Understanding narrative inquiry through life story interviews with former prisoners

ABSTRACT

Researchers’ reflections on narrative inquiry is a growing area of interest for the qualitative researchers’ community (Beuthin 2014; Bruce et al 2016; O’Grady, Clandinin and O’Toole 2018). Furthermore, the relationship between the insider and outsider, researcher and participant, in narrative research conducted in social sciences, including nursing, health sciences, and education, has been extensively explored (Berger 2015; Darwin Holmes 2020). This paper reports on a project in which life story interviews with former prisoners were conducted in Ireland and Greece. The aim is to contribute to our understanding and knowledge of narrative inquiry by providing insights into the methodology employed, along with the challenges faced and steps taken to address those challenges during the project. The paper begins with a reflective account of the author’s experience as a researcher engaging in narrative inquiry, focusing on the rationale behind choosing this method and issues of design, positionality, ethics and access. Then the focus shifts to how the fieldwork in two European countries allowed the author to explore the cross-cultural boundaries of narrative inquiry. Finally, the paper concludes with a persuasive argument on the value of narrative inquiry, drawing upon the insights and findings from the research project.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative inquiry
• life stories
• prison education
• positionality
• reflexivity
• ethics

Introduction

The use of narrative inquiry and narrative interviewing has gained significant attention among qualitative researchers in various disciplines, including nursing, health sciences, and education (Beuthin 2014; Bruce et al. 2016). This approach acknowledges the power of stories in shaping human understanding, meaning-making, and the construction of identity (Riessman 2008; Rogers 2007). By exploring individuals as ‘storied’ beings, narrative research provides a valuable lens through which to examine personal experiences, including those of marginalised populations.

This paper aims to contribute to our understanding and knowledge of narrative inquiry by providing insights into the methodology employed for a research project focused on the experiences of male former prisoners in Ireland and Greece. Specifically, the author used narrative inquiry to delve into the lived experiences of prison education and its outcomes in later life while developing a framework that would involve the participants more directly in the research. The use of narrative inquiry offered a comprehensive and holistic approach to exploring the educational journeys of individuals within the prison context. Issues and challenges faced during the design phase, including considerations of positionality, ethics, and access, are of particular interest in qualitative inquiry.

By addressing these issues and advancing our knowledge of employing narrative inquiry as a methodological framework, we aim to shed light on the complex and multifaceted nature of researching, documenting and understanding the lived experience.

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework underpinning the study brings together theories of identity formation, recognition and education, drawing upon Axel Honneth and Paulo Freire. At the core of the framework used for the analysis lies Axel Honneth's theory of recognition. Honneth (1996) emphasises self-formation as a means of empowerment and resistance against social injustices, a cornerstone in this research. His work illuminates the vital significance of recognition and respect within the educational sphere, particularly within the emerging pedagogical relationships that define it.

From an educational point of view, the framework is informed by Paulo Freire’s critical adult education (1998; 2000). When examining Axel Honneth's perspectives on recognition and identity formation, significant elements that align with the principles of critical adult education emerge. Firstly, Paulo Freire's approach to adult education closely aligns with Honneth's theory of recognition, specifically emphasising love and education's aim of the flourishing of individuals. This alignment underscores the crucial role of cultivating a supportive and caring environment within education, aspects that resonate with critical adult education's aims of encouraging learners to examine and explore their position in the world. Both theories also shape our focus on understanding the dynamic relationship between agency and structure, as well as their implications for social justice. The integration of Axel Honneth's theory of recognition and Paulo Freire's principles of critical adult education build the theoretical foundation for this study, highlighting the interconnectedness of identity, recognition, and transformative education.

Initial ethical considerations

This study delved into the experiences of former prisoners who re-engaged in education while incarcerated, a group often deemed vulnerable in research. To safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of participants, pseudonyms were adopted. Participants were granted the autonomy to select their pseudonyms, and these choices were respected. In cases where preferences were not expressed, names were derived from distinctive elements within their narratives, all chosen from the Irish and Greek Mythology.

The preparatory stage of the study played a pivotal role in preparing and ensuring ethical integrity throughout the research process. During this stage I met with all participants, introduced myself and discussed the aims of the study and research questions, and I emphasised their right to withdraw from the study at any point, without facing consequences. Informed consent was obtained before any data were generated. Furthermore, the participants were offered ample time to reflect on which aspects of their experiences they felt comfortable sharing. These practices aligned with the principles of narrative inquiry, which underscore active listening and the respectful treatment of participants’ narratives. Throughout the research process anonymity and confidentiality were maintained. This commitment extended not only to the participants but also to the various services that acted as gatekeepers for access. These steps were followed in an effort to ensure participants were empowered, enabling them to retain control over their stories and fostering a supportive and empathetic environment.

