Ethics and process in the narrative study of lives

the long version

The most significant truths about human beings are to be found in the stories of their lives. But what happens to those stories and to the people whose lives are told when a researcher seeks to make those stories known? Ruthellen Josselson has assembled an international cast of scholars to reflect upon the process of life-narrative study and the ethical dilemmas that face researchers whose very mode of narrative inquiry may inevitably involve a violation of the other and unwittingly lead to a sense of betrayal, shame, or guilt. In these disarmingly candid and engaging essays, narrative researchers of many different stripes talk about the morally delicate and epistemologically precarious enterprise of telling another's story. The authors raise fascinating questions about who ultimately controls the tellings, what happens to stories once they are told, and why stories not only influence the people whose lives are told but also the tellers themselves, whose own professional and personal lives may even be captured by or appropriated into the stories they are aiming to tell. This volume is essential for researchers, professionals, and students in research methods, developmental psychology, education, relationships, and language and discourse analysis.