Title: The function of narrative: Toward a narrative psychology of meaning Brian Schiff Department of Psychology The American University of Paris bschiff@aup.fr
1The function of narrative Toward a narrative
psychology of meaningBrian SchiffDepartment of
PsychologyThe American University of
Parisbschiff_at_aup.fr
2What is narrative? What is narrative psychology?
- Narrative is an elusive concept.
- The term is stretched and overextended.
- Psychology, like the other social sciences,
appears to be content with an imprecise metaphor. - As Hyvärinen (2006) argues, in the social
sciences, the something else is, often, life.
3Why define the metaphor?
- The narrative metaphor should be sufficiently
open to include a broad range of research and
dissent. - But, it should be specific enough such that
- We know what narrative is.
- Why we are doing narrative.
- It should direct us to innovative ways of
understanding human lives.
4Is narrative a structure or a function?
- There is a tendency to understand narrative as a
structural concept. - The lines between what is narrative and not
narrative are often fuzzy (Herman, 2009 Ryan,
2007). - To psychologists and others, who are interested
in narrative because of the way that narratives
are involved in how persons make sense of life,
the issue of structure is secondary.
5Narrative functions
- The structural properties of narrative are
important and complimentary. - However, narrative is special because of the
meanings that speech and other expressions are
able to produce, create and inhabit. - How narrating functions to manage meanings.
- Narrative is important because of what can be
done or accomplished with narrative.
6Narrative is a verb
- Narrative is a dynamic process.
- Narrative should be thought of as a verb, to
narrate or narrating, rather than the noun
form narrative. - Conceptual similarities with the related forms
to tell, to show, and to make present. - Narrating is an expressive event, unfolding in
space and time.
7Describing narrative functions
- Categories are beginning points, which should
serve as ways of thinking about narrating. - As I see it, the primary function of narrating is
to make present. - Three ways of thinking about making present.
- Declarative. To give presence to subjective
experience. - Temporal. To give meaning to the past, present
and future. - Spatial (social). To co-create (shared and
divergent) understandings of the world.
8Making present as showing
- Making present can be thought of as a variety of
showing. - Telling makes known.
- It is declarative.
- To give presence to.
- Telling objectifies our subjective experience and
projects it into the world of social life. - In making present, speakers are making claims
about the reality of their experiences or
knowledge. - There is always a gap between what we know and
experience and what we tell (Josselson, 2004). - However, narrative is, arguably, the closest that
we can get to experience and our understanding of
experience.
9Making present in time and space
- Narrating is always making present at some
specific time and place. - In a very real sense, experience is made present
here and now. - Bakhtins (1981) concept of the chronotope.
10Locating narrating
11Making present in time
- Mark Freeman (2010) argues that one of the proper
functions of narrative is reflecting on and
making sense of the past. - For Freeman, understanding is always from the
perspective of the present, looking backward,
what he calls hindsight. - Hindsight is a kind of recuperative disclosure.
- It is, he writes, an agent (sic) of insight and
rescue, recollection and recovery, serving to
counteract the forces of oblivion (p. 44). - He continues, a little later, Or, to put the
matter more philosophically, it is a
making-present of the world in its absence it is
thus seen to provide a kind of supplement to
ordinary experience, serving to draw out features
of the world that would otherwise go unnoticed
(emphasis added, p. 54). - It is really, as Bert Cohler (1982) argues, a
presently understood past.
12Making present (together) in space
- Other people are the most salient aspect of
space. - Making present in space implies locating
ourselves in a given conversation. - The imagery is one of being physically present in
an ongoing scene of talk (Herman, 2009). - A social performance (Bauman, 1986).
- In which we enter into and exit from
conversational turns (Sacks, Schlegoff
Jefferson, 1974). - We gain our footing in the conversation at hand
(Goffman, 1981). - We position ourselves in relation to what is
being said, to the others present and to larger
identity discourses (Bamberg, 2004
Georgakopoulou, 2007 Wortham, 2000, 2001).
13Making present (together) in space
- The ability to tell stories is first acquired
through the childs participation in storytelling
activities with others who are more expert
(Fivush Nelson, 2006). - There are sound theoretical and empirical reasons
to argue that all narrations, even in adulthood,
are co-narrations. - The end result is to make present together joint
understandings of self, others, the world, the
past. - However, co-telling doesnt lead necessarily to
consensus. - It can also be a vehicle for bringing forward and
expressing competing versions of reality.
14What are the implications of this theoretical
analysis for narrative psychology?
- Narrative psychology should focus on the process
of meaning making. - How do persons (in time and space) make sense of
life? - In my opinion, this is what narrative research is
all about. - Narrative can grapple with meaning and do so in a
way that is scientific, complex and grounded in
expressions in time and in context. - Further work on narrative functions should be
grounded in actual observations of interviews and
other conversations. - Turning toward the concrete circumstances in
which life experience is made present. - Closely tying our observations to human lives.