And I’m being argumentative because it suits me:-) Institutions are what they are, exclude who they please and really only want loyalty from their members. All of us are wired to desire membership because outside the cave life is impersonal and often nasty. But that’s my experience and attitude and I appreciate any attempt to make things better including the good intentions (working or not) of ethics.

I’m struggling with your #4 and the term “participants” and what it means to be both of the self and of the group. Both exist as narratives but exist in different realms. The self is fundamentally informed by the (perhaps) distorted viewpoint of the personal compared to the multiple points of agreement (or discord) of the group. Am I on the right track to take the “academic viewpoint” as a passionate (if occasionally faulty) adherence or obligation to hear all voices? Is this a role that places academics outside the group in a kind of third realm of perception? Need this perception be neutral to be accurate or is accuracy itself a distortion? You need not answer these if you don’t wish:-) My chemo is acting up.

This looks good and I’ll put it at Rhizo14 FB too.
The Narrative Quality of Experience
Stephen Crites
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Vol. 39, No. 3 (Sep., 1971), pp. 291-311
Published by: Oxford University Press
OR Chapter 2 HERE:
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xP27EOfMJ_cC&oi=fnd&pg=PA26&dq=Crites%2Bthe+narrative+quality+of+experience&ots=ht1iPb6G7N&sig=GoUu4EyJAe86GhTiMzumneMsV9M#v=onepage&q=Crites%2Bthe%20narrative%20quality%20of%20experience&f=false