Uppeldi og menntun - 01.07.2014, Side 94

Uppeldi og menntUn/icelandic JoUrnal of edUcation 23(2) 201494
Behind the qUest for tales, stories and liVes
In narrative research the narrator tells the stories she thinks are biographically im-
portant at that particular time in her life (Denzin, 1984b). Anna told the story she felt
people should hear and my initial response was that she was disrupting the research
process, my agenda and the aims of my project when in fact it was I, the researcher, who
was disrupting her story. This draws our attention to ethical issues of ownership and
authenticity (Denzin, 1984a; Plummer, 2001b). Anna was not interested in getting in-
volved in the research process like data analysis, presenting papers at conferences and
contributing to published research findings. Therefore, the research output was my in-
terpretation of our interactions and her lived experiences. By locating Anna’s personal
story in time and space and placing it into a cultural context I reconstructed it as nar-
rative research (Goodson, 2005). And by doing so I am adding to the knowledge of a
group I am not a member of, contributing to the construction of the Other, and I am at
risk of colonizing Anna’s story – particularly if and when my questions and interests
do not match those of Anna’s (Fine & Weis, 1996; Goodson, 2005; Traustadóttir 2001).
Historically, disabled people’s voices have been left out of the discussion on im-
pairment and disability and have had less legitimacy and authority than the opinions
of professionals on the issue of disability (Gerber, 1990). Although disabled people
are now increasingly being involved in the research process and researchers examine
their power through reflexivity (Finley, 2002; Traustadóttir, 2001), stories are still being
silenced, misunderstood, dismissed, and discarded.
The de/territorializing story
So far we have looked at the processes in and out of the doings of narrative research,
but what of our attempts to understand and analyse stories? The following account
is taken from a conference attended by Dan in 2006, which was one of the first con-
ferences to promote self-advocacy in a specific Asian country. During the conference,
attended by over 120 delegates, including self-advocates, their supporters, parents,
NGOs, professionals and researchers, members of self-advocacy groups from across
the nation made presentations about the importance of self-advocacy. Following one
presentation by a man I shall call Samuel his mother jumped up from her seat and
addressed the conference:
You (pointing at author), people like you, see what you have done to my LD son (sic).
You talk of rights, of speaking up for yourself and you hear him now, talking as if he
had no respect for me or his father. My LD son will never be able to live independent-
ly, but you fill his head with nonsense. You should be ashamed.
As chair of the session, I started to respond to her worries but stopped when I saw
Samuel carefully walking from his seat to the microphone and lectern at the front of
the room. He spoke quietly but with passion:
I will live independently. I do now. With my colleagues at the self-advocacy groups.
They help me and I help them. I must remind all of you here, conference, that we are
strong and are getting stronger. Thank you.