ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces narrative ethnography as a methodology to study stories in the context of their telling. The study of storytelling in institutional treatment settings has a long tradition including both studies focusing on the stories told by treatment providers, e.g. doctors or therapists, and the stories told by treatment recipients. The analytical attention in a narrative ethnographic approach is often oriented towards investigating what it is people do through storytelling, e.g. how treatment providers communicate logics of action through storytelling or how treatment recipients narrate a process of recovery. The first part of the chapter introduces previous research on stories and storytelling as well as two key analytical terms in narrative ethnography: narrative environment and narrative control. The second part of the chapter presents concrete examples of three ways to study storytelling in institutional settings. The first study exemplifies a focus on treatment recipients’ narratives, the second example focuses on treatment providers’ narratives and the third on therapy as a frame for storytelling. Each example is accompanied with a clarification of research question, methodological design, and the contribution of such a study.
