As of now, I reflected on how I came to regard storytelling as a valuable tool in research since it can give voice to those whose voice is not commonly heard, considering the unique contexts of their experiences. A fundamental bias of mine still needs to be discussed: how can a study be trustworthy if stories are so subjective to interpretation? Bell (2002) also points out that it is an ethical challenge for researchers to avoid imposing meaning on participants’ lived experiences when conducting a Narrative Inquiry study.

Clandinin and Connelly started addressing this concern in one of their earliest works when they proposed that participants should act as collaborative researchers:

“Collaborative research constitutes a relationship. In everyday life, the idea of friendship implies a sharing, an interpretation of two or more persons’ spheres of experiences. Mere contact is acquaintanceship, not friendship. The same way be said for collaborative research, which requires a close relationship akin to friendship. Relationships are joined, as McIntyre implies, by the narrative unities of our lives” (1988, p.281).

I believe that it is a unique characteristic of Narrative Inquiry that stories are co-constructed in close collaboration with participants, allowing for prolonged engagement and constant member checking (even though Connelly and Clandinin do not specifically use this term). Being open to multiple interpretations and engaging in reflexivity throughout each step of the study also protects study findings from the researcher’s influence (Clandinin, 2023). As a result, researchers collect a number of field texts that provide a thick description of the studied experience that they analyze together with their participants, making the study findings trustworthy.

However, I also wonder whether such close collaboration is unproblematic. One of the most apparent limitations would be feasibility, as it is a time-consuming process that might not apply to some research puzzles. Moreover, a friendship-like collaboration might impose another ethical challenge as the study comes to an end, and researchers and participants, after being so immersed in each other’s lives, must separate, potentially impacting their emotional state. Nevertheless, no research methodology is entirely unproblematic. I am convinced that the foundational philosophy of Narrative Inquiry creates a space where storytelling can be utilized in a trustworthy research study.

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