Narrative inquiry, a relatively new qualitative methodology, is the study of
experience understood narratively. It is a way of thinking about, and studying,
experience. Narrative inquirers think narratively about experience throughout inquiry.
Narrative inquiry follows a recursive, reflexive process of moving from field (with
starting points in telling or living of stories) to field texts (data) to interim and final
research texts. Commonplaces of temporality, sociality and place create a conceptual
framework within which different kinds of field texts and different analyses can be used.
Narrative inquiry highlights ethical matters as well as shapes new theoretical
understandings of people’s experiences.