21 N Arrative a Nalysis

Key points 21.1 Introduction 21.2 What is narrative analysis? 21.2.1 The traditional status of qualitative data 21.2.2 Narrative analysis 21.2.3 Definitions 21.2.4 Example: narratives of chronic illness 21.2.5 Example: stories of homelessness 21.3 The social production of the story 21.3.1 Stories as symbolic interactions 21.3.2 Stories as political process 21.3.3 Representation 21.4 Using a narrative approach 21.4.1 Planned and unplanned generation of narrative data 21.4.2 Oral history and life-story research 21.4.3 Multiple interviews 21.4.4 Asking narrative questions 21.4.5 Textual sources of narrative data 21.5 Analysing data as narrative 21.5.1 Unit of analysis: categorical versus holistic 21.5.2 Focus of analysis: content versus form 21.5.3 Combinations of unit and focus of analysis