Board Games as a New Method for Studying Troubled Family Narratives: Framing Counter-Narratives in Social Design Research

This chapter demonstrates how social design research can contribute with innovative methods for studying family storytelling in difficult empirical settings. More specifically, it presents a study of a board game that has been designed and implemented in Danish maximum-security prisons to help children maintain a relationship with their incarcerated fathers. However, the board game serves a double function as it is also used as part of a research method to gather interview data about the role of narratives in troubled families. Studying narratives in a family context raises central methodological questions and theoretical clarifications are important for analyzing the process of family storytelling. Initially, an account is given of some methodological pitfalls and a theoretical distinction is made between personal, family and master narratives. Further, by drawing from in-depth interviews with inmates and their children, it is shown how counter and alternatives narratives are pivotal for understanding the making of family identity.