How can I learn to practice Participatory Narrative Inquiry with NarraFirma?

Updated

You can learn PNI through NarraFirma's online, project-based PNI Practicum Courses, and you can start by reading the site's explanations of stories and PNI before deciding whether to take a course or run a project with the software. The site also provides entry points for trying, installing, and getting support for NarraFirma, and its author offers training and consulting.

Start with the concepts

Before committing to a course or a project, the site gives you two foundational reads:

  • Why listen to stories? — an interactive explanation of what stories do (the site asks you to hover over shapes to read about each aspect).
  • What is Participatory Narrative Inquiry? — PNI is described as a form of Participatory Action Research in which groups share and work with their stories of personal experiences to understand each other and make collective sense of complex issues. It focuses on values, beliefs, feelings, and perspectives through recounting and interpreting lived experience.

The full method is documented in the book Working with Stories in Your Community or Organization and its companion books in the Working with Stories series, written by Cynthia Kurtz.

Take the PNI Practicum

The site's stated learning path is the PNI Practicum: online, project-based PNI practice. This is the option to choose if you want guided, hands-on experience rather than only reading about the method.

See what PNI looks like in practice

The site lists project examples that show the range of situations PNI is used for:

Project Situation
Community market planning A community market board listened to customers to keep the market strong
Work-life balance Managers found their people were overworked because everyone thought everyone else should do more
Merging cultures A large company acquired a small one; both groups shared stories to understand how their cultures could work together
Theft prevention A police force overturned long-standing assumptions about when, where, and why people steal

These are useful for judging whether your own issue fits the method.

Use NarraFirma to run a project

NarraFirma is a web application that supports PNI from start to finish. The site describes it as:

  • A checklist — practical guidance as you work, with questions to answer, recommendations based on the conditions you describe, activities to help you make decisions, and just-in-time advice.
  • A journal — it helps you keep records as your project proceeds.

Get set up and get help

The site's navigation provides these entry points:

  • Try it! — test the application
  • Installation — install it yourself
  • GitHub — source and development
  • WordPress — WordPress-related option
  • FAQ — common questions
  • Support — help
  • Blog — updates and writing
  • Donate — fund the project

Get direct guidance

Cynthia Kurtz wrote the book on PNI (Working with Stories) and, with Paul Fernhout, wrote NarraFirma. She offers support, training, and consulting — the route to take if you want expert involvement rather than self-directed learning.

A practical order of steps

  1. Read Why listen to stories? and What is Participatory Narrative Inquiry? on the site.
  2. Review the project examples to see whether your situation matches.
  3. Choose your learning route: the PNI Practicum for structured practice, or the book series for self-study.
  4. Try or install NarraFirma to work through a project with its checklist and journal.
  5. Use Support, the FAQ, or consulting with Cynthia Kurtz when you get stuck.