Social justice narrative research: From articulation to intra-action and ethico-onto-epistemology

Abstract

Narrative production and negotiation are common discursive practices in the field of social justice. Narrative inquiry has traditionally focused on either or both the subjective understandings of experiences and social and political structures. Even if the level of agency that is attributed to the agent(s) producing the narratives may vary significantly across styles of narrative analysis, it is generally assumed that the interaction among participants produces consensual and context-based narratives. This articulatory approach conceives participating agents as holding and negotiating among interconnected and distinguished positions. In contrast, we develop a new-materialist approach that conceptualizes narratives as intra-actions and, therefore, as onto-epistemological processes and situated practices. From this perspective, narratives are not just epistemological practices or representations of the phenomenon. Instead, they are agentic and ontological entanglements in the sense that tellings, researchers, and research practices participate in the becoming of the phenomenon under study. We will contrast articulatory and intra-action understandings of narrative inquiry through the example of a community-based initiative concerned with immigrant women’s rights. Finally, we explore the implications that new-materialist perspectives may have for reconceptualizing narrative inquiry and for narrative ethics of social justice.