Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
A foreword for Narrative Portraits in Qualitative Research
Introduction
A narrative portrait of my best friend’s death
What is a narrative portrait? – an overview of this book
A note on the role of ‘the body’ in qualitative research
A note on linguistic capital
The complexity of life experience and the limits of discursive representation
A narrative portrait is a depiction of an absence
Narrative portraits and their relationship with research into disadvantaged populations
A note on decoloniality
References
1 A systematic approach to narrative portraiture
1.1 Analytic proceedings – transforming Maurice’s story into a narrative portrait
1.2 Characters – he was treating me well
1.3 Orientation in time, space, and circumstances – the boy who travelled 300 miles
1.4 Complicating actions (and crisis of the Self) – ‘he was kissing someone else’
1.5 Result and evaluation – ‘I was too young’
1.6 Small stories within the life story – ‘you aren’t going to care about me anymore’
1.7 Identifying themes in narrative portraits – special narrative features
1.8 The intertwinement of phenomena in research projects – ‘I still have feelings for him’
1.9 The abstract – ‘he is home’
1.10 Arranging a narrative portrait
1.11 First narrative portrait – Maurice
1.12 Devising exercise
References
2 The use of phronesis in narrative portraiture
2.1 Second narrative portrait – Cameron
2.2 Reverberations of the participant’s voice – ‘what did I do in all those 40 years?’
2.3 Powerful phrases – ‘it was a bit like the expression “Hobson’s choice”; you didn’t have any choice’
2.4 Unspoken – important nonverbal moments
2.5 Crucial moments; on the verge of an insight, confusion, uncertainty, suspicion while researching into participants’ lives – ‘in three occasions in life I’ve been infatuated with people’
2.6 Recognising transpersonal experiences and narrating them evocatively – ‘is that uncommon?’
2.7 What can phronesis do for narrative portraiture?
2.8 Devising exercise
References
3 Imagined portraits
3.1 ‘The absent presence’ in research – the young body, the attractive body, the disabled body, the eroticised body, the ageing body, the muscular body, the white body, the dark-skinned body . . . tall, short, thin, natural, fully fleshed bodies
3.2 The ethical and political challenges of bringing the bodies into research – ‘You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder side’
3.3 A collaboration between visual arts and social sciences – ‘we also asked for love’
3.4 Affect theory in imagined portraits – Nick, the man who sang an anthem in Hampstead Heath
3.5 Queer spaces – cars, roads, bridges, woods, secluded areas
3.6 Third narrative portrait – Nick
3.7 Devising exercise
References
4 Performative portraits
4.1 Fourth narrative portrait – Luca
4.2 What are performative portraits?
4.3 Performative portraits as a medium for analysis – some actions need to be seen and experienced
4.4 Performative portraits as research communication
4.5 Performance as a way to engage in the ethics and aesthetics of qualitative research – the boy who was very hungry for being loved
4.6 Spatiality in narrative data analysis – ‘loving outdoors because you can’t bring your boyfriend home’
4.7 Materiality in narrative data analysis – the red jumper and the black ribbon
4.8 Conjuring life through body movement – their feminine masculinity
4.9 Devising exercise
References
Conclusion
Fifth portrait – Malone
Conflicting narratives – the boy who prayed for God to make him straight
A narrative portrait of an individual and his community
A double portrait – when the researcher makes themselves visible in the text
Staying with the complexity – two narratives
A ubiquitous narrative – sex
A narrative of resistance – love
Limitations of narrative portraiture
Suggestions for future research
A sense of an ending
References
Index