Narrative in the social health research: perspective and method

Abstract

The narrative is a research technique that has been used in Medical Anthropology research as an access form to illness experience and its reconstruction. The illness experience, in fact, has been recognized by medical anthropology authors as indispensable to the establishment of a more empatic and ethic dialogue among health professional and patient and his/her social network. Thus, in the health research issues, valorization of illness experience means it’s necessary to eliciate narratives, both in the care and in the research. In this article, we linked the illness experience concept and structure to the narrative concept and structure, describing its contributions to research, the research types in what it can be used, the types of narratives in that the human experiences are translated, the procedures for its eliciation, as well as the techniques of analysis of data obtained in the fieldwork. In respect to these techniques, we describe here three: (1) the analysis of narratives proposed by Shütze; (2) the Thematic Content Analysis; and (3) the technique of the Collective Subject’s Speech