Introduction

From the perspective of contemporary anthropology, authors such as Barton and Papen have recognised the emergence of writing as a cultural practice in which, importantly from a participatory standpoint, authors and autobiographers are seen as valued contributors in their own right, rather than simply as subjects of study distinct from the ‘professional’ researcher/analyst. Furthermore, contemporary anthropological investigations have also focused on the social and political contexts in which written texts are produced. Indeed, the authors argue that the examination of written works is imperative in order to understand the structures and organisations of societies, as well as ‘how individuals and social groups organise their lives and make sense of their experiences’ (Barton and Papen, 2010, p 5; emphasis added).

These ideas and perspectives are congruent with the principles and aims of the PNR study described in Chapter Four and, more broadly, with the range of PR projects described and discussed in this book. Thus, the same opportunities that Barton and Papen describe with respect to written narratives from an anthropological perspective – for facilitating ‘sense-making’ at an individual level and for understanding broader social and political structures and settings – also present themselves in many other kinds of research that use methods to facilitate and promote participation, emancipation and ‘voice’, and where research participants are more directly and actively involved in producing research stories themselves. When considering life story research, for example, Goodson (2013, p i) proposes that the practice of storytelling is a ‘crucial ingredient in what makes us human.’ In this sense, we can see the importance and value of giving the participants in (qualitative) research the opportunities to present their stories or narratives in their own ways, including in written form, as well as in other creative forms such as, for example, visual, oral and textual-visual, thus in ways that confer ownership and control over the methods, form and context of narrative production.