be here again next year. No worries though; this’ll help you in the long run.”)
If anything, this piece has renewed my faith in fiction. There’s a reason people’s everyday stories (excepting the “extraordinary” ones) don’t usually make it into successful books. We don’t care! This is overly dramatized everyday stuff, and I don’t care. We don’t want to hear about your childhood memory of the Chinese-Canadian shopkeeper or a day in the classroom, especially when the greatest emotional link in the story is one experienced only by the storyteller. There’s nothing here tying me into the story. Yes, I suppose you’re meant to think about your own memories and how you feel about them in past, present, place, and inner crud; but it’s not working for me. I’m not striving to be “God” in a study, looking down on everyone with absolute wisdom, but I prefer the behind-the-scenes approach. Let the participants’ stories take center stage and let me recount them without drawing attention away from them and to myself. I don’t want to be a spotlight-hog, and I don’t really see the need to involve myself emotionally, or memory-aly. And zero attachment on my part means this is just another piece of soddy academic nonsense read for class and then gleefully burned at a later date. :)
This is also making me more than a little apprehensive about the upcoming project…I’m anticipating a low interest level, which will necessitate a load of design. (I don’t know about you, but my life is not that interesting.)
"Situating Narrative Inquiry." Clandinin, D. Jean, Daynes, J. Gary, & Pinnegar, Stefinee. 2006.
Attack of the Quotes II:
"The four turns are a change in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; a move from the use of number toward the use of words as data; a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and specific; and a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing" (p. 1).
"However, we become narrative inquirers only when we recognize and embrace the interactive quality of the researcher-researched relationship, primarily use stories as data and analysis, and understand the way in which what we know is embedded in a particular context, and finally that narrative knowing is essential to our inquiry" (p. 7).
"How fully the researcher embraces narrative inquiry is indicated by how far he or she turns in her or his thinking and action across what we call here the four turns toward narrative. The four include the following: (1) a change in the relationship between the person conducting the research and the person participating as the subject (the relationship between the researcher and the researched), (2) a move from the use of number toward the use of words as data, (3) a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and specific, and finally (4) a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing" (p. 7). (…Well, doesn’t this sound familiar.)
"Ironically, when researchers make the turn from an objective stance in the researcher-researched relationship, it is their view of the other rather than the self that changes. Researchers admit that the humans and human interaction they study exist in a context and that the context will influence the interactions and the humans involved" (p. 11).
Response:
Well, I guess “Narrative Inquiry” wasn’t all that clear for me…according to these guys, for it to be true “narrative inquiry,” the researchers have to have an interactive relationship with their subjects. (Well, good thing the class is doing an “Oral Research Project.” I see nothing about narrative inquiry, nor do I want to.)
Just because I’m expected to come away from a study having learned something, it doesn’t mean I have to fully immerse/interact with the study participants. I know I do not remain fully objective in mind during a study (though I try not to let it seep through much), and I know that a researcher’s interactions with the researched can produce an effect on the study. Psychology and science nerds alike warn you about projection, allowing your own ideas/preconceptions to affect a study. Yes, I admit, the very fact that I’m still alive and breathing while observing a subject will have some effect on him/her. (My apologies, I’ll have to remedy that.) Still, I don’t know that I want to jump all the way over to the extreme of narrative inquiry. I like being able to measure things, as consistently as possible, too much.
Perhaps it’s a tad delusional, but I like the idea of a studying a subject within his/her context, but ignoring the the part of the context that includes me. I know I am part of the context, but I’m kind of against self-study in any place outside my journal and prayer.
I like to present research, or writing of any kind, straight to the reader, without interference from me. Letting the reader form his/her own opinion without my trying to skew it ahead of time is a big thing for me. I don’t think, in most cases, people want to be told what or how to think; they want to be given a chance to think and act for themselves. (And this would be a beautiful spot to spiral off on a stupid government rant, but I will refrain from doing so…for now.)
It’s true: stats don’t lie. Statisticians do. Still, while there are types of research where I enjoy using words, I’m a number fan, too. It makes me feel like the results are more tangible, even if they don’t cover every little variance as words can.
I thought other teachers demanded particular research questions/studies, but these guys are intense. Maybe I’m just not enough of a humanist for this stuff, which is strange; usually, I love hearing specific, detailed stories. Being able to do so is a huge part of writing fiction, which may be why I don’t quite associate it with research. Hmm…food for thought.
This blurring of the knowing worries me as well. I’m a sequential nut. I like things to be orderly, to have a sense of what’s going on when and where with some definitive boundaries. Trying to understand information in multiple ways strikes me as a disaster waiting to happen (maybe). You know the old saying: jack of all, master of none.
"By inward, we mean toward the internal conditions, such as feelings, hopes, aesthetic reactions, and moral dispositions. By outward, we mean toward the existential conditions, that is, the environment. Bybackward and forward, we refer to temporality-past, present, and future. We wrote that to experience an experieflce--that is, to do research into an experience-is to experience it simultaneously in these four ways and to ask questions pointing each way. Thus, when one is positioned on this two-dimensional space in any particular inquiry, one asks questions, collects field notes, derives interpretations, and writes a research text that addresses both personal and social issues by looking inward and outward, and addresses temporal issues by looking not only to the event but to its past and to its future" (p. 50).
