Chapter 11 Creating Scientific Narratives: Experiences in Constructing and Interweaving Empirical and Theoretical Plots Séverine van Bommel and Mariëlle van der Zouwen 11.1 Researchers as ‘Scientific’ Narrators ‘‘Nobody is born a writer. It is an identity we invent for ourselves and try very hard to live with and within’’ (Goodall 2000, p. 24). We both became ‘writers’ when we took a narrative turn in research methodology while working on our dissertations. This was not only because we wanted to show that scientific research accounts can be fun to read but also because we realised that the credibility of our research accounts would depend on the extent to which our claims were presented in a convincing way. When we started thinking about what a practice based approach in forest and nature governance would entail, it became clear that our narrative turn in research meth- odology led us to an unconventional understanding of practice, practice research and practice theory. The study of practices has a long theoretical history and draws on a wide range of methods, ranging from discourse analysis, through governmentality studies, to hermeneutics (Wagenaar 2011). The form of practice theory that we take up here, draws on insights from interpretive policy analysis. Interpretive policy analysis focuses on the everyday experiences, meanings and the life worlds of people in policy practices. According to Yanow (2000, p. 5): [Interpretive methods] are based on the presupposition that we live in a social world characterised by the possibilities of multiple interpretations. In this world there are no ‘brute data’ whose meaning is beyond dispute. Dispassionate, rigorous science is possi- ble—but not the neutral, objective science stipulated by traditional analytic methods (as represented by the scientific method). As living requires sense making, and sense making entails interpretations, so too does policy analysis. Interpretative approaches are based on the claim that direct unmediated access to reality is impossible and that people’s experiences and views are always influenced by the historical, cultural contexts in which people find themselves. It is not possible to develop a science that is ‘objective’, because the social scientist does not and cannot stand outside of that which she or he is studying, free of its B. Arts et al. (eds.), Forest and Nature Governance, World Forests 14, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-5113-2_11, Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 217