"Small Stories" as Methodological Approach. Reflections on Biographical Narratives Based on an Ethnographic Research Project With Refugee School Students

Abstract

Based on a research project with refugee school students, we present in this article three forms of "small" biographical narratives that can be used as a methodological approach instead of the biographical narrative interview. The first form, guided narratives with low-threshold narrative stimuli, allows the articulation of biographical experiences and a range of participative opportunities. The other two forms are based on ethnographic observations: In contact with the research team, the students casually told small stories giving insight into their biographical situation and their everyday life, similar to what they do in interaction with their teachers. The teachers, for their part, told the researchers stories about stories they had heard from the students. The precondition for these narrations was an extended ethnographic field phase, during which the research relationships in the field could be successively established. The researchers became involved in the everyday narrative practices of the pedagogical field and were able to gain insights into their function. One main result is to analyze biographical narratives not only as an outcome of an individual structure of experience, but also as an interactive work of belonging, which is particularly relevant in schools. Finally, research with "small stories" is particularly indicated when the vulnerability of the research participants (e.g., young refugees) is high, the institutional setting (e.g., school) hinders/impedes free biographical narrating, or when the preconditions for articulating one's own perspective in a field are very unequally distributed (e.g., multilingualism).