Narrative

By definition, narrative centers on the emergence of some conflict that reaches a cli­max or point, whereby some resolution must take place, and the resulting denouement. This sequencing, the storytelling process, or the ways in which humans account for past and present action while also making sense of and crafting their futures is so fundamental in human life that humans are sometimes called “homo narrans,” and narrative is considered paradigmatic (Fisher, 1984, 1985).

Narrative researchers use various sources of data, such as diaries, newsletters, autobiog­raphies, field notes, and interviews. In-depth interviews are the most common source of narrative data. Since narrative researchers work closely with individuals and their stories, narrative research invariably involves a par­ticular set of issues such as research relation­ships, ethics, interpretation, and validity (see Adams, 2008; Chase, 2011; C. Ellis, 2007). Narrators may feel vulnerable or exposed by such work. Permission from narrators to pres­ent, publish, or perform work that exposes conflictual behaviors or recalled conflict inter­actions and participants’ sensemaking about these episodes is of particular importance to ethical considerations in our review. As a result, we note that narrative interviewing also requires emotional maturity, sensitivity, and life experience, all of which may take years to develop yet are key to understanding, docu­menting, and interpreting conflict situations.

With regard to research validity, it is true that narrators are selective in storytelling and that which is expressed is shaped by context and audience. However, researchers do not claim that their interpretations are the only possibilities, but they demonstrate and argue coherently that their interpretation is viable and grounded in data. Moreover, narrative researchers strengthen their interpretations by discussing cases contrary to their claims and by considering alternative interpretations (e.g., Chase, 2011; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011).

As a method, narrative has been employed in a variety of conflict contexts. Some research­ers focus on plots, characters, and structures or sequencing of conflict narratives. Others emphasize the construction of and tensions within personal identities and social realities through conflict narratives, rendering narra­tive more intrapersonally oriented. Still others focus specifically on the relationship between people’s narratives of recalled conflict in their local narrative environments (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009). In general, researchers are interested in how narrators make sense of their personal experience in relation to larger social discourses. In this approach, narratives are seen as a window to the conflict parties’ social world. Although there is much narrative work embedded in qualitative conflict stud­ies, there are not many recent investigations that focus primarily on, and use keywords of, narrative and conflict in interpersonal, organizational, and interethnic/intercultural communication.

In interpersonal conflict, narrative is often embedded within interview data meaning that stories and their analyses as narratives are not as prominent as thematic, dialectic, and other methods.

Similarly, narrated conflicts in mother-in­law and daughter-in-law relationships in the Taiwanese culture demonstrate cross-genera­tional strains and constraints (Sandel, 2004) that are evident through the retrospective and contextualized sensemaking that narrative offers. Underlying a facade of social harmony can lay relational turbulence expressed in clever language and verbal barbs that “work under the table” (p. 370). Findings from 16 relational pairs show that such conflicts are grounded not simply in interpersonal displea­sures but, more important, in generational dif­ferences in upholding or rejecting Confucian hierarchical values. Moral order (e.g., def­erence and respect for the elder) is both rooted in and maintained by the community that watches how daughter-in-laws treat their elders. The younger generation’s expression of dissatisfaction is often more indirect than direct to preserve harmony with tumultuous undercurrents.

More recently, Faulkner and Hecht (2011) used identity narratives to examine the “dou­bly other” experience of lesbian gay bisex­ual transgendered queer (LBGTQ) Jewish Americans whose “closetable,” or conceal­able, identities involve intricate and conflict­ing negotiations with others. Drawing from 31 interviews with this stigmatized minority group, the authors provided vivid accounts about how research participants experience and manage their identities and relations given negative attitudes toward both LBGTQ within Judaism and anti-Semitism within the larger society.

In current organizational conflict contexts, conflict often is portrayed as control and resistance, constraints and agency, work and personal life, and change and status quo dynamics. Wieland (2010, 2011) described how workers in a Swedish research institute perceive interpersonal and organizational con­flicts in the application of national (Sweden) and regional (Scandinavian and European Union) policies, and accompanying cultural mind-sets and practices, about work and well-being. Through examination of notes from participant observations as well as semi­structured interviews with 59 organizational members, Wieland (2011) detailed an induc­tive methodology that moved between first­and second-order concepts. Ultimately, she focused on one participant’s story to display, in depth, how “Julia” ruptured cultural norms and negotiated with colleagues, bosses, policy, and cultural constructions of moderation and well-being. Her research portrays workers’ attempts to reconcile their struggles center­ing on needs to accomplish job tasks and to demonstrate that they are not engaged in such tasks when they are supposed to be off work. Moreover, these workers’ experience conflict between their ideal selves who embrace pro­ductivity and well-being (Wieland, 2010).

Regarding interethnic/intercultural conflict, narrative figures prominently in studies of eth­nic and cultural conflicts. In “Warring Stories in the Night,” Collins and Clark (1991) cap­tured the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through children’s narratives, focusing on plotlines and characters.

In other compelling conflict narratives, young people in postwar Croatia and former Yugoslavia were shown to express identities and knowledge of the war period and reason beyond ideological and emotional war lega­cies (Daiute & Turniski, 2005). They char­acterized themselves as collaborative, wise, and resourceful and their parents’ genera­tion as divided, bitter, and socially impotent. Collective memory and ongoing discursive and material reconstructions of multiple com­munity narratives were also shown to shift and collide for a Lebanon that recalls war conflicts even as it presents itself in peace (Barak, 2007).

Apart from interethnic conflict, narratives have been used to explore intercultural com­munication conflict between U.S.-born hus­bands and Japan-born wives in five couples interviewed about their family communica­tion and child rearing in which their stories revealed their struggles with cultural ste­reotypes, societal structures, and personal experiences (Moriizumi, 2011). As Moriizumi argued,

Examining discourses of childrearing prac­tices may be fruitful in observing conflicts and tensions among the couples because the birth of a child may reactivate each par­ent’s own childhood experiences, which may be underscored by their respective cultural beliefs about childrearing. (p. 91)

In examining participants’ narratives, the author “paid close attention to agreement, disagreement, tensions, and contradictions among couples and/or between couples and other members including their parents, rela­tives, coworkers, and neighbors to look for possible themes” (p.

I am chuuto hampa. I feel I am neither Japanese nor American. I am living in the States, but I am not an American. I am a per­son who is caught in between I have no

choice because I chose to marry an American and to live in the United States. I cannot be an American because I have a green card, but I am not an American citizen and do not know the American systems including poli­tics. When I go back to Japan, I may not get accustomed to the Japanese society again

I feel c huuto hampa. (p. 97)

In a different study, Goldberg (2009) dem­onstrated the effect of a conflict resolution practitioner’s worldview on practice through a narrative and metaphor analysis of 43 inter­views with intercultural and environmental conflict resolvers. While “realistic” conflict resolvers tend to focus on objective factors and prioritize task over relationship, “construc­tive” practitioners tend to focus on subjective factors and prioritize relationship building. In practice, “realistic” conflict resolvers are more likely to be the Sheriff (focus on indi­vidual consequences), the Alchemist (focus on the objective right answer), the Captain (focus on better opportunities for individuals), the Pastor (focus on individual transforma­tion), and the Thinker (focus on best theory). “Constructive” practitioners are more likely to be the Radical (focus on social justice) and emphasize the Family (focus on relation­ships and community building). Narratives, the way people tell their stories, Goldberg remarks, “reveal how they consciously orga­nize and construct their understandings, what they value, what they exclude, and taken-for- granted practices of power” (p. 411).