Narrative analysis has proliferated in many disciplines and refers to what Cathy Riessman (2005) calls ‘a family of approaches to diverse kinds of texts, which have in common a storied form.’ Part of the reason for this popularity is that storytelling is so common that Jerome Bruner and others refer to humans as ‘homo narrans’. There is increasing agreement that narratives can be personal and political, that they involve construction, telling and interpretation and that sequence and consequence are central to narratives. There is, however, debate and disagreement about definitions of personal narrative, how best to analyse them and the claims that can be made on the basis of narrative analysis.
The special TCRU/CNR/NOVELLA seminar entitled ‘What is Narrative?’ took place on 28 February 2012 to generate debate about some of the issues that narrative analysts consider central to the understanding of narratives.