Narrative Inquiry as a Caring and Relational Research Approach: Adopting an Evolving Paradigm

Abstract

Humans are continuously storying and re-storying themselves through language and socially organizing language into narratives to create meaning through experiences. Storytelling through narrative inquiry can bridge world experiences and co-create new moments in time that honor human patterns as wholeness and illuminate the potential for evolving consciousness. This article aims to introduce narrative inquiry methodology as a caring and relational research approach aligned with the worldview grounding Unitary Caring Science. This article uses nursing as an exemplar to inform other human science disciplines interested in using narrative inquiry in research, while defining essential components of narrative inquiry through the theoretical lens of Unitary Caring Science. By exploring research questions through this renewed understanding of narrative inquiry informed by the ontological and ethical tenets of Unitary Caring Science, healthcare disciplines will be knowledgeable and prepared to facilitate knowledge development to contribute to the sustainment of humanity and healthcare beyond eliminating the cause of illness and into the experience of living well with illness. The co-creative process of narrative inquiry as a caring and healing inquiry can guide collective wisdom, moral force, and emancipatory actions by seeing and valuing human experiences through an evolved holistic and humanizing lens.