103 SIX Narrative and storytelling Vivien Lowndes Introduction Stories are important. Every new piece of legislation, every piece of policy advice or guidance, is a narrative in its own right, which links together beliefs, actions and institutions in a distinctive manner (Bevir and Rhodes, 2006: 4). However, policy analysis is dominated by ‘decisionism’ (Majone, 1989: 19). The emphasis is on finding technical fixes to policy puzzles, with the task of social scientists defined in terms of the generation and utilisation of ‘evidence’. This chapter asks
31 TWO contradictory narratives of cohesion introduction This chapter narrates the landscape of cohesion through four narratives with geographically anchored reference points. This is a figurative landscape; it is imagined from material geographies, but only partly related to lived experience (Keith and Pile, 1993, p 6). Each of the four overlapping policy narratives demonstrates a relationship between community cohesion (the problem, description, cause or prescription) imagined through place (‘they’ experience community cohesion problems ‘over there
Interest in the contribution narrative can make across many disciplines has been booming in recent years, but its impact in social work has been limited. It has mainly been used in therapeutic intervention such as narrative therapy, social work education or personal accounts. This is the first book to extend the narrative lens to explore the contribution of narrative to social work values and ethics, social policy and our understanding of the self in social, cultural and political context. The book firstly sets out theoretical concerns and then applies them to specific areas of social work, including child protection, mental health and disability. The author argues that narrative is a richly textured approach to social work that can enhance both theory and practice. As such the book will be of interest to social work students, practitioners and educators, policy makers and those interested in the application of narrative to professional practice.
Criminology has been reluctant to embrace fictional narratives as a tool for understanding, explaining and reducing crime and social harm.
In this philosophical enquiry, McGregor uses examples from films, television, novels and graphic novels to demonstrate the extensive criminological potential of fiction around the world. Building on previous studies of non-fiction narratives, the book is the first to explore the ways criminological fiction provides knowledge of the causes of crime and social harm.
For academics, practitioners and students, this is an engaging and thought-provoking critical analysis that establishes a bold new theory of criminological fiction.
227 TEN conclusion: theorising turning points and decoding narratives Feiwel Kupferberg What are turning points, and how are they to be described and analysed? How might a stronger focus on turning points help us to advance sociological biography research? This is what this book is about. It combines theoretical work with a number of concrete, empirical analyses of turning points, starting from different theoretical and methodological traditions within the contemporary academic landscape, but nevertheless with the overall conviction that the concept of
243 Evidence & Policy • vol 10 • no 2 • 243-58 • © Policy Press 2014 • #EVPOL Print ISSN 1744 2648 • Online ISSN 1744 2656 • http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1332/174426514X13990325021128 The value of words: narrative as evidence in policy making Dmitry Epstein, de56@cornell.edu Cynthia Farina, crf7@cornell.edu Josiah Heidt, jbh249@cornell.edu Cornell University, USA Policy makers today rely primarily on technical data as their basis for decision making. Yet, there is a potentially underestimated value in substantive reflections of the members of the public who
ARTICLE Images, visions and narrative identity formation of ISIS Axel Heck University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) creates a narrative identity through articles published in the maga- zine named Dabiq. Drawing on an iconological approach, the analysis of this paper is based on two articles in which ISIS legit- imizes its existence and justifies the terror attack in Brussels. The main findings of the analysis are that the identity of ISIS rests on three main narratives. The first narrative draws on
humanist traditions were at odds in several significant ways, they were sufficiently similar to facilitate a narrative turn in the human sciences as a whole (Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou 2013 ). Matti Hyvärinen ( 2010 ) identifies four distinct stages within this turn, beginning with literary studies in the nineteen sixties, moving to historiography in the nineteen seventies, social research in the nineteen eighties, and culture itself in the nineteen nineties. 2 Catherine Kohler Riessman ( 2002 ) explores the turn in more detail, noting the influence of narrative
Introduction Narrative inquiry is a method of finding the stories we wish to tell others about the impact of the work we do in the community. It is relevant to community work, because the method is highly accessible to the respondents. It seeks deep and rich accounts of experience and is consistent with the values of community work, in that it seeks to assist participants to frame their experience rather than asking them interview questions. It is the study of the stories people tell about their lives. Its purpose is to see how participants in interview
