Narrative as Inquiry

Abstract

ABSTRACT The author suggests that all research is narrative. Resituating all research as narrative, as opposed to characterizing narrative as one particular form of inquiry, provides a critical space for rethinking research beyond current dualisms and bifurcations that create boundaries that limit the capacity for dialogue across diverse epistemologies. The contemporary bifurcation of research as either quantitative or qualitative, or as scientific or nonscientific, has resulted in a master narrative of research which assumes incommensurability across paradigms. The author weaves 3 questions through this research: (a) What is lost when narrative and science are constructed as opposing and incommensurable modes of inquiry? (b) How might scholars reconceptualize inquiry outside a binary framework that privileges science? and (c) In what ways can resituating all narrative as inquiry open spaces for dialogue across multiple epistemologies that is the heart of democratic inquiry? The author concludes by suggesting that narrative is not a method, but rather a process of meaning making that encompasses 3 major spheres of inquiry: the scientific (physical), the symbolic (human experience) and the sacred (metaphysical).