Towards defining and advancing storytelling approach in an indigenous realist evaluation

Evidence shows that realist evaluations have increasingly used interviews, observations, surveys, and to some extent, other innovative methods such as photovoice, social media, pictures, and diaries. This article describes how the storytelling approach, an indigenous research method, can be applied to uncover latent mechanism in a realist evaluation. This is part of an indigenous – inspired realist evaluation that examined how, why, for whom and under what circumstances the ‘African Research Initiative for Scientific Excellence’ (ARISE) program works to strengthen health research capacity. A multi-case study design was employed. The storytelling approach was used among the masters/doctoral trainees. Retroductive reasoning was applied to data analysis. This article demonstrates that the storytelling approach generates rich data on context and, to some extent, outcomes. However, to unearth ontologically deep evidence on mechanism, follow-up interviews should be conducted following the realist interviewing technique. The storytelling approach in realist evaluation centres the voices of the participants and addresses the power asymmetry between the researcher and the researched, thus making it a useful research tool in furthering the decolonisation agenda. This article provides practical guidance to future evaluators on how to apply the storytelling approach in [indigenous] realist evaluation.