March 2016 NUI Galway Host Third International Irish Narrative Inquiry Conference

NUI Galway will host the third International Irish Narrative Inquiry Conference from 10-11 March. Co-organised and supported by NUI Galway, Institute of Technology, Sligo and Maynooth University, this unique gathering of Irish and international scholars, practitioners, artists and creative inquirers will focus on the use of stories and how the stories we tell about our own and other people’s lives can be deployed in research and practice.

The focus of the conference is how to use story and narrative in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The conference will look at what it means ‘to do’ narrative inquiry and this question will guide the explorations, discussions, reflections and exchanges during the conference.

Keynote speaker is Ann Phoenix, Professor of Psychosocial Studies at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Department of Social Sciences, UCL Institute of Education, University of London and a Fellow of the British Academy. Professor Phoenix co-directed the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre and is the Principal Investigator on NOVELLA (Narratives of Varied Everyday Lives and Linked Approaches), an ESRC National Centre for Research Methods node. Her research is mainly about social identities and the ways in which psychological experiences and social processes are linked. It includes work on racialised and gendered identities and experiences; mixed-parentage, masculinities, consumption, young people and their parents and the transition to motherhood.  Much of her research draws on mixed methods and includes narrative approaches.

Dr Anne Byrne, co-organiser and Head of NUI Galway’s School of Political Science and Sociology, said: “Stories bring power to narrative and are used to make sense of the complex world we live in across a multitude of research settings. We debate and critique the power of the stories we live by in this conference as well as celebrating the pleasure of listening to and telling stories.”

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