No abstract

We review some of the recent trends that have made the collection and exploration of narratives especially prominent among the social sciences. While we acknowledge the significance of narratives in many aspects of social life, we sound a note of caution concerning the popularity of ‘narratives’, and ‘testimony’, not least among ‘qualitative’ researchers. We suggest that too many authors are complicit in the general culture of ‘the interview society’, and are too ready to celebrate narratives and biographical accounts, rather than subjecting them to systematic analysis. In the same way, we suggest that the contemporary fashion for ‘autoethnography’ too often leads to unreflective uses of personal accounts.

No abstract

Central to the problems facing supervisors of doctoral students is creating a delicate balance between dominating the student's research and neglecting it. Too much control threatens the originality of the PhD and the autonomy of the novice researcher; too little can delay completion and even lead to total failure. Here, supervisors reflect on their successes and failures in the management of that delicate balance. They frequently construct their accounts using contrasts between the past and the present: comparing their own experiences as students with how they supervise now, or comparing current practice with their own early experiences as a supervisor. Such individual accounts and their characteristic rhetorical formats reflect contemporary policy themes at a more general level within the academic profession.

We review some of the recent trends that have made the collection and exploration of narratives especially prominent among the social sciences. While we acknowledge the significance of narratives in many aspects of social life, we sound a note of caution concerning the popularity of ‘narratives’, and ‘testimony’, not least among ‘qualitative’ researchers. We suggest that too many authors are complicit in the general culture of ‘the interview society’, and are too ready to celebrate narratives and biographical accounts, rather than subjecting them to systematic analysis. In the same way, we suggest that the contemporary fashion for ‘autoethnography’ too often leads to unreflective uses of personal accounts.