A Search for Meaning: Recognizing the Potential of Narrative Research in Social Policy-Making Efforts

Abstract

In recent decades, narrative research has gained increasing prominence in social and health sciences. However, the role that narrative research has played in social policy-making efforts has been small compared to that of quantitative research. This paper highlights the ways in which theoretical stances, questions, methods, and findings from narrative research can be useful in social policy-making arenas. Particular attention is paid to research conducted in the narrative study of lives tradition in psychology, gerontology, and related social sciences. Narrative research that seeks to understand individual lives in all their complexity and in the contexts in which they are lived can be particularly useful in informing sexuality-related policy concerns given the complex nature of sexuality. By focusing on the current policy concern of same-sex relationship recognition, this paper demonstrates that (a) narrative research offers much to the study of social policy and social justice via its ability to illuminate the complex interplay between everyday lived experience and social structures and (b) there is a need to redefine what counts as research evidence in policy-making efforts to be more inclusive of narrative work. In making these arguments, examples of recent narrative research are highlighted regarding their direct relevance to sexuality-related social policy. The paper concludes with suggestions by which researchers and policy makers can productively incorporate narrative research into their work by focusing on the complimentary potential for findings from quantitative and narrative research.