Abstract
This chapter is written in a personal and storied format that shows and tells the cultures and contexts that have shaped and informed Professor Kim Etherington’s journey over the past 40 years towards her becoming a Narrative Inquirer. Using an autoethnographic approach the chapter explores the breadth and depth of Narrative Inquiry: the historical and societal backgrounds that have shaped the philosophical underpinnings of this methodology; the ethical issues and practices; and the centrality of reflexivity at all levels to ensure and enhance integrity, trustworthiness and rigor when using this kind of research. The chapter uses examples of different approaches to Narrative Inquiry, thereby embedding the information within the text into real life illustrations that illuminate the theories, practices and skills of Narrative Inquiry.
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Notes
- 1.
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Essentialism: a philosophical theory ascribing ultimate reality to essence embodied in a ‘thing’ perceptible to the senses. In early Western thought Plato’s idealism held that all things have such an ‘essence’— an ‘idea’ or ‘form’.
- 3.
7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBcBNKz0ESo: Qualitative Conversations: about Reflexivity and ‘Becoming a Reflexive Researcher’: Kim Etherington with Kitrina Douglas and David Carless (2009).
- 4.
For example: The documentary Kathy Come Home written by Jeremy Sandford and directed by Ken Loach (1966). This story of one woman’s experience of homelessness was debated in parliament and MPs William Shearman and Ian Macleod led a campaign highlighting the plight of the homeless, which directly led to the charity Crisis being established in 1967.
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It was usually the case that I did my own transcribing but in this instance I didn’t – this being the only piece of research for which I had received funding.
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Here I choose to use the feminine rather than the clumsy device of he/she.
- 7.
Jones, K. (Exec Prod) (2013). RUFUS STONE (short film) Retrieved from 7 https://vimeo.com/109360805.
- 8.
Verisimilitude: the quality of seeming to be true or real (Oxford Dictionary). One way this can be achieved is by using the participant’s own words and detailed sensory and embodied descriptions.
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Etherington, K. (2020). Becoming a Narrative Inquirer. In: Bager-Charleson, S., McBeath, A. (eds) Enjoying Research in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55127-8_5
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