Exploring multiple responses to a chaos narrative

Abstract

Narratives do things. This performative aspect of narrative includes calling on people for a response. This article explores the responses we have witnessed to a chaos narrative told to us by a disabled man that we then shared with different audiences over time. The following four types of response were identified: depression-therapy restitution stories; breakthrough restitution stories; social model stories; and solace stories. Each kind of response is focused on in detail, and their potentials and limitations are considered. The article does not promote one response over another, or seek the last word on the four responses, as the intention is to generate dialogue rather than to finalize. Future possibilities regarding narrative research and responding to stories are also considered.

Keywords

chaos disability narrative responses restitution social model

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Frank AW ( 1995) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness and Ethics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Frank AW ( 2004) The Renewal of Generosity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Frank AW ( 2005a) Generosity, Care, and a Narrative Interest in Pain. In: Carr D, Loeser J, and Morris D (eds) Narrative, Pain, and Suffering. Seattle, WA: IASP Press, vol. 34, 289-300.

Frank AW ( 2005b) What Is Dialogical Research, and Why Should We Do It? Qualitative Health Research 15(7): 964-974.

Frank AW ( 2006) Health Stories as Connectors and Subjectifiers. health: 10(4): 421-440.

Giddens A. ( 1991) Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge : Polity Press.

Gubrium J. , Holstein J. ( 2008) Analyzing Narrative Reality. London : SAGE.

Hughes B. ( 2007) Being Disabled: Towards a Critical Social Ontology for Disability Studies. Disability and Society 22(7): 673-684.

Hydén L. , Orulv L (2009) Narrative and identity in Alzheimer’s disease: A case study. Journal of Ageing Studies 23: 205-214.

10.

Levinas E. ( 2001) Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas . Ed. J. Robbins. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

11.

Marcus H. , Nurius P. ( 1986) Possible Selves. American Psychologist 41(9): 954-969.

12.

Martin V. ( 2007) Dialogue in the Narrative Process. Medical Humanities 33(1): 49-54.

13.

Mattingly C. ( 1998) Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14.

Norrick N. ( 2005) The Dark Side of Tellability. Narrative Inquiry 15(2): 323-343.

15.

Ochs E. , Capps L. ( 2001) Living Narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

16.

Oliver M. ( 1996) Understanding Disability. London: Macmillan.

17.

Phoenix C. , Howe A. (in press) Working the When, Where, and Who of Social Context: The Case of a Traumatic Injury Narrative. Qualitative Research in Psychology .

18.

Riessman C. ( 2008) Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. London: SAGE.

19.

Sarbin T. ( 2001) Embodiment and the Narrative Structure of Emotional Life . Narrative Inquiry 11(1): 217-225.

20.

Schwandt T. ( 1996) Farewell to Criteriology. Qualitative Inquiry 2(1): 58-72.

21.

Shakespeare T. ( 2006) Disability Right and Wrongs. London : Routledge.

22.

Smith B. ( 2008) Imagining Being Disabled through Playing Sport: The Body and Alterity as Limits to Imagining Others’ Lives. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2(2): 142-157.

23.

Smith B. , Sparkes A. ( 2005) Men, Sport, and Spinal Cord Injury and Narratives of Hope . Social Science and Medicine 61(5): 1095-1105.

24.

Smith B. , Sparkes A. ( 2008) Changing Bodies, Changing Narratives and the Consequences of Tellability: A Case Study of Becoming Disabled through Sport. Sociology of Health and Illness 30(2): 217-236.

25.

Sparkes A. , Smith B. ( 2005) When Narratives Matter. Medical Humanities 31(2): 81-88.

26.

Sparkes A. , Smith B. ( 2008) Men, Spinal Cord Injury, Memories, and the Narrative Performance of Pain. Disability and Society 23(7): 679-690.

27.

Thomas C. ( 2007) Sociologies of Disability and Illness. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

28.

Zilber TB , Tuval-Mashiach R. , and Lieblich A. ( 2008) The Embedded Narrative: Navigating through Multiple Contexts . Qualitative Inquiry 14(6): 1047-1069.