Re-presenting the subject: Problems in personal narrative inquiry

Abstract

In this paper the author explores the assumptions and practices of narrative inquiry by sitting on the other side of the microphone as a subject in a personal narrative project. Throughout this process of inquiry, she illuminates how Anne (the inquirer) and she (the subject) wove their differing assumptions about the purposes and processes of narrative inquiry into this study and explores how these differing assumptions impacted the stories that could be told as well as the meaning ultimately inscribed in her personal narrative. This paper raises critical questions about what it means to re-present another's life story and calls into question accepted practices in qualitative inquiry projects.