Critical Ethnographic Narrative Analysis: The "E" in CENA

• In Event: The turn towards narrative methodologies in comparative and international education

Proposal

My dissertation research, conducted in Johannesburg from 2014 to 2016, centered on the
English language learning of South African domestic workers. I was interested in a particular conundrum: although eleven official languages were implemented in the post-apartheid democratic constitution, despite the growing role of native languages in South African education, and notwithstanding the fact that these women both live and work in environments in which English is not always necessary, many domestic workers continue spending their limited free time attending English language literacy classes. Domestic workers are “the largest single sector of women’s employment in South Africa” (Ally, 2009, p. 2). Their stories of English language learning, of domestic work during and post-apartheid, and of their educational identities, are complex and nuanced. And yet, these stories are often overlooked in discussions regarding the future of South African education.

As a means to further acknowledge domestic workers’ narratives as an essential component of South Africa’s past and current histories, I sought a research methodology that would recognize the value of these individual stories. Simultaneously, however, I sought methodologies that considered the complex histories of colonialism in South Africa, and how these histories impacted conceptions of literacy, education, and domestic work (Kaiper, 2018). I turned to Souto-Manning’s (2014) conception of Critical Narrative Analysis (CNA) in which Narrative Inquiry (NI) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) “inform one another as a means to seek a more complete analysis (p.161). And yet, while Souto-Manning’s in-depth geographical, historical and personal understanding of research was essential in the narratives that were produced and the analyses that occurred, what remained less explored was how her ethnographic methods and personal connections to the stories shaped this fusion of methodologies. Consequently, my use of Critical Ethnographic Narrative Analysis (CENA) was developed.

By drawing from ethnographic methods when critically and discursively analyzing my participants’ narratives, I am not only able to explore my participants’ personal relationships to their individual narratives, but better understand how these narratives are situated within larger raced, gendered, and linguistic histories. In addition, I am able to insert my own identities and relationships with my participants into this analysis to provide more extensive and nuanced analyses of the stories and narratives being produced. Thus, in this paper, I give an overview of the contributions of CNA to the hybridity of the qualitative methodologies of NI and CDA. I discuss how this hybrid methodology is vital in pushing the boundaries of CDA and Narrative Analysis while also providing room to further investigate the role of ethnographic methods within this approach. Finally, I use examples of my research with South African domestic workers to put CENA into practice. I critically analyze how the narratives of my participants and the discourses of linguistic and educational power within South Africa both impact and are impacted by my “ethnographic” experiences with these women and their stories.

Author

• Anna Kaiper, Pennsylvania State University