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The degree of publicity of such narratives can vary widely. Ihe Legacy
of Ahmed project, for example, used oral history to explore the lives of the
Muslim community in Britain. In one of the narratives, the female narrator
mentioned that she used to drink alcohol, and after the interview, she was
so frightened by the material being made public and the resulting potential
ostracism that she banned access to the material for 25 years (Niblett g
Vickers, 2019).
Leavy (2011) notes that in oral history research, the researcher has to
inform the narrators that the researcher is a participant observer and part
of the interview process. It is also crucial that narrators are fully informed
about howlong the process will take and how the publication will take place.
The narrators should also be informed about the personal or community
(e.g., educational, traditional, or testimonial) benefits that they will derive
from the process.
In all participatory narrative research, care should be taken that the
researcher does not completely cut off contact with the participants after
the research has been completed. In the case of sensitive topics, participants
may become re-traumatized and reguire a psychological follow-up. In
particular, the co-creative nature of art-based action research raises ethical
issues regarding individual creation and participation. In particular, the
framework for the storing and processing of sensitive personal data, the
(re)use of external resources, and group communication raise ethical and
in some cases legal guestions.
According to Lanszki and Horváth (2017), the consideration of ethical
issues starts at the planning stage of the process, when the facilitator defines
the participants and the workshop topic. Ihe authors point out that the
selection of group members should exclude people with a psychotic illness
or recent experiences of severe trauma unless the program is specifically
aimed at them and a psychologist is involved as a co-facilitator. Lanszki and
Horvath also emphasize that although the workshop topic may be divisive, it
should never be about ethically reprehensible actions and ideas (e.g., animal
cruelty, extreme political ideologies, etc.). It is important to lay down the rules
of communication at the beginning of the workshop; for example, aesthetic
value judgments are forbidden in group sessions. The facilitator’s role is
cardinal in establishing assertive communication, and participants should
be aware that the facilitator moderates the process in case insults arise. The
self-reflection of the facilitator is also of utmost importance, as he or she
may influence the group dynamics and even the development of the stories
if the facilitator’s identity, beliefs, and socio-cultural background become too
dominant in the communication.
Whether narrative arts-based participatory methods are applied in education
or as a research method, it must be taken into account that a central element
of the process is that participants actively and repetitively verbalize their own
experiences, both orally and in writing, and that they find and revisit old