The methodological framework: Narrative inquiry

The project that this paper reports on involved conducting life-story interviews with male former prisoners in Ireland and in Greece, in order to enhance our knowledge of the participants’ experience of prison education and the outcomes in later life. For this purpose fieldwork was conducted in both countries, taking a narrative approach.

Narrative research puts the focus on stories and people are viewed as ‘storied’ individuals (Riessman 2008). This type of inquiry stems from the idea that stories are an integral part of human thinking and meaning-making, and furthermore, critical to the construction of identity and self (Rogers 2007). In such research, practitioners adopt a theoretical stance of studying with the participants. This is to take into account that meaning is constructed and that the participant’s right to be a part of this construction must be acknowledged and respected (Hollingsworth and Dybdahl 2007). In narrative research issues of research ethics, power and positionality in social research take centre stage.

Against this backdrop, the life stories were generated in encounters with people who engaged in education while in prison. The interviews were primarily open-ended discussions with the participants, where data is generated in the form of narration. It was a crucial factor for the project that the data is generated in a way that allows the participants space and time to share and reflect on their lived experience. As Riessman (1993) underlines that an approach with narrative elements can give more space to the participants, in our case the life story format allowed for the necessary space. This is particularly valuable when considering that the concepts of the self, the life-trajectory, reflection, change, and the meaning-making process are at the core of the study. For that reason, it was important to generate data that will enable the analysis to look through the lens of the whole person and view the lived experience through a life-trajectory form. In this way, the participants are not viewed exclusively as former prisoners, and their time in prison is not made the exclusive subject of the research, rather it is viewed through the wider life-trajectory lens. Against this background, the previous educational experience becomes of great value, along with experiences in their family, or community.

There is great value in employing narrative research in projects where underrepresented groups are involved (such as former prisoners), but also when researchers reflect on how to look into experiences of individuals that belong to groups that have been through situations that are uncommon for the largest part of the population. Clandinin and Rosiek (2007, 41) claim ‘[…] stories are often treated as the epiphenomenal to social inquiry – reflections of important social realities but not realities themselves’. Building on this, in the project’s case, the story proved to be a rich source of data, ‘a reality’ that could be captured only in a form of a narration. Similarly, O’Toole (2018) argues that narrative research tools help and allow the individuals to give meaning to and narrate their personal experiences, within a larger institutional context. This is of particular interest, as the participants in this project, and their narrations, share as a background the institutional context of prisons.

Two core elements stood out regarding the narration forms I listened to in the interviews – shape and space. During the fieldwork and the encounters with the participants, they often paused to think, or they reflected on their experience in a way that could not be possible if I had interrupted with questions (shape), or provided a very limited framework for a reply, by asking specific questions – even open-ended ones (space). By practising active listening, I shared a part of my power as the researcher, the data I received in the end, were shaped as much as possible by the participants, not by me. They decided how the prison experience and their family background made sense to them, they commented on the social dimension of their learning and they had time to go back and share memories that I might have not understood how connected they were with their life after release. In that sense, through the use of stories, the social dimension of understanding and inquiry comes into sharp focus.

Challenges: issues of design, positionality, ethics and access

In this section, I will present my account of the experience of the methodology and design of the fieldwork. Challenges in this project emerged very early when I immersed myself in the literature of the history of prison education and prison education policy. This project began with a proposed methodology of semi-structured interviews, but it became clear quite quickly that a more comprehensive tool was necessary in order to capture a ‘story’ or to view the educational experience holistically. The initial proposal’s research tool would require me to have a set of questions or prompts for the participants. My reflection on the researcher’s positionality on this project led to expanding my reading in the literature on how to do research with participants belonging to vulnerable groups. My doubts were based primarily on how I should approach best the lived experience, an experience that was far away from my own experience. I could not help but wonder, how to best form themes and structure the interview questions, and if I did that, would that semi-structured interview be the best possible way to encounter the participant’s experience? I concluded that it would be an attempt on my part to control meaning, by ‘fragmenting’ the experience before the actual interview encounter, as Riessman describes it (2002, 695).

By exploring narrative inquiry, it seemed I had found the appropriate way on how to approach the educational journey and the lived experience of the people who participated in prison education as learners. As Daiute and Lightfoot (2004) argue, narrative research provided tools to explore phenomena, events and experiences holistically, as I sought to view the educational and life trajectories of the participants.

