The Narrative Study of Lives

Book excerpt: The narrative approach is a relevant and enriching technique for uncovering, describing, and interpreting the meaning of experience. This collection explores the challenges of performing narrative work in an academic setting, writing about it in an ethical and revealing fashion, and drawing meaningful conclusions. This stellar collection of scholars examine such topics as how the larger construct of "personality" can be read out of life story; life narratives of reform, i.e., the transition away from delinquent behavior; the importance of cultural continuity for understanding loneliness in elderly refugees; race relations and how it relates to the meaning of the decade in which the interviewees came of age; the experience and meaning of resilience among survivors of childhood sexual abuse; and the use of narrative work as an additional approach within a larger quantitative research project. Amia Lieblich and Ruthellen Josselson provide insight into how the narrative appraoch enriches the study of the rare, the unusual, the common, and the prevalent, always searching for meaning in peopleÆs lives.