Open AccessConsiderations of Truth and Fact in Narrative Analysis
Author(s) -
Jeananne Blythe Nichols
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
action, criticism, and theory for music education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1545-4517
DOI - 10.22176/act20.4.45
Subject(s) - narrative , scholarship , voice , silence , feeling , narrative inquiry , psychology , epistemology , social psychology , sociology , aesthetics , law , political science , literature , philosophy , linguistics , art
A central understanding of narrative scholarship is that stories are ever in process, taking shape in each recounting according to the needs, purposes, and understandings of the teller. Sometimes participants share accounts that are incomplete or inaccurate, shrink from voicing their feelings, or silence their accounting altogether. In this study, I draw on difficult stories, shared by military bandswomen who endured a traumatic government investigation into their personal lives during the McCarthy era, to examine the distinctions between empirical facts and interpretive truth, trouble the linkage between objective and subjective ways of knowing, and consider the researcher’s ethical responsibility when a participant hides the facts or refuses to voice their truths.