Embodiment and ethnographic sensitivity in narrative inquiry

Abstract

In this article we reflect on how aspects of the researcher’s embodiment may infuse narrative inquiry. For reflecting on the role of the researcher’s embodiment, we use an opportunity provided by a case study in which the development of one adolescent student’s agency during a teaching intervention was observed, analyzed and presented in a narrative form. The case is a part of the first author’s ongoing ethnographic practitioner research, which examines the possibilities of Dalcroze-based music teaching in fostering students’ agency in the context of special music education in Finnish lower secondary school. The PhD study focuses on students’ capacity for narrative self-expression through non-verbal communication, by telling stories out of and through the body as indicators of agency.