Response:
For simply describing what narrative inquiry does (without all the pish posh of theory and concepts in the middle), these guys sure did a whole lot of yacking and took their good old time getting it done. For that alone, I condemn this piece to the ceremonial bonfire at semester’s end. (Don’t claim to have cut out all the useless bits and then replace them with different useless bits. If you say you’re going to keep it short, sweet, and simple, follow through or feel readers’ collective wrath.)
(By the by, I felt like strangling the teacher, Karen Whelan, whining about failing a kid. Obviously, there is a certain degree of subjectivity in some parts of grading, but come on. How can you always mark a kid as failing? Easy, you put the failing mark on the paper when they fail. If that happens to be all the time, so be it. The fact of the matter is, if a kid is not performing on grade level, you don’t say, “That’s okay. You tried you best. I’ll pass you anyway.” You say, “Kid, I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to be here again next year. No worries though; this’ll help you in the long run.”)
If anything, this piece has renewed my faith in fiction. There’s a reason people’s everyday stories (excepting the “extraordinary” ones) don’t usually make it into successful books. We don’t care! This is overly dramatized everyday stuff, and I don’t care. We don’t want to hear about your childhood memory of the Chinese-Canadian shopkeeper or a day in the classroom, especially when the greatest emotional link in the story is one experienced only by the storyteller. There’s nothing here tying me into the story. Yes, I suppose you’re meant to think about your own memories and how you feel about them in past, present, place, and inner crud; but it’s not working for me. I’m not striving to be “God” in a study, looking down on everyone with absolute wisdom, but I prefer the behind-the-scenes approach. Let the participants’ stories take center stage and let me recount them without drawing attention away from them and to myself. I don’t want to be a spotlight-hog, and I don’t really see the need to involve myself emotionally, or memory-aly. And zero attachment on my part means this is just another piece of soddy academic nonsense read for class and then gleefully burned at a later date. :)
This is also making me more than a little apprehensive about the upcoming project…I’m anticipating a low interest level, which will necessitate a load of design. (I don’t know about you, but my life is not that interesting.)
"Situating Narrative Inquiry." Clandinin, D. Jean, Daynes, J. Gary, & Pinnegar, Stefinee. 2006.
Attack of the Quotes II:
"The four turns are a change in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; a move from the use of number toward the use of words as data; a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and specific; and a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing" (p. 1).
"However, we become narrative inquirers only when we recognize and embrace the interactive quality of the researcher-researched relationship, primarily use stories as data and analysis, and understand the way in which what we know is embedded in a particular context, and finally that narrative knowing is essential to our inquiry" (p. 7).
"How fully the researcher embraces narrative inquiry is indicated by how far he or she turns in her or his thinking and action across what we call here the four turns toward narrative. The four include the following: (1) a change in the relationship between the person conducting the research and the person participating as the subject (the relationship between the researcher and the researched), (2) a move from the use of number toward the use of words as data, (3) a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and specific, and finally (4) a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing" (p. 7). (…Well, doesn’t this sound familiar.)
"Ironically, when researchers make the turn from an objective stance in the researcher-researched relationship, it is their view of the other rather than the self that changes. Researchers admit that the humans and human interaction they study exist in a context and that the context will influence the interactions and the humans involved" (p. 11).
Response:
Well, I guess “Narrative Inquiry” wasn’t all that clear for me…according to these guys, for it to be true “narrative inquiry,” the researchers have to have an interactive relationship with their subjects. (Well, good thing the class is doing an “Oral Research Project.” I see nothing about narrative inquiry, nor do I want to.)
Just because I’m expected to come away from a study having learned something, it doesn’t mean I have to fully immerse/interact with the study participants. I know I do not remain fully objective in mind during a study (though I try not to let it seep through much), and I know that a researcher’s interactions with the researched can produce an effect on the study. Psychology and science nerds alike warn you about projection, allowing your own ideas/preconceptions to affect a study. Yes, I admit, the very fact that I’m still alive and breathing while observing a subject will have some effect on him/her. (My apologies, I’ll have to remedy that.) Still, I don’t know that I want to jump all the way over to the extreme of narrative inquiry. I like being able to measure things, as consistently as possible, too much.
Perhaps it’s a tad delusional, but I like the idea of a studying a subject within his/her context, but ignoring the the part of the context that includes me. I know I am part of the context, but I’m kind of against self-study in any place outside my journal and prayer.
I like to present research, or writing of any kind, straight to the reader, without interference from me. Letting the reader form his/her own opinion without my trying to skew it ahead of time is a big thing for me. I don’t think, in most cases, people want to be told what or how to think; they want to be given a chance to think and act for themselves. (And this would be a beautiful spot to spiral off on a stupid government rant, but I will refrain from doing so…for now.)
It’s true: stats don’t lie. Statisticians do. Still, while there are types of research where I enjoy using words, I’m a number fan, too. It makes me feel like the results are more tangible, even if they don’t cover every little variance as words can.
I thought other teachers demanded particular research questions/studies, but these guys are intense. Maybe I’m just not enough of a humanist for this stuff, which is strange; usually, I love hearing specific, detailed stories. Being able to do so is a huge part of writing fiction, which may be why I don’t quite associate it with research. Hmm…food for thought.
This blurring of the knowing worries me as well. I’m a sequential nut. I like things to be orderly, to have a sense of what’s going on when and where with some definitive boundaries. Trying to understand information in multiple ways strikes me as a disaster waiting to happen (maybe). You know the old saying: jack of all, master of none.
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