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This chapter offers to higher education research a theoretical and methodological proposal based on narrativity, pointing to the articulation between metanarratives, public, conceptual and individual narratives. Stemming from social constructionism, it draws on concepts such as floating signifiers and nodal points, borrowed from discourse analysis, to explore the conflict and struggle between discourses. The examples provided focus on how individual narratives enact discourses on higher education institutional governance, as expressed in public narratives, and on how narratives influence the perceptions of institutional actors. Our goal in this chapter is, on the one hand, to propose an operationalization of discourse analysis, and, on the other hand, to signal the contribution of the narrative approach in revealing research findings based on the process of meaning construction.

This chapter makes a case for a decolonial, intersectional approach to narrative criminology. It argues that in growing contexts of deepening inequalities, research approaches that humanise people on the margins and that explicitly centre questions of social justice are ever more urgent. This chapter explicates a decolonial, intersectional narrative analysis, working with the data generated in interviews with women sex workers on their experiences of violence outlining how a decolonial, intersectional, narrative analysis may be accomplished to analyse the intersections of power at material, representational and structural levels. The chapter illustrates the importance of an intersectional feminist lens for amplifying the complexity of women sex workers' experiences of gendered violence and for understanding the multiple forms of material, symbolic and institutionalised subordination they experience in increasingly unequal and oppressive contexts. It ends by considering the contributions decolonial, intersectional feminist work can offer narrative criminology, especially the emerging field of narrative victimology.

This paper examines the impact of lived experiences and attitudinal blueprints on researchers within the context of masculinities research. It explores the negotiation of gendered roles, exploring how personal narratives shape our engagement in gender research and the collaborative process of meaning-making. It discusses the methodological tensions surrounding narrative research and naturalistic inquiry when investigating masculinities.

Adopting a feminist post-structuralist lens, this paper analyses the discursive nature of masculinities and its theoretical and historical construction, alongside the use of narrative research methodologies in research practices.

The paper reinforces the importance of feminist frameworks in deconstructing gender norms and challenging implicit assumptions. The role of reflexivity in the research process and the potential for researcher subjectivity as a resource is emphasised. Drawing on existing scholarship and the authors' empirical research experiences, the importance of researcher reflexivity in recognising the potential for gender performativity in the research setting is emphasised, especially in gendered research spaces and when engaging with methodologies tacitly understood through gendered ideological lenses.

The paper contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions exploring the intersection of gender, theory and practice.

The paper's theoretical exploration contributes to understandings of gender dynamics in research and offers insights into the complexities of conducting masculinities research from a critical perspective. The paper contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions exploring the intersection of gender, theory and practice.

In this chapter, we think about shifting stories of research as our experience of relational methodology through narrative leads us to think differently about our work together – our research relationship and responsibility to one another as colleagues, as well as our participants. We inquire into the ways our relational methods of narrative inquiry have continued to compose shared, sustaining stories of research and research community, support our own curriculum making and identity-making experiences, and provoke our respective thinking in new ways. We revisit Aoki’s metaphor of planned and lived experiences to think about the ways that research is lived out in our lives and the complexities of sense-making about research and ourselves as researchers. Research-as-experience can be viewed as a lived curriculum of research, which interrupts the dominant narrative of research-as-plan and acts as a counterstory of research. Research-as-experience is not a static research plan that must be implemented but rather a course of lives within the context of research to be experienced. This perspective recognized that research shifts, just as the lives and identities of our participants shift. Our plans for our participants within our research cannot contain their shifting identities and must shift with them in order to honour their experience. Our work together helped us to understand that it is only through relationship with our research participants and each other that we could approach a deep understanding of their experiences and the narratives they shared about those experiences.

In their daily practice, criminal justice professionals tell stories about their ‘clientele’ and these narratives legitimise their roles and decision-making. My research underscores how narratives of crime inform the practice of youth justice. The research presented in this chapter is based on court case file analysis and interviews with youth justice practitioners, concentrating on how they ‘theorise’ the causes of crime of migrant youth and which interventions they deem appropriate.

The chapter raises a methodological discussion on whether narrative researchers can and should attempt to actively question research participants' accounts, which constitute (penal) harm, introducing an interviewing model that I call ‘light’ Socratic dialogues. The aim of this interviewing style is to gradually move the narrator from doxa (‘common’ knowledge and practice) to episteme and to actively question research participants' accounts. ‘Socrates light’ that I propose in this chapter draws on two bodies of methodological literature. On the one hand, I integrate some principles from ‘active’ interviewing styles, often used in ‘researching up’. On the other hand, I draw on feminist methodology, which offers important insights on how to counterbalance the confronting aspects of ‘active’ interviewing.

The chapter reflects on some of my research interactions and discusses the rationale and the implications of the proposed mode of interviewing. I make three points: first, extensively documenting the interview context and interactions helps us to reflect on the (shifting) narrative performance of those involved in research. Second, becoming ‘active’ as researchers during the interview can enhance the analysis. Third, narrative studies can potentially be transformative if we question the narratives.

This paper reports on our use of narrative accounts in qualitative research about educational leadership in Western Australia. Data for the research were gathered through semistructured interviews. We wanted to know whether interview data constructed as narrative accounts then analysed would help us understand the phenomenon of leading for sustainability. We had used this approach previously (Wildy & Pepper, 2005; Clarke, Wildy & Pepper, 2007) in our examination of school leadership. Our commitment to an interpretive approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Kvale, 1996), to delve into our participants’ understanding of their experiences remains strong. Rich insights into the experiences of participants are revealed in narrative accounts crafted from semistructured interviews. Stories and descriptions of experience are given status when presented as narratives so contribute to participants’ wellbeing and meet the criteria for ‘good educational research’. In this paper we describe collecting data, constructing narratives, confirming quality and conducting analysis to describe the ‘wakefulness’ and transparency we adhere to when using narrative accounts as a research strategy.

