THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE METHODS IN SOCIOLOGY: STORIES AS A POWERFUL TOOL TO UNDERSTAND INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

Year 2015, , 103 - 125, 16.05.2015

Nuran Erol Işık

https://doi.org/10.18490/sad.47604

Cited By: 3

Abstract

The purpose in the article is to understand the role of the stories as well as storytelling in sociology. Rather than focusing on the significance of textual data based on narrativity, the author aims at underlining the role of the genres such as story, myth, irony, parable, drama, and aphorism, which are used in everyday life narratives. Sociology, as a discipline offering analyses at different levels of social life can borrow from these textual data in various different ways. In this sense, the ways in which narrativity and sociology come together would be related to the way we understand sociological methodology. Just as the lullabies are outcomes of collective references relatively independent of mothers’ personal preferences, meta-narratives also have a characteristic of a multilayered texture embedded in our social and historical memory. In sum, firstly, the article will enlighten the intersection between the sociology and the narrative theory, second, examples of brief insights into popular cultural texts will be provided.

Keywords

Narrative, Storytelling, Sociology

THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE METHODS IN SOCIOLOGY: STORIES AS A POWERFUL TOOL TO UNDERSTAND INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

Abstract

Bu makalede amaç anlatı ve öykü adı verilen dilbilimsel verilerin sosyoloji disiplini için önemini değerlendirmektir. Anlatıya dayanan metinlerin bilimsel veri olarak kabul edilebilmesi ile ilgili epistemolojik tartışmalardan çok, gündelik hayatta pekçok farklı mecrada karşılaştığımız öykü, efsane, kıssa, ironi, fıkra, drama, aforizma gibi örneklerin sosyal hayat hakkında oluşturduğumuz anlam dünyası ile ilgisine dikkat çekmek hedeflenmektedir. Sosyoloji, toplumsal hayat ile ilgili farklı eksenlerde çözümlemeler yapan bir bilim dalı olarak anlatıya dayanan verilerden farklı şekillerde faydalanabilir. Bu anlamda anlatı ile sosyolojinin biraraya gelme biçimi sosyolojiye bakış tarzımızla da ilgili olacaktır. Ninnilerin anlatı açısından önemi nasıl bir annenin kişisel tercihinden bağımsız olarak kolektif referanslara sahip olması gibi, tarihsel toplumsal hafızamızda yer etmiş büyük anlatılar da bir o kadar derin katmanlar taşıyabilen niteliktedir. Kısaca, makalede öncelikle anlatı kuramı ve sosyolojinin kesişme noktası aydınlatılacak, daha sonra da öyküleştirme örneklerine dayanan popüler kültürel metinlerden örneklerle aydınlatılacaktır

Keywords

-

References

• Altheide, D. L., Snow, R.P. (1991). Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
• Andrews, M. et al. (2009). The Uses of Narrative: Explorations in Sociology, Psychology, and Cultural Studies. New Jersey: Transaction Publ.
• Barthes, R. (1977). Elements of Semiology. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Paris.
• Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. London: Polity Press.
• Erol-Işık, N. (2013). Parables as Indicators of Popular Wisdom: The Making of Piety Culture in Turkish Television Dramas. European Journal of Cultural Studies. 16(5): 565– 581.
• Ewick, P., Silbey, S. (1995). Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative. Law and Society Review, Vol 29(2): 197-210.
• Frank, A.W. (2002). Why Study People’s Stories? The Dialogical Ethics of Narrative Analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 1(1): 27-46.
• Franzosi, R. (1998). Narrative Analysis or Why (and How) Sociologists Should be Interested in Narrative. American Review of Sociology. 24: 517-54.
• Game, A., Metcalfe, A. (1996). Passionate Sociology, London: Sage.
• Hjvard, S. (2008). The Mediatization of Religion: A Theory of the Media as Agents of Religious Change. In Northern Lights: Media Studies Yearbook, 6(1):9-26.
• Maines, A. (1993). Narrative’s Moment and Sociology’s Phenomena: Toward a Narrative Sociology. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(1): 17-38.
• Merrigan, G., Huston C. L. (2004).Communication Research Methods. Wadsworth Pub Co.
• Öncü, A. (2006). Becoming secular muslims: Yaşar Nuri Öztürk as a super-subject on Turkish television. Meyers, Birgit and Moors, Annelies (Ed.), Religion, Media and the Public Sphere içinde (s. 227-240), Indiana, Indiana University Press.
• Poletta, F. et al (2011). The Sociology of Storytelling. Annual Review of Sociology, 37: 109-130.
• Schulz, W. (2004). Reconstructing Mediatization as an Analytical Concept. European Journal of Communication, 19: 87-100.