Small Stories Research

Abstract

This chapter aims to present the disciplinary points of departure, key assumptions, and analytical tools of small stories research, a paradigm for narrative and identities analysis that was developed in collaboration with Michael Bamberg. Small stories research at first was put forth as a counter-move to dominant models of narrative studies that: defined narrative restrictively and on the basis of textual criteria; and privileged a specific type of narrative, in particular the long, relatively uninterrupted, teller-led accounts of past events or of one's life story, typically elicited in research interview situations. Small stories research has been intended as a model for, not a model of narrative analysis. The broader context of small stories research is to be found in anti-essentialist views of self, society, and culture that stress the multiplicity, fragmentation, context-specificity, and performativity of our communication practice.

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