Institutional storytelling and personal narratives: reflecting on the ‘value’ of narrative inquiry

Abstract

With the ‘narrative turn’, a momentum gathered in the wider social sciences that asserted that listening to, asking for, gathering and analysing stories provided a new impetus to researching human behaviour. The argument evolved: people are storied beings and to generate a more in-depth understanding of people and their experiences, researchers need to begin with their stories. But the stories people tell are also deeply embedded in narrative frameworks and narrative environments that make up what I conceptualise as institutional storytelling. Arguably, institutional storytelling has a profound impact on the stories people can and do tell. Narrative inquiry has much to offer to the analysis of institutional and personal narratives. In this article, I will address the question of the relevance of narrative inquiry to gather and analyse the stories that people and institutions tell. Drawn from an empirical sociological study of women’s narratives of their weight management experiences in the context of their participation in weight management classes, I present a case for narrative ethnography as a critical methodological strategy to analyse the complex relationship between institutional and personal narratives.

Keywords:

• Narrative ethnography
• institutional storytelling
• narrative inquiry
• critical weight studies

Notes on contributor

Jacqueline O' Toole is a Lecturer in Social Research in the Institute of Technology Sligo. Her main interests are qualitative methodology; feminist theory; critical weight studies; and gender and social care.

ORCID

Jacqueline O’ Toole http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0362-8744

Notes

1. The pseudonym of the slimming organisation wherein I conducted my study is Slim Ireland. Data gathering involved 1 year of observation in four weight management classes in the North West of Ireland, 11 double narrative interviews with women in the classes and a narrative analysis of 32 texts of motivational talks presented in the classes.

2. Full ethical approval was received from the Research Ethics Committee in the National University of Ireland, Galway, prior to contacting any commercial weight loss organisation. Slim Ireland received all the necessary participation information and consent documentation and was fully appraised of the nature of the research process before and during the observation period.

3. I also gathered other relevant documentation about Slim Ireland including the ‘healthy eating’ programme it endorses, advice on exercise, its fitness DVD and recipe book, weight loss stickers, the class leader manual, class advertisements and newspaper articles. I monitored its website regularly, received its online newsletter and started following four of its leaders on twitter.

4. I posed the following questions to guide my analysis. What was the plot-line within each woman’s narrative? Who were the key characters in each narrative? Were there turning points and epiphanies narrated? What settings were identified?

5. Riessman (2008) cautions that determining the boundaries of stories can be difficult and highly interpretative.