Retelling, Reliving, and Remembering: Using Narrative Inquiry Method to Explore the Lived Experience of Being Left Behind After Missing

Title
Retelling, Reliving, and Remembering: Using Narrative Inquiry Method to Explore the Lived Experience of Being Left Behind After Missing
Publication Date
2016-12-01
Author(s)
Wayland, Sarah
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7040-6397
Email: swaylan2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:swaylan2
McKay, Kathryn
Maple, Myfanwy
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9398-4886
Email: mmaple2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:mmaple2
Type of document
Conference Publication
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Sage Publications Ltd
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1177/1609406916628953
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/52639
Abstract

Every year 35,000 missing person reports are made in Australia, yet little is known about the experience of being left behind. Hope is a significant trope within media narratives in the search for a missing person, but what does hope mean? Further, what does hope mean when the person remains missing? In exploring the experience of hope for Australian families of missing people, the study presented here facilitated meaningful opportunities to listen to lived experience narratives. Storytelling, utilising a narrative inquiry framework, is a powerful tool used to build rich, layered understandings of the experiences of ambiguous loss. While previous research studies have centered upon individual interviews to gather data, this is only one portal for potential data collection. The study expanded this engagement of narrative inquiry method across three platforms, in-depth interviews, a virtual focus group, and then through an invitation for individuals to clarify their participation and experiences via Skype-based interviews. This methodological approach offered the researcher the opportunity to explore the stories in two ways: (1) by observing the ways in which participants spoke of their experience of hope through public and private narratives and (2) then more broadly between each other (within the group.) This presentation will explore this innovative research design and reflect upon the validity and strengths of this qualitative methodology to extract complex and unique data.

Link
Citation
International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1), p. 42-42
ISSN
1609-4069
Start page
42
End page
42
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International

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administrative/15thAnnualQualitativeMethodsConference2016FullProceedings.pdf 638.492 KB application/pdf Full proceedings View document
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