The same authors add that through narratives it is possible to look into the intersection of the self and society, which was also needed in order to find a way to approach the story as a whole. I began to look for a more comprehensive way to capture a story of a lived experience, one that would enable me to give more space to the participants, and I reached the format of a narrative through a life story, where I used the format of a book. I invited the participants to reflect on their experiences as if it was a book and that helped to set the beginning and develop the narration in a way that made sense for them. In that sense, life stories were adopted as the research tool based on the following two arguments: firstly, the participants in the study come from a population that has experienced incarceration, therefore the research concerning the educational cannot be disconnected from that experience (disconnect the educational from the social and political) and secondly, the objective of exploring the educational journey needs an approach that encompasses the whole journey, attempt to capture the story holistically.

The prison education setting, or everyday life in prison education, is not often clearly described in the relevant policy, as the aims and the rationale are. It was hard to imagine how the days go by in prison and what school actually means for those who participate in it. Again, the huge gap between my own experience and the one of the participants I sought to talk to, stood out. Additionally, I thought it was particularly important to address issues of power in the interview setting. Beuthin’s work resonated with me in this aspect, when she talks about the ‘[…] unseen cloak of power we wear that gains us access to the individual and his or her experience’ (2014, 128). Narrative researchers have been exploring this tension of the insider-outsider in social sciences, and as Andrews (2007, 489) highlights, it is a tension with the issue of power at its core. Limes-Taylor Henderson and Esposito particularly discuss the difficulties of doing research in social sciences, touching upon issues of social inequality and exclusion, within a framework that will allow us to break out of dominant ways of ‘understanding and interacting with the world’ (2019, 886).

This is why narrative research invites researchers to reflect on their own experiences and narrative identity and reflect on their positionality. By making ourselves aware of the unique combination of our situatedness and reflexivity, we position ourselves in the world and in our research framework, we seek to add and enrich the way we do research, by acknowledging and making it part of it. Researchers’ reflexivity and positionality and their importance in qualitative research have been viewed as an integral part of engaging in social science research (Darwin Holmes 2020). Furthermore, understanding the complexity of how reflexivity and positionality inform and influence the interview and ways that the researchers can acknowledge this and use them as a tool to enhance the quality of the research has also been discussed in depth (Berger 2015; Finlay 2012; Limes-Taylor Henderson and Esposito 2019). Building on that, the view of positionality as an enrichment, rather than a barrier, has also been addressed in feminist research (Brooks and Hesse-Biber 2014). That means that we, as researchers, do not dispose of it or ignore it, but rather make it part of our research. As Andrews (2007) puts it, developing a ‘narrative imagination’ becomes key in conducting narrative research. To begin by being aware of your own positionality and being ready to let go of the power to impose meaning-making, you create space for alternative worldviews to emerge within the narrative. Once the research approach was determined and its rationale deemed robust, questions arose regarding how to position myself effectively and embark on a reflexive journey to build upon this foundation.

This journey of reflexivity and acknowledgment of positionality serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it bolsters the quality and validity of the research itself. Secondly, it holds significant value from an ethical standpoint in research. This entails ensuring that participants and their stories are treated with the utmost respect.

The departure point was to explore the moments where I felt uncomfortable, and situations where I encountered the unfamiliar and the unpredictable. Reflecting on my position as a researcher, the setting where I spent most of my time – academia, and how little I knew about life and crime. Exploring those constantly and at the same time going through and being honest with the participants about my positionality was crucial. Acknowledging and being honest and open about my lack of knowledge on these issues also meant letting go of part of my power and control in our interview encounters. This ‘ongoing self-awareness’ is a process that Finlay (2012) argues is the main element of reflexivity in research. Moreover, in my case, the field notes and the researcher’s diary were invaluable tools and supportive instruments in the process of the actual data generation.

In this research, I consistently relied on Andrews's concept of ‘narrative imagination’ (2007, 489), which involves the capacity to momentarily release the confines of our own meaning-making framework and create room for the diverse meaning-making frameworks of others to emerge. I want to clarify that I am not suggesting complete immersion into someone else's framework, but rather emphasising the space that emerges when we temporarily step back from our own perspective. It is within this space that I observed the participants engaging in reflection. Allowing this space to exist implies trust, a trust that I considered vital for our interactions. I pursued two strategies to foster this trust. Firstly, I remained open to questions and shared aspects of my own life journey. Secondly, I made it a priority to honour the commitments made during our initial meeting, to respect their time and space. Narrative inquiry is frequently selected when researchers confront ethical dilemmas related to individuals who have endured traumatic situations or belong to marginalised groups. It provides a framework that aligns with the commitment to ethical research practices while facilitating an exploration of the multifaceted lives and narratives of participants.

