Narrative Research

First published Open Access under a Creative Commons license as What is Narrative Research?, this title is now also available as part of the Bloomsbury Research Methods series.

Narrative research has become a catchword in the social sciences today, promising new fields of inquiry and creative solutions to persistent problems. This book brings together ideas about narrative from a variety of contexts across the social sciences and synthesises understandings of the field.

Rather than focusing on theory, it examines how narrative research is conducted and applied. It operates as a practical introductory guide, basic enough for first-time researchers, but also as a window onto the more complex questions and difficulties that all researchers in this area face. The authors guide readers through current debates about how to obtain and analyse narrative data, the nature of narrative, the place of the researcher, the limits of researcher interpretations, and the significance of narrative work in applied and in broader political contexts.

This new edition includes updated references and a greater focus on digitality throughout. It addresses social justice and decoloniality more explicitly, centrally and consistently, drawing on examples around Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, climate change and Extinction Rebellion, and Covid and pandemic narratives.