Stories

When the aim of your research is to explain people´s experiences, notions and ways of describing a certain phenomenon, you can collect the data through the media of written and verbal stories and narratives. You choose, and ask, people to write or tell a story of their experience concerning the research phenomenon.

The experiential aspect of your request ensures the responses in either written or verbal media are largely autobiographical. An autobiography is the life-story of the narrator told as a sequence of events and experiences. Narratives related to a particular theme in the narrator´s life such as childhood, loneliness, war or art, are known as themed autobiographies.

Read more on stories from the links below:

Oplatka, Izhar, 2001. Building a Typology of Self-Renewal: Reflection Upon-Life Story Research. The Qualitative Report, 2001, 6:4.

Hannabuss, Stuart, 2000. Being there: ethnographic research and autobiography. Library Management, 2000, 21:2. (pdf)

Forum: Qualitive Social Reseach, 2003, 4:3. Thematic Issue: Doing biographical research.

Schostak, John. Narrative as a Vehicle for Research. Enquiry Learning Unit.

Examples of research using stories:

Turunen, A. (2016). "I Am A Skirt Person" : Resistance to Women's Trouser Fashion in Oral History Narratives. Ethnologia Scandinavica, 2016(46), 56-69.