Narrative inquiry is in that sense, an exploration of our narrative imagination, and the importance of positionality is at its core. I found that reflecting on my positionality and situatedness has been a key part of conducting this research and indeed, this awareness proved to be an integral part of the fieldwork and of how I accepted and handled moments of tension in this project’s narrative inquiry. I was about to embark on a challenging but at the same time fascinating journey.

To highlight this point, I include here a passage of the researcher’s diary from the day Bobby and I met and he shared with me his own life journey. In this passage, a moment of tension within the interview is described – one of many – and I drew upon the ongoing reflective journey. I believe that this short passage emphasises the issues discussed so far, access to the individual’s life and story, revisiting emotional events grounding my engagement in my positionality and respecting the participant’s story. I include it here as a vignette in order to convey the moment.

Ireland, February 2021

Bobby and I met today for the second time. We have never seen each other in person. We do not even share the same meeting space. He is in his home and I am in my room, we both very much feel very tired of the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. Ireland is in level 5 lockdown since Christmas and this week we have a total of 200,744 cases and 3,586 deaths. Bobby and I are optimistic and we exchange words of support and encouragement. We both agree ‘It would be much better if we could meet in person’, a thought that is pondering in many people’s minds since March 2020.

As we start, Bobby seems very eager to talk and I listen. He is very generous with his narration, he stops, he pauses to think, he laughs when he shares something funny, he is very expressive. I listen. The online setting creates an even bigger distance that I am very aware of. I am trying to be an active listener, but not overly expressive in order to not influence the narration. Bobby now describes the moment when he left prison after serving his time and his return to his hometown. He describes his feeling seeing the sky, the first houses he saw on making his way into the city, the feeling of returning home and being reunited with the familiar again, after all this time. It is a deeply emotional moment as he tears up and cries. He goes on and I go through a moment of tension. My first thoughts are urged by a very human emotion when I see someone crying, should I say something comforting? How do I deal with this deep sharing of something so personal – over an online interview nonetheless? I remember my reflections on my own positionality. I cannot fully understand this experience, therefore I can offer no words of consolation, but I can do what I have offered to my participant in the first place. I gave space and listened. I was present at the moment, appreciating and respecting his story, his words, and his narration of that moment. I began to tear up myself but remained silent as Bobby went on.

When his story finished, we smiled at each other and after a long pause I asked his permission to stop the recording and I thanked him for his time. I shared my thought on his sharing personal and even traumatic experiences and I said that I really appreciated his generosity and his trust. He replied: ‘You know, no one has asked me about my experience like that before.’ Bobby’s words conveyed a genuine observation, even a reflection. He was obviously content about our discussion and for me, this sharing of his thought was a valuable comment on how our encounter went. Creating a safe atmosphere and giving space and time for his story to unfold on his own terms was what I was hoping to achieve.

On the cross-cultural boundaries

This project took place in two different European countries, Ireland and Greece. The setting of the two countries included two different journeys of gaining access, communicating with gatekeepers and engaging with the participants, also influenced by how the two countries handled the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing when the project took place. Furthermore, in the process of fieldwork, I came to understand the tension of existing as a researcher and conducting fieldwork in two different linguistic and cultural environments.

In this project, the stories were the main focus. The methodology that was employed resulted in having 14 rich life stories, stories about one’s life journey, important events, decisions and reflections on the outcomes of that experience of prison education. Naturally, the structures, the educational system, the prison system and conditions, as well as differences in the Irish and Greek societies, histories and economies played a pivotal role in the stories. Those were significant factors that transformed and shifted the stories and provided the background where the individuals acted. Consequently, the description of the prison conditions, the educational settings and the journey of experiencing the educational encounters in prison ended up being part of the analysis. Keeping in mind that the core of the project was the life stories and trajectories of the participants in relation to prison education and life after release, the project took a culturally sensitive approach where comments could be made to highlight how the different backgrounds manifested themselves in the narrations, but the focus was always to the narrations themselves. Before proceeding further, it is important to highlight that from the narrations’ point of view, there were considerable similarities. The relationship with the teacher/educator in prison and seen by them as people with potential was always in the centre of the narration, as well as the decision to continue their education after having been away for many years.

