Perspectives on narrative methods in social work research

Abstract

Larsson S, Sjöblom Y. Perspectives on narrative methods in social work research Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 272–280 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. The narrative turn has entered many different academic disciplines and is now also emerging in social work. This article focuses on a discussion of the possibilities and limitations of doing narrative research in social work, including a scrutiny of definitions and of a number of theoretical and methodological arguments often used by some of the leading narrative researchers.

Categories and their consequences: Understanding and supporting the caring relationships of older lesbian, gay and bisexual people

“…Indeed, the value of narrative approaches is their flexibility and adaptability. In a discussion of narrative methods in social work research Larsson and Sjoblom (2010) point out that as well as holding a therapeutic potential, narratives methods can be used as a tool in the investigation and evaluation of social work practice as well as in research. Our argument here centres on the potential benefits to both service users and practitioners in the context of working with older LGB people, whose lives and personal histories may have been hidden and so little understood by practitioners.…”

The Handbook of Narrative Analysis

“…Narrative approaches thus hold great potential for geographers interested in the dynamics of everyday life. (2005: 90) Similar programmatic statements can be noted for other scientific disciplines: for example, for knowledge management, Larsson and Sjöblom (2010) for social work, etc. In this respect, it is also worth mentioning how interactional analysis has contributed to the critique of some of the earlier approaches that were more exclusively concerned with narrative representation.…”

Building comprehensive narratives from dialogical encounters: A path in search of meanings

“…They have been utilized in various areas of knowledge (history, anthropology, sociology, psychology) with distinct objectives (Granato, Corbett, & Aiello-Vaisberg, 2011;Larsson & Sjöblom, 2010), presenting themselves as an effective way of studying lived experiences and an appropriate way to access their meanings (Granato & Aiello-Vaisberg, 2013;Kramp, 2004). They also have been used within the context of descriptive phenomenological research (e.g., Sells, Topor, & Davidson, 2004), but in this case they remain a product of the researcher's own reflections on each participant's experience.…”