Samenvatting

This book is about narrative methods and narrative research. The word narrativity derives from the Latin word narrare, which means ‘to tell’. Narratives are present everywhere. They come in the form of fairy tales, drama, drawings, art, history, biography, myths and legends. Narratives can be found at all ages and in all societies. Stories have always played an important role in human life (Ten Holter, 2010). Simply put, a story is a sequence of coherent events. The following questions can usually be asked: How did it start? Then what happened? How did it end? (Bijl, Baars & Schueren, 2002). In the field of narratology, stories are the object of study and the focus is on the way in which these stories are told. Narratives are about biographical events as told by those who experienced them (Van Biene et al., 2008). They often have a time sequence; i.e. the narrator establishes a link between the past, the present and the future. People tell stories from a particular perspective. The narrator takes his or her own position in a story, but positions can also be assigned by others (e.g. the listener) (ibid). In addition to the narrator, narratives also include other parties; for example, a person may speak about their family or neighbours.