Narrative Construction as a Psychosocial Research Method: Sharing Writing Practices

Abstract

The discursive turn in the social sciences has opened the way for the appearance of new critical paradigms that have moved further away from the classic criterion of positivist validation. Therefore, nonlinear research designs and forms of dialogical writing, formerly defined as unscientific, have begun to occupy a prominent place in academic publications. In this context, narratives are configured as objects of discursive analysis, and they are considered an excellent tool to describe subjective realities. In our opinion, it is now necessary to go one step further. In this sense, we would like to propose the construction of narratives as a method—a process of investigation—that, in consonance with feminist epistemology, can problematize both the epistemological dualism based on the subject-object distinction and the ontological realism that postulates the existence of an objective reality. In this article, starting from our research experiences in using narratives, we will develop our argument in a dialogical and autoreflexive mode. We believe that the construction of narratives relates to Dona HARAWAY's feminist objectivity proposal by fomenting the generation of situated knowledge and shared conversation, offering us elements to rethink post-positivist validation of collective knowledge. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090183