Knowledgeable narratives

Abstract

This personal reflection on the development of 'narrative analysis' in studies of health and illness describes its emergence from medical sociologists' attempts to develop qualitative studies of the everyday experience of symptoms that accomplished more than the classification and enumeration of the contents of interview transcripts. The paper argues that lay narratives of illness are often marvellous stories which weave together a picture of the life of the narrator, combining detailed descriptions of symptoms and critical assessments of clinical care, with dramatic accounts of everyday events and circumstances. It goes on to suggest that in the context of the continuing organizational and epistemological power of medicine in the definition of health matters, these stores are often important points of resistance to doctors, even-or especially-where the need for those doctor's skills is very great. The paper concludes by insisting that those who engage in narrative analysis should not let their enjoyment of the story deflect them from recognising the knowledge the story contains and its emancipatory possibilities.