Claudia KY Lai looks at the building blocks of narrative and how it can be used as a research tool

Increasingly, narrative and life story are being used in health and social sciences, and other disciplines. Narrative analysis assumes multiple forms in a variety of analytic practices, with no single or correct way to analyse stories. This paper explores the concepts and meanings of narrative and narrative enquiry; their ontology and epistemology, and their use as a research method will be discussed as well. Ethics will be addressed briefly. This paper will help readers to grasp the essential elements in understanding narrative and narrative enquiry.