Fictionalisation

17 May 2023

by Sheila Trahar

“Why would you want to fictionalise research findings”? 

I had just finished giving a seminar about the ethical complexities of supervising doctoral researchers who were using narrative approaches. I had spoken very briefly about whether I was being unethical by suggesting to one researcher that she consider using fictionalisation to re-present some data that she had found troubling – a young participant in her research had spoken about the cruelty of one of his teachers. As a result of our conversation, she decided to conduct a “fictional investigation” into his story as a way of enabling it to be told without any harm coming to him or to the teacher. In other words, she used fictionalisation as a way of protecting their identities and of not compromising the assurances of confidentiality that she had given. My concern was that fictionalisation, as a way of re-presenting research data was almost unknown in her context. I shared with her that local readers of her dissertation – and, importantly, examiners – may well view her use of such a process at best with scepticism and, at worst, ridicule - and dismiss her work. As it turned out, I need not have worried. Her examiners welcomed how her creative use of fictionalisation allowed her to include a very powerful and important account and applauded her sensitive handling of a complex ethical situation.

Returning to the seminar, somewhat inevitably, as can be the case at such events, the question sparked other questions about fictionalisation, despite it being a minor element of what I had been talking about. Knowing that the word fictionalisation, in relation to research, can be a hostage to fortune, I started to regret mentioning it. At the same time, the questions gave me the space to speak more about fictionalisation, to explain it more fully and to give some further examples of how, why and when it might be used. My hunch is that what may have been behind the original question was the accusation that, by using fictionalisation, one is “making up” one’s research findings. Many people hear the word and infer that one is “inventing”, “fabricating” or, crucially, “not telling the truth”.

Sometimes I think that researchers are obsessed with looking for “the truth” as if there were one single truth out there somewhere if only they could find it. People who agree to be involved in research will tell their truths as they are at that moment and in their conversation with you. In recalling the same events at another time and in conversation with someone with whom they have a different relationship, other truths may emerge. Is one set of truths any less “true” than the other?  For example, in my PhD dissertation, I created a conversation between me and the Vietnamese film maker Trinh Minh-ha. That conversation never took place – it was not “true” - but, to anyone reading it, it is obvious that I am having a genuine conversation about analysing data. Why, then, did I not simply write a data analysis chapter? I was lost in the “data” that I had collected and didn’t know how to start to work with them. I had been very challenged by Trinh’s   book “Woman, Native, Other” and I mused on the idea of having a conversation with her, one that would allow me to question her about her writing and to explain my own problems with “data analysis”. Writing that chapter enabled me to understand why I was lost and, importantly, the different ways in which I might re-present the data, ways that were creative, congruent with my methodological approach of narrative inquiry and, importantly, reflected participants’ “truths”.

Using the literary practice of fictionalisation to re-present “data” can permit us to say things that are difficult to say without upsetting anyone - as with the earlier example of the doctoral researcher. Writing in the style of a literary hero/heroine is another way to retell a story/stories that can engage readers in ways that, perhaps, much scholarly writing doesn’t. For example, I wrote another chapter of my PhD - and subsequently recreated it in my book - in the style of the second chapter entitled Fellow Travellers in Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. In Dickens’ chapter, the characters – none of whom are named - are met at an inn by the host and a conversation between them follows. Taking the role of the host, in my chapter, I choreographed a conversation between those who had participated in my research using words that they had spoken to me but that they would not have spoken to each other. Using fictionalisation, I created a dialogue that was, at times, uncomfortable and that displayed the stereotypical thinking and elements of racism that the participants would not have wanted to acknowledge in conversation with each other. The words were not “made up” but the way that I re-presented them enabled me to grasp some difficult nettles and to be braver about confronting racism when I witnessed it. Creating a fictionalised conversation from the “data” that I had collected enabled me to craft a powerful narrative, one that communicated issues that I would have found more problematic to articulate had I used more conventional data analysis methods.

Fictionalisation was greeted with some scepticism when it was proposed that we might use it in the retelling of stories in the project “The meaning and value of Ubuntu in human and social development in Africa”. The participants in the project struggled to define Ubuntu but found it easy to give examples of the embodied action of it in their contexts. We decided, therefore, that it was important to retain and celebrate these evocative accounts. Creating the fictional town of Ubuntuville in which myriad inhabitants and visitors met and had conversations enabled us to communicate the many different perspectives on Ubuntu, collected throughout the project in ways that were not only imaginative but allowed the unsayable to be spoken.  The stories all emanate from the research “findings”, but the use of fictionalisation renders those “findings’ more accessible and thought-provoking.

To summarise, fictionalisation can render your writing very readable and enable your research  to reach a wider audience – which is, surely, as researchers, what we want it to do.  Try it!  It’s innovative and enjoyable and, crucially, can help you to re-present sensitive data in ways that are not harmful to participants or to you