Introduction: What is narrative research?

In the last three decades, narrative has acquired an increasingly high profile in social research,
following a series of ‘narrative turns’ in other disciplinary fields, like history and literary studies.
(Hyvärinen, 2010). It often seems as if all social researchers are doing narrative research in some
way. Yet narrative research, although it is popular and engaging, is difficult; how to go about it is
much discussed. People working in this field are frequently approached by students and
colleagues, in and outside academia, asking questions like, ‘Should I request respondents to tell
stories or not?’; ‘What happens if my respondents don’t produce any narratives?’; ‘What is a
narrative, anyway?’and, most regularly, ‘What do I do with the stories now I’ve got them?’
Narrative data can easily seem overwhelming: susceptible to endless interpretation, by turns
inconsequential and deeply meaningful.