ENQUIRE: Volume Two

Issue 1 - Narrating Women's Experiences

Editors: Erin Sanders and Kerry Allen

In this first issue of the second volume of ENQUIRE, authors have explored the various ways that women engage in a variety of narrative practices. Feminist discourse recognises the importance of narrative in the shaping of women’s lives- we use narrative to understand our life worlds and to make sense of the everyday. The way we talk about and recount our experiences impacts on how we see ourselves and how we negotiate our identities in society.  

The authors in this issue have engaged with the concept of narrative and how this relates to women's experiences; they have reflected on the nature of the research process and worked to stimulate debate and discussion on how narrative practices can help to explore these understandings. The women writers here explore the bounded nature of the research process, and provide illuminations from their own experiences of using narrative research techniques and listening to research participants' narratives.

Oral history, constructions and deconstructions of narratives: intersections of class, gender, locality, nation and religion in narratives from a Jewish woman in Sweden (pp 1-20)
Izabela Dahl (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Malin Thor (Malmö University)
Full article 

Telling Tales: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Travel Narratives (pp 21-40)
Emily Falconer (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Full article 

Resistance, Resilience and the Role of Narrative: Lessons from the Experiences of Iranian Bahá’í Women Prisoners (pp 41-63)
Donna Hakimian (University of Toronto)
Full article 

Beyond Words: Mirroring Identities of Italian Postcolonial Women Writers (pp 64-83)
Moira Luraschi (University of Turin)
Full article

Narrating Sisters: Narrative Structure, 'Closeness' and the Prototypical 'Sister' in Women's Online Stories of Sisterhood (pp 84-107)
Anastasia Nylund (Georgetown University)
Full article 

Mothers Negotiating their Identity: a Creative Narrative Inquiry (pp 108-132)
Catherine Rosenberg (University of the West of England)
Full article 

Dear Diary: Catharsis and Narratives of Aloneness in Adolescents' Diaries (pp 133-156)
Biri Rottenberg-Rosler, Shifra Schonmann and Emanuel Berman (University of Haifa)
Full article 

"I would rather write a thesis than a letter": from description to inscription in feminist pedagogical enquiry (pp 157-172)
Kim Senior (RMIT University)
Full article

Issue 2 - A healthy research realm? Placing oneself in health and illness research

Editors: Melanie Birkhead, Susan Brown and James Roe

For this second issue of the second volume of ENQUIRE authors were invited to consider the place of the social science researcher within the practice of health and illness-orientated research and whether their own research experiences could be utilised to further develop understanding within their specific research realms. Consequently, authors have intentionally drawn upon, and engaged with, their personal research experiences. Such reflections can usefully inform and develop the practice (design, execution, analysis and dissemination) of health and illness-orientated social science research, as well as contribute to theoretical development within specific research fields. The authors address these broad topics in a variety of ways, often including open and frank discussions of the numerous challenges encountered and the resultant theoretical and/or practical insights (which seemingly locate the researcher as intrinsically embedded within the entire research process). Such personal accounts shed light on a range of interesting challenges (practical, ethical, moral, etc.) faced by social science researchers.

Cancer, life review and the boundary between the 'personal' and academic research (pp 173-190)
Jaqueline H. Watts (The Open University)
Full article

The role of self and emotion within qualitative sensitive research: a reflective account (pp 191-214)
Nicole Johnson (La Trobe University)
Full article

Negotiating Constructions of 'Insider'/'Outsider' Status and Exploring the Significance of Dis/Connections (pp 215-232)
Harshad C. Keval (Independent)
Full article

Behind closed doors: A healthy female researcher's reflective account of investigating the experiences of unhealthy homeless mothers (pp 233-246)
Anne Coufopoulos (Liverpool Hope University)
Full article

Variation in knowledge: a personal journey (pp 247-264)
Pooria Sarrami Foroushani (University of Nottingham)
Full article

What a performance! Exploring the reflexive roles of the researcher and the researched within health and illness narratives (pp 265-285)
Kayleigh Garthwaite (Durham University)
Full article

 

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