In this section, I would like to expand the account of my positionality by sharing the exploration of these cross-cultural boundaries in the fieldwork, while conducting narrative research. Against this background, I had to situate myself twice and acknowledge my positionality for both countries, as an outsider more in Ireland than in Greece, where the cultural background was more familiar, but as an outsider in both settings when it came to reaching a level of communication and trust with the participants. Both Andrew's work (2007) and Beuthin’s (2014) resonated with me in my preparation for the fieldwork, on how to be aware of my own meaning-making framework. The cultural background in this sense included the linguistic barriers I encountered when conducting fieldwork in Ireland. According to Beuthin (2014), situatedness within the methodology makes the process more complex, and indeed, in my case, it transformed the encounter by adding more layers to it. I was not only the researcher, but I was also younger in age (in all cases except one, where the participant had the same age as me) a woman and someone coming from the world of academia. To the people in Greece, I was also someone who has decided to live abroad for a number of years and to the people in Ireland I was an expat that has decided to live in their country.

Especially this last observation became a new lens for me and deepened my self-awareness. I particularly found it useful and drew from Berger (2015) and his remarks on studying the familiar, in my case a more familiar linguistic and cultural background and not the experience itself, and the unfamiliar. Berger’s research highlights how sometimes being an outsider is an advantage in disguise, as to the participants in Ireland I was ‘ignorant’ to the different ways I could make meaning out of their stories, for example by hearing a specific accent, or by referring to a specific part of the city. Furthermore, language was a big part of it.

I was very open with addressing those barriers, especially the linguistic ones with the participants, explaining that I might ask them to repeat or explain again phrases that I might not have understood. I would keep notes in order not to interrupt them while they were speaking. The participants were very eager to help me understand and reply to my questions. From this perspective, this added an extra layer of communication between the participants and myself, and it proved to be a unique opportunity for reflection on examples that the participants themselves took for granted. Although in this research I was an outsider in both countries, the fact that I was a foreigner in Ireland gave the participants even more space in the narrations. Similarly, in Greece, I was again very open about how I reflected on my positionality, and again, it was an important step to building trust with the participants. Also, with this distinct cultural difference that touched upon my nationality, political and cultural identity, came the opportunity to reflect more on my positionality. This is where I drew upon Darwin Holmes’ work (2020) to take into account and reflect on more the fixed aspects of my positionality, such as nationality, race and skin colour, and more fluid ones, such as my views regarding political and social issues, my past experiences, my own life-story and educational journey.

In this section, I will include again a passage from the researcher’s diary, where it is highlighted how my situatedness became a point of discussion between me and the participant and led to an invaluable moment of sharing.

Greece, October 2020

Manos and I are sitting across from each other. We only have two chairs, no table between us. We are both wearing a face covering and have the windows open, as the current guidelines recommend. We are in the centre of a big city, on the building’s 6th floor, next to one of the busiest streets during rush hour. The traffic noise interrupts us frequently, but it does not seem to be bothering us. We are well into the story now, Manos is very generous with his narrative and I listen very carefully. We take moments of silence when the traffic noise interrupts us. We finish our discussion and I ask for permission to stop the recording.

As we say goodbye and I thank him again for his time, he walks to the door, but he hovers. He turns around and asks: ‘Can I ask you something?’ I immediately reply: ‘Of course.’ I put time and effort into establishing a communication with the participants, one where, despite all circumstances with COVID-19 restrictions and our time being limited, they would feel welcome to ask me questions, about any part of the research, or even comment and be vocal on the process itself. All this is valuable feedback for me and hugely enriches my own reflection. He asks: ‘Why do you do this? What led a young lady to go and ask ex-convict men about their lives?’

His voice carries genuine curiosity and even care. But there, Manos had just unfolded my situatedness as an outsider, as a PhD Candidate, a younger woman, with no experience of incarceration in my narrative repertoire. Even his unspoken communication elements highlight this distance between us and his genuine curiosity, but the care and the fact that he deemed asking the question time-worthy is a product of our moment of sharing that just took place, during the narration. He might have thought that my being there was strange from the beginning of our encounter, but the fact that he actually took the time to ask, shows a level of trust where he had some certainty that I am going to reply honestly.

