Qualitative_data_analysis

254 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
story-telling metaphor is an apt one (I hope), in so far as we want to stress the
human and social aspects of our analysis, which may get lost in an unduly dry and
abstract ‘account’.
Because they invoke such associations, metaphors can take on a life of their own,
not only adding a vibrant touch to our account, but also opening up new
connections between concepts and suggesting novel ways of integrating our analysis.
Because it can convey multiple connotations, a metaphor may be able to pull
together various disparate analytic strands in a succinct and accessible way, vivid and
yet concise.
All the same, we have to be careful in our use of metaphors, and not just to avoid
mixing them! Qualitative data analysis is concerned with conceptual clarification
and the careful specification of meaning. If we are using metaphors, we should do so
consciously, paying attention to their conceptual implications. Unlike analogies or
similes, where our reasoning must be made explicit, a metaphor invites concealment
of the basis of comparison. But metaphors can raise inappropriate as well as
appropriate connotations, and so contribute to confusion rather than clarity. For
example, there are aspects of ‘telling a story’ which cannot be applied to the task of
‘producing an account’. For one thing, stories can be fictional with all the freedom
and licence that this implies. If the metaphor is applied inappropriately, the
consequences could be quite unacceptable. We must therefore beware misleading
connotations, and only use a metaphor within explicit and clearly defined limits. In
this instance, the application of our story-telling metaphor is restricted to a concern
with making our account more accessible. To apply it to the other half of our
agenda, producing accounts which are acceptable, would be quite inappropriate, for
the grounds for assessing the acceptability of stories and analytic accounts are very
different.
While some of the techniques of ‘telling a story’ can make an account more
accessible, in other respects they can make it more obscure. A story is not an
analysis. It aims to describe, perhaps to enlighten—but not to analyse or explain. For
example, the fairy story engages the child’s interest and empathy, and through
dramatization of external events can give the child an intuitive, subconscious
understanding of how to deal with inner experiences in order to develop. But as
Bettelheim says, ‘one must never “explain” to the child the meanings of fairy tales’
(1991:155). Spelling out the moral of the tale destroys its magic. The purpose of the
story is to enrich experience, not to dissect or analyse it.
Because stories are forms of art or entertainment, they are not an appropriate
medium for analysing social action. Stories tend to gloss over characters and events,
which are introduced primarily to serve a dramatic purpose. We do not question
where the fairy godmother comes from in Cinderella—her function in the drama is
clear enough. The drama itself is presented as a linear sequence of events, without