Discourse and Narrative Methods: Theoretical Departures, Analytical Strategies and Situated Writings

Doing new materialisms: an interview with Maria Tamboukou

“…In his major philosophical work, 'Difference and repetition' Deleuze (2004) has forcefully put forward the concept of pure difference, not different from, but different per se. I have expanded elsewhere Matter: Journal of New Materialist Research, volume 1 (2020): 155-175 ISSN: 2604-7551 1on Deleuzian approaches to narratives (see Livholts and Tamboukou, 2015), but what I want to underline here, is the narrative interest on singularities, on the unique existent, the unrepeatable, who breaks away with the tyranny of representation and transferability, 'validity criteria' that have long been interrogated, particularly within the field of qualitative research in the human sciences. The narrative interest on the uniqueness of human beings is not however individualistic, an important point that brings me to my second proposition of the political matrix within which narrative research is deployed.…”

Headship as policy narration: generating metaphors of leading in the English primary school

“…We wanted to listen to our headteachers' accounts about their work, what was important to them and how they managed in difficult policy moments. In talking of narratives -the head's stories -we recognise the complexities and contestedness that characterises discussions about what is involved in narrative enquiry (Livholts and Tamboukou, 2015). Our approach is based on the claim that personal meanings are constructed and reconstructed through the working and reworking of narratives.…”

To mourn and resist stigma: Narration, meaning-making and self-formation after a parent’s suicide

“…This focus of inquiry assumes, in line with a narrative theory, that stories are composed for particular purposes and for particular audiences at particular moments in time, and that they draw on the taken-for-granted understandings and values circulating in a particular culture. Hence, it emphasizes the link between individual storytelling of personal experience and the larger cultural stories or discourses, which, in line with the above arguments, function to maintain a particular morality and power structure in society (Livholts and Tamboukou 2015;Riessman 2008;Squire et al 2014). This narrative perspective is outlined in greater detail below.…”

“…As mentioned above, since there are many alternative ways of telling a story, this entails questions about why some events are selected before others, why these are organized in a specific way to build up a convincing plot and the cultural resources the story draws on or takes for granted. Another important question might therefore be how stories relate to these resources or larger cultural narratives; for example, whether and, if so, how they are constructed in agreement with these, or in resistance by taking the form of resistance or counter-narratives (see Andrew 2004;Fivush 2010;Livholts and Tamboukou 2015). These are all central issues in the field of narrative analysis, but the focus and design of individual studies may be very different.…”