Ignored Potentials and Growing Misunderstandings: Some Remarks on the Fritz Schütze’s Autobiographical Narrative Interview Method

Abstract

In the era of rising popularity of the autobiographical narrative interview method elaborated by Fritz Schütze the number of its false interpretations and misuses is growing. At the same time some researchers – knowing it only in the fragmented and piecemeal way – voice their imprudent objections. Moreover, there are proliferating publications seeking to remedy alleged shortages of the method with regard to the technique of data gathering, the very analysis of the narrative interview as well as its ontological and epistemological implications. Viewed against the background of a “purist reading” of the Schütze’s approach and the natural history of biographical method development the paper aims to elucidate some of the accumulated misunderstandings regarding the method and find their roots. Thus, the following issues are discussed here: oftentimes illusory cognitive profits resulting from interdisciplinarity and combing various research techniques, sometimes false epistemological assumptions, a dangerous mixing of narrators’ self-theories with a researcher’s theory, being “disappointed” with an interviewee, an apparent ease of conducting autobiographical narrative interviews and some common-sense (not grounded in the text) interpretations.