Chosen qualitative method of analysis for Study 1: Narrative Analysis

Narrative inquiry has had a significant impact on many psychological domains over the past decades (Gergen & Gergen, 2006). Narratives can be understood as stories people tell about their own lives which are influenced by cultural

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conventions, language usage and historical circumstances (Bruner, 1987). According to Murray (2008) people define themselves through narratives that bring a sense of order and temporal continuity to events. Major contributions of the narrative paradigm can be observed in areas such as psychotherapy

(Gonçalves & Stiles, 2011; Madigan, 2011) and in a growing interest in using narrative methods for conducting qualitative research in psychological areas such as health (Stephens, 2011) sport (Smith & Sparkes, 2009), and culture (Bhatia, 2011; Hammack, 2008).

Hammack (2008) has highlighted how the cultural psychology of sexual identity development can be enriched by employing a narrative approach. From this standpoint, personal narratives are constructed and re-constructed throughout the life course, and are embedded in social interaction and social practice (Hammack, 2008). Relying on a life course perspective, sexual identity development could be understand as process of narrative engagement throughout which individuals actively make sense of their same-gender desire in a particular historical and cultural context (Hammack & Cohler, 2009). I used a narrative approach in Study 1 to analyse how the group of lesbian mothers I interviewed made sense of their same-gender desire through narratives available to them as women and as mothers within a Chilean cultural context.

3.7.3.1. Narrative Analysis Method

Narrative analysis is a procedure that has enabled social scientists to analyse and interpret personal narratives through which people make sense of their lived experiences. Riessman (2008) has made a significant contribution to the use of

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narrative in social science from a sociological standpoint. She suggested that the case-centered commitment, and the interactional and contextual focus of narrative analysis distinguish this approach from other category-centered methods such grounded theory (Riessman, 2010). Stephens and Breheny (2013) have

highlighted the suitability of Riessman's propositions to conduct narrative analysis in psychology research. In fact, a number of qualitative studies, mainly within health psychology, have informed the exploration of identities based on

Riessman's considerations for conducting narrative analysis (e.g., Gilbert, Ussher & Perz, 2014; Gray, Fergus & Fitch, 2005).

In this sub-section, I present two narrative analysis methods proposed by Riessman (2008) for conducting qualitative research: structural and thematic narrative analyses. The structural narrative analysis (SNA) focuses on narrative content, but with a particular attention on the narrative form, or the way in which stories are told and organised by individuals. In contrast, the primary focus of thematic narrative analysis (TNA) is the narrative content, and it is probably the most common narrative method. Thus, while SNA focuses on 'how' stories are narrated, TNA concentrates on 'what' is narrated. I used these two narrative

methods for analysing data in Study 1. Findings of these narrative analyses will be presented separately in Chapter 4.

121 3.7.3.2. Structural Narrative Analysis

According to Riessman (2008, p 80.) "structural narrative analysis allow topics and voices to be included in qualitative research that might be missing

otherwise". In particular, my analysis was informed by following Labov's model which has drawn particular attention to the elements of a narrative's structure (Labov, 1972; Riessman, 2008). According to Labov (1972, p. 361), the "skeleton" of a narrative consists of a series ordered clauses which he called "narrative clauses". Namely, Labov (1972) identified six narrative elements which guided the structural analysis I conducted: Abstract (What was this about?), Orientation (Who, when, what, where?), Complicating action (then what happened?), Evaluation (so what?), Result (What finally happened?), and Coda (which returns the listener to present). These six elements are summarised in the Table 1 below. Although, not all narratives contain all six Labovian elements, this method can enable an analysis of how different "storytellers" (participants) use narrative forms to make sense of their experiences and construct their identities (Patterson, 2008; Riessman, 2008).

TABLE 1 Labovian narrative analysis list of structural codes used.

Codes Elements Questions (Labov, 1972)

AB Abstract What was this about?

OR Orientation Who, when, what, where?

CA Complicating action then what happened?

EV Evaluation so what?

RE Result What finally happened

122 3.7.3.3. Thematic Narrative Analysis

The purpose of TNA is to keep "a story 'intact' by theorising from the case rather than from component themes (categories) across cases" as other qualitative methods do, such as grounded theory (Riessman, 2008, p. 53). Riessman (2010) further reviewed this case centered commitment of narrative analysis and highlighted that narrative analysis preserves the human agency, the social construction of consciousness, and the particularity of individuals. From this standpoint, narrators can position themselves within their told stories as active/passive beings or can shift among positions. Furthermore, narratives are enacted in an immediate discursive context: they are not simply a record of experience as narrative since they have a purposeful and aim to affect the

listener/questioner (Riessman, 2010). In this analysis, I focused on the content of participants' narratives of their experiences as lesbian mothers. More specifically, by conducted a TNA I have tried to be close to what I perceived to be each participant's narrative purpose. Thus, in TNA I focused my examination on the meaning of the issues for them or what participants seemed to be trying to convey within their told stories. In contrast, my SNA was performed by tracking the identity life course pathway by examining participants' narratives' structure.

Riessman (2008) did not provide a step by step model to conduct TNA, instead of, she presented some research examples to illustrate how the analysis of narratives could be conducted. Drawing on Williams' (1984) sociological study, Riessman proposed that TNA could be conducted when working with interview data. Williams (1984) had performed a TNA in order account for the biographical disruption of rheumatoid arthritis and the process of making sense of the genesis

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of disability (Riessman, 2008). In this study, I conducted a TNA to account for participants' process of making sense of their identities as a woman, lesbian and mother, as independent or intersectional social identities, depending on

participants' own understanding of their lived experiences and identity self- definition. In order to analyse the intersection of participants’ identities I

addressed an intersectional approach (I review the intersectionality perspective in Chapter 5).

3.7.4. Chosen qualitative method of analysis for Study 2: Interpretative