Canadian epidemiological data suggest an increasing number of HIV infections among people from HIV-endemic countries, including sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, there are few studies that focus on the lived experience of HIV illness among Canadian residents of African ancestry. The purpose of this paper is to study the lived experiences of African immigrants living with HIV in Canada, using narrative inquiry methodology.

This qualitative study focussed on the experiences of sub-Saharan African immigrants living with HIV in Alberta, Canada. Using the philosophical underpinnings of narrative inquiry methodology (Clandinin, 2013), three African immigrants living with HIV in Alberta contributed to this study over an extended period of time. Between five and six interviews were conducted with each participant, over a period of 12 months. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and negotiated with each participant during analysis to uncover the experience and meaning of living with HIV as African immigrants in Canada.

The researchers found several narrative threads related to: stigma, social, and family exclusion; as well as HIV illness as a complex personal, familial, and social experience. Also, narratives across different geographic and social spaces shaped the complex experience among African immigrants living with HIV in their new host country of Canada.

The authors recognize that the sample size, though appropriate for narrative inquiry study, was small. The intention with this research was not to generalize findings to the broader African immigrant community that is affected by HIV illness in Canada. Rather, the intent was to demonstrate a deeper understanding of lived experience, among African immigrants living with HIV in Canada.

The findings show the complex personal, familial, and societal factors that shape the experience of living with HIV and HIV-related stigma among African immigrants. It is important to understand such factors and the experience of HIV-related stigma because such experiences impact access to health and social services, as well as health and social outcomes of immigrants living with HIV.

This is the first Canadian study to examine lived experience of African immigrants living with HIV in Canada. This study demonstrates a deep understanding of lived experience, among African immigrants living with HIV in Canada. Complex personal, familial, and societal factors shape the experience of living with HIV and HIV-related stigma. Based on the findings of this study, further research is needed to: study more closely the familial contexts of African families affected by HIV in Canada; explore the social and political landscapes that impact the experience of HIV illness and related stigma in Canada, in the context of migration and settlement; and examine the relationship between these experiences and the health and social outcomes of African immigrants living with HIV in Canada.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and incorporate personal narratives as a new methodological tool into the qualitative research of complex organisational issues such as identity. Particularly, this study provides a fresh methodological perspective on organisational identity exploration by using personal narratives to examine multiple identities that occur in dynamic organisational contexts.

In order to examine multiple identities, personal narratives found in the 43 semi-structured in-depth interviews collected were analysed. These narratives were examined following a textual and performative analysis.

The paper furthers methodological discussions in organisations in three ways. First, it responds to the need for a methodological approach that allows multiple identity exploration in organisations while it presents personal narratives as a valuable methodological perspective within organisational research. Second, it extends the methodological use of personal narratives for the in-depth qualitative study of complex organisational issues such as identity. Finally, the study stretches the boundaries of mainstream organisational research by illustrating that personal narratives can be used as a methodological approach to explore organisational identities.

This research integrates personal narratives as a methodological tool into the qualitative research of dynamic organisational issues. Employing personal narratives has allowed the exploration of multiple identities that take place in organisations in a manner not previously achieved in organisational studies. The study, therefore, challenges previous organisational research and expands the boundaries of organisational identity studies, offering a new qualitative methodological account for identity exploration in organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a visual perspective to the narrative management research by exploring the potential of drawings to construct organizational space. This study is explorative in nature and aims to open up a discussion on the importance of visuality within the narrative research. Visual narratives combined with written ones are constructed and analyzed in the paper.

The empirical illustrations of visual narratives outline students’ first-time encounters of the university campus. Their drawings and stories are used to describe and analyze their personal and subjective experiences of how they relate to the campus space. The students were asked to recall the moment they encountered the university campus for the first time and to draw their memories on a paper. Furthermore, they were asked to describe the drawings in a written narrative. Following that, the storyline was identified through a content analysis of both the drawings and the written narratives. This participatory research approach considers informants as co-researchers in producing data and emphasizes the inter-subjective nature of the study.

The study points out valuable aspects in visual narrative organization research. The drawings and written narratives were found to complement each other revealing different things of the experiences. The drawings were very rich and detailed. They captured and revealed emotions, symbolic meanings and interpretations that were not explicated in the written stories. Finally, categories of visual narratives on organizational space were developed.

This study contributes to the development of visual methodology in narrative management research. Moreover, this paper provides a methodological contribution to study organizational space. It sheds light on the potential of using visual narrative materials, especially self-produced drawings to construct organizational space. The study develops and illustrates a visual research method that combines written narratives with drawings. The study points out the importance to involve the informants as co-creators of a narrative study to capture the emotional richness of visual narratives. The authors envision that visual aspects of narratives will be a future direction in the narrative research, because visuality may capture hidden emotional aspects, symbols and artifacts that are not easily revealed in the told or written stories.

The paper's aim is to examine, by way of a case study, the use of intellectual capital (IC) narrative in the development of a strategic plan for the case study organisation.

The paper uses interventionist research to gather data and make changes in the case study organization.

The use of IC narrative provides insight into the utility of IC to communicate strategic intentions and the initiatives required to carry it out. It contributes to IC knowledge and practice by demonstrating how IC narrative, in conjunction with an interpretive research approach, can highlight the emic and etic interplay that is required in practice to develop organisational strategy.

The research is specific to the case study organization and the findings can not be generalized

The paper provides an example of how value creation in an organisation can be communicated to its stakeholders and how the use of IC narrative transcends the use of contemporary accounting and IC reporting frameworks. Furthermore it outlines limitations experienced in management accounting research due to the divide between the methods employed and skills of researchers.