Abstract
This article explores the use of narrative as method and text in a practice-led narrative inquiry which explores how people with Irish and Scottish cultural backgrounds live out their connections to the northern hemisphere homelands of Scotland and Ireland, in Aotearoa New Zealand. It analyses eight excerpts from interview narratives using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) three frames of narrative inquiry: time (past, present and future), place, and the intersection of the personal and the social, to illustrate the discursive construction of cultural identities (Fong &Chuang 2004, Weedon 2004). It discusses the use of autoethnography (Muncey 2010, Ellis & Bochner 2000, Reed-Danahay 1997) and the value of arts-based practices (Butler-Kisber 2010, Leavy 2009) including song and poetry in the representation of interview narratives. Finally, it argues that offering longer narratives, free of the intrusive voice of the analytical researcher, readers may be encouraged to bring their own experiences to their engagement with the text and to think with rather than about the narratives (Bochner & Riggs 2014). Through this process they might gain deeper insights into the individual, social and political factors that have shaped the lives of individuals and communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.