Theoretical foundations of narrative care: Turning towards relational ethics

Abstract

In the past decades, narrative practices have been developed, and care has been conceptualized as being narrative in nature. More recently, narrative care has been developing both as a practice and a field of study. It is necessary to make the theoretical foundations of narrative care visible to avoid the risk of narrowly defining narrative care as a matter of storytelling and listening. In this article, we develop an understanding of narrative care grounded in early feminist pragmatist philosophy, with a focus on social and political activism and experience. Pragmatism holds the possibilities to open spaces for realities that are constantly in flux and for emergent situations that must be considered across time, diverse places and social contexts. With the aid of Vera’s stories about her relationship with Tammy, we demonstrate the importance of recognizing that realities are multiple, complex and uncertain. Furthermore, we discuss how the stronghold of formula stories and issues of power, positioning and inequities, restrict people’s possibilities to be, become and co-author their stories. We also argue that the playfulness, imagination and world travelling of narrative care are in line with early feminist pragmatism, which draws on a wide and diverse range of experiences. Jane Addams linked democracy to dialogue, joint experiences and social equality. This calls for the development of ethical frameworks grounded in care that are more specifically focused on relational ethics and a commitment to dialogical and relational democracy and the prioritization of community.

The afterlife of interviews: explicit ethics and subtle ethics in sensitive or distressing qualitative research

“…An ethics of care requires thinking with emotions and not just rationality (Birch et al, 2014). Similarly, relational ethics in narrative inquiry emphasise attention to the relationships between researchers and participants, placing ethics at the heart of the research process rather than in tension with it (Blix et al, 2019; Clandinin et al, 2018). Clandinin and Connelly (2000: 170) argueEthical matters need to be narrated over the entire narrative inquiry process.…”

Considering Silences in Narrative Inquiry: An Intergenerational Story of a Sami Family

“…An untold story, or one that is told unconventionally without words, relates the teller’s continuing struggle to live” (p. 108). We and others have previously written about how the failure to acknowledge embodied experiences expressed in other ways than through the spoken or written word, in a form that is not recognized as ‘narrative’, for example through movements and gestures, may lead to painful narrative dispossession or silencing (Baldwin 2006; Berendonk et al 2017; Blix et al 2019).…”

Narrative care: Unpacking pandemic paradoxes

“…It is a way of making sense of the world together (Blix et al, 2021). Elsewhere, we have written about narrative care, both as a way to engage with people in ways that are marked by relational ethics and concerns for equity and social justice (Blix et al, 2019), and as an intervention in care settings (Berendonk et al, 2020). In this paper we think with narrative care as a way to respond to, and live within, pandemic paradoxes.…”