Narrative Practices as Situated Ethical and Political Processes: a Qualitative Study in South Africa

Narrative practices are increasingly positioned as decolonial and feminist alternatives to individualizing and deficit-oriented psychological interventions. However, limited empirical research has examined how such practices are enacted within everyday community and organizational contexts shaped by structural inequality. This qualitative study explores how narrative practices are experienced, negotiated, and adapted by 16 women social workers and psychosocial practitioners working in marginalized communities in South Africa. Data were generated through individual semi-structured interviews and focus groups and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Five interrelated themes were developed: creating the conditions for safe and meaningful participation; using stories for collective reflection and decision-making; fostering connection through shared narratives; re-authoring subjectivity within structural constraint; and holding pain and support in group storytelling. Findings suggest that narrative practices are not inherently emancipatory but become potentially liberatory when enacted within ethically attuned, reflexive, and context-sensitive conditions. The analysis highlights how power relations, safety, gendered norms, and institutional hierarchies shape participation and meaning-making. By foregrounding relationality, reflexivity, and structural awareness, this study contributes to qualitative psychology by offering an empirically grounded account of narrative praxis as a situated, political, and ethical process rather than a transferable technique.