Mapping a Landscape of Narrative Inquiry: Borderland Spaces and Tensions

Abstract

There are real differences of opinion on the epistemological, ideological, and ontological commitments of narrative inquirers as well as real differences with those who do not identify as narrative inquirers. These differences require careful attention and discussion if the field of narrative inquiry is to realize its potential for making a contribution to the study of human experience and lives. This chapter help to clarify these discussions by mapping some of those differences. It offers a representation of the field of narrative inquiry that holds one aspect of narrative inquiry constant and uses this as a point of reference from which to examine the internal and external borders of the area of scholarship. By situating the philosophical foundation of narrative inquiry within a Deweyan theory of experience, the chapter clarifies the differences and affinities narrative inquiry has with other areas of scholarship. A scholarly community with which narrative inquirers negotiate border conditions are post-structural social and cultural theorists.