‘Making narrative portraits: a methodological approach to analysing qualitative data’

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes the method of ‘narrative portraiture’, which, located within the wider field of narrative studies, offers an analytical tool to narrative data. Two research projects, one on disability and one on identity, are used to illustrate how the method can be applied. While the paper will focus on the methodological benefits and limitations of the approach, throughout the article we also highlight the ethical concern of representation. We suggest that through ‘narrative portraiture’ research findings can be contextualised in broader social narratives without losing sight of the unique personal qualities of the research encounter. Thus, we argue for the importance of bringing the participant and their everyday life experience into focus, highlighting that a portrayal of a sole story can be, not only a medium to understand a research phenomenon, but also a valuable research output in itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative
• data analysis
• qualitative
• stories
• ethics

Acknowledgments

This method has been partly developed thanks to the support of the Institute for Academic Development, University of Edinburgh, through the Festival of Creative Learning fund.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Edgar Rodríguez-Dorans

Edgar Rodríguez-Dorans is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry, a Mental Health Mentor at the Student Disability Service, and a Volunteer Counsellor at Arkordia – a Scottish Charity offering low cost, psychotherapy, art therapy, and counselling services to those on low incomes. He is interested in the study of LGBTQIA+ lives, identities, and sexualities, and the use of performing arts in research.

Paula Jacobs

Paula Jacobs currently does her PhD at the School of Health in Social Science, The University of Edinburgh. Her PhD looks at transitions in the lives of adults with severe or profound intellectual disability, taking both an ecological and life-course perspective. Paula worked within Learning Disabilities and Residential Care for 9 years before starting her PhD in September 2016.