Exploring ‘Silences’ in Narrative Research with Mothers in Prison

Lockwood, Kelly

Abstract

Researchers who have previously analyzed silence in interview data, have generally considered literal silences, such as the lack of the spoken word, and/or have taken a singular approach to understand silence. This paper moves beyond this literal and singular understandings of silence to explore narra-tives gaps, constraint and ambiguities, in the stories of mothers in prison. A feminist narrative ap-proach, combined with the Listening Guide (Doucet & Mauthner, 2008; Mauthner & Doucet, 1998) method of analysis is adopted to explore the stories of twenty mothers with experience of imprison-ment. Silence is identified through three different types of stories; ‘Unworthy’ stories highlight where narration may be limited owing to a perceived sense that some stories are not worthy of narration or analytical consideration; ‘Untellable’ stories illustrate how contradictory gendered narratives converge to make some stories difficult to tell, or indeed untellable; ‘Unbecoming’ stories challenge Western storytelling formats that seek a clear resolution. Such stories speak to the ongoing challenges of find-ing a story to live with in the present. Utilising the Listening Guide with its multi-layered approach to narrative analysis, this article has identified the multifaceted way in which ‘silence’ is imposed, nego-tiated and utilised in competing and contrasting ways, in the stories of mothers in prison. In attending to these ‘silences’, this paper has enabled consideration of stories that lay outside the ideal of intensive mothering.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 21, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jul 24, 2025
• Journal: American Journal of Qualitative Research
• Electronic ISSN: 2576-2141
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: feminism, listening guide, mothering, narrative, prison, silence