Other Things Narrative

Research
Written By Amanda Barusch

  • Booker, C. (2004). The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories, New York: Continuum.

    • This book is helpful for placing respondents’ stories in a broader literary context. Plots include: Overcoming the Monster, The Thrilling Escape from Death, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, and Tragedy – with variations on these themes.

  • Zeeman, L., Aranda, K. & Grant, A. (2013). Queer challenges to evidence-based practice. Nursing Inquiry. DOI: 10.1111/nin.12039.

    • Alec Grant wrote of this article, “It situates narrative as a counter-hegemonic methodological approach,” It does this and a good deal more. This piece is complicated (and lovely). It notes that “The path leading to truth is saturated by silenced voices, ” then integrates queer theory and evidence-based practice using a rhizome metaphor emphasizing the deeply entangled nature of knowledge. Along the way, the article touches on Foucault: “. . . discourses bring into material being the bodies they claim to describe,” an observation with great resonance for many of us. It touches on Derrida’s disdain for binaries and captures the explosive, liberating potential of queer theory (alas, no mention of Friere) “Binary oppositions or dualisms in rupture are like drawing a line of flight.” (Great image!) But here’s my favorite: the article reminded me that queer is a verb, as in “to queer,” which means “to thwart” or, as these authors put it, “To queer is to open up the normative base of evidence-based practice and to trouble and expose the working of power relations. . .” Let’s do. Let’s queer the normative bases of power relations wherever we find them!

  • Zeman, L., Aranda, K. & Grant, A. (Eds)(2014). Queering Health: Critical Challenges to Normative Health and Healthcare. Herefordshire, UK, PCCS

    • My review of this book appeared in the International Journal of International Social Work. You can access it by clicking here.

Amanda Barusch

Amanda Barusch has worked as a janitor, exotic dancer, editor, and college professor. She lives in the American West, where she spends as much time as possible on dirt paths. She has an abiding disdain for boundaries and adores ambiguity. Amanda has published eight books of non-fiction, a few poems, and a growing number of short stories. Aging Angry is her first work of creative non-fiction. She uses magical realism to explore deep truths of the human experience in this rapidly changing world.

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Narrative Practice