I, indeed, am honest and I begin to explain, I share my own interest in prison education, in conducting research using this methodology, as a way to capture the whole story with respect to the participants and their right to have their story told the way they want it to be told. I share my own journey that led me to the same room on the 5th floor of the building in the city centre of a big city this very busy mid-week afternoon during rush hour. I can trace my own journey back to a visit of mine to a prison school, where a student made a remark about how often prisoners being the subject in many research projects can feel forgotten by educators and researchers (or the research community, or academia). He said, and I quote: ‘When you leave our school today, I invite you not to forget. Instead, try and do something about it.’ Those words and my visit to the prison setting marked a significant moment in my journey as a master's student, as an educator, and as a teacher for adult refugees and immigrants, and it shaped me profoundly. My interest in Adult Education developed and my aim is to explore this narrative-based type of research, as I am trying to be ethical and respect the participants’ voices, all the same time by looking into how those voices and those stories can have an impact on policy-making. I concluded with those words: ‘And that is why I am here, I am trying, I am trying to do something.’

He looked at me and responded, using present tense as a contrast to my future one: ‘I think you are already doing something.’ I felt deeply overtaken by a feeling of gratitude. The man who had just shared his own life story thought that I was doing something right. I thanked him for sharing this thought, as Manos was very generous in providing this reassurance, and I do keep those words as a validation that he felt respected, safe and seen in our moment of sharing.

Discussion on the path ahead and the value of narrative research

The first methodological aim of this paper was to provide an account of my experience in this project employing narrative interviewing. By sharing my own experience and all the points of reflection and tensions I encountered in the journey of conducting narrative research through those life stories, I want to argue and advocate the value of using such a method in the social sciences. Without aiming at comparing different methods, or contributing to the much-debated issue of qualitative-quantitative methods, I am making a case for encouraging the research community to engage in narrative research or include narrative elements in their research, despite the challenges that can be encountered. By viewing these challenges as opportunities to deepen our understanding of different types of qualitative inquiry, I believe there is an invaluable opportunity to overcome them and discover pathways in order to use their value in the research process. The value has been emphasised by O’Grady, Clandinin, and O’Toole as they highlight that ‘Narrative Inquiry, in challenging inherited dominant understandings of subjectivity and research methodologies as well as proposing emancipatory alternatives has the potential to give voice to often silenced knowledge.’ (2018, 156).

As shown in my account, narrative tools in research can indeed provide an insight into elements of the lived experience, otherwise hidden, that can be proved very valuable and useful in educational decisions and policymaking. They open up a window to the lived experience that would be very limited if there was an effort to capture it by using only quantitative methods. Narrative inquiry and analysis require a level of personal involvement, it is indeed at its core about the personal and the specific. And that makes it a way to explore the educational experience and its outcome by building on the insight that narrative inquiry has to offer. Also, the whole journey of reflexivity and positionality proved to be a key element of the fieldwork and analysis and enhanced the project's quality and validity.

Moreover, the other aim of this paper is to provide the experience of engaging in narrative research, from the inside. Although the literature on narrative research continues to grow since the ‘narrative turn’ (Goodson and Gill 2011), I found myself very lost at times, when left with practical questions, that had a significant influence on the fieldwork and the analysis. Set out to find answers to those questions, I found how particularly useful the engagement with similar accounts of other researchers was. The way in which other researchers reported and documented their fieldwork experiences, much like how I am currently reporting and documenting my own experience, played a crucial role in shaping this project. It contributed significantly to various aspects, ranging from the initial design to the actual analysis and all the steps in between. Moreover, it resulted in me not shying away from the challenges and moments of tension in the project. It's important to recognise that in narrative inquiry there are no rigid, universally applicable steps to follow. Those boundaries must be negotiated, explored, and established anew for each project, setting, and even individual interview.

The sharing of the specific tensions, challenges, obstacles, or non-anticipated difficulties, and the way those were addressed and made part of the research process, has prepared me for the encounter of my own moments of tension. I was made more aware of the kinds of tensions I would encounter and how to better design the research process in order to do it in the best way for the participants. I strongly believe in the value of sharing the research journey as a narrative researcher in order to deepen our knowledge of the methods and their benefits and to build a shared knowledge base for all researchers engaged in this type of research. It is again how through the specific, a more general understanding is achieved. Consequently, by sharing my reflections on these challenges and the lessons learned, I hope to contribute to deepening our understanding of narrative methods and how to best employ them in fieldwork.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by A.G. Leventis Foundation; Trinity College Dublin.

Notes on contributors

Angeliki Lima

Dr Angeliki Lima is a Research Fellow in the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. Her work primarily focuses on Adult Education and Educational and Social Inclusion and she is interested in the use of participatory research methods, which include narrative inquiry, action research, and reflexive research methodologies.