Interactive Storytelling and Identity Management in Adolescent Males

1. Interactive Storytelling and Identity Management in Adolescent Males michael bamberg & luke moissinac Clark University Department of Psychology

2. Three kinds of narrative approaches • Life-Story Approaches • Life-Event Approaches • “Small” Stories • Short narrative accounts • Embedded in every-day interactions • Unnoticed as ‘stories’ by the participants • Unnoticed as ‘narratives’ by researchers • But highly relevant for identity formation processes

3. Identity as iterative, everyday performance • Drawing on Judith Butler’s work (1990) • Identity constituted in performance • Fashioned and revised in everyday interactions • Re-enacted and re-experienced continuously to achieve personal currency • Conversational narrative as a site for iterative identity projects

4. Narrative dimensions(Ochs & Capps, 2001) • Tellership • one active teller vs. many • Tellability • high vs. low • Embeddedness • detached from surrounding talk vs. situational embeddedness • Moral stance • one moral message vs. different + conflicting messages • Linearity & Temporality • closed temporal + causal order vs. open + spatial

5. with this in mind:Let’s turn to SMALL stories • Characteristics of “small” stories • Functions of “small” stories • in everyday conversations • in the process of identity formation • in learning to present ‘coherent’ selves • What these small stories accomplish in everyday situations

6. Characteristics of “SMALL” stories • Short • Conversationally Embedded + Negotiated • before • during • after • Fine tuned positioning strategies • fine-tuned vis-à-vis the audience • fine-tuned vis-à-vis dominant + counter narratives • multiple moral stances (testing out and experimenting with identity projections) • Low in tellability, linearity, temporality + causality

7. Functions of “SMALL” stories • Practice in doing identity work • Continuous editing of experience • Retelling of experience • Re-tuning these tellings according to • different audiences • different master-narratives • different (developing) senses of ‘who-I-am’ • Resulting in some sense of coherence • though one that is constantly reworked

9. “Mister Lanoe hit on my mom” 01 A: the lowest grade I ever got was a zero when I forgot to pass in my homework 02 B: miss Brown I remember that my pro- 03 V: SHE WAS THE COOLEST huhhuhhuh {enthusiastically gesturing} 04 B: my project was one day late my China project and she gave me a zero cos it was one day late my mom flipped out at her and I remember when mister Collins gave me a Ben detention= 05 A: =[a Ben detention?] 06 K: [a Ben detention?] 07 B: [he left me] in a room and he left {V nods knowingly} 08 V: DUDE THAT DUDE HIT ON MY MOM

10. Setting the theme • Teachers and grades • Positioning teachers as adversarial • “she gave me a zero cos it was one day late” • “mister Collins gave me a Ben detention” • Ratifying, then pushing the positioning • “DUDE THAT DUDE HIT ON MY MOM” • Voicing ‘coolness’ • “DUDE” • Displaying knowledge of adult sexuality • “hit on my mom”

11. 08 V: DUDE THAT DUDE HIT ON MY MOM 09 B: huh[huhhuh] 10 K: [mister Lanoe hit] on my mom he goes to my school (.) he at at summer school= 11 V: =WHO? 12 K: he he’s in my school= 13 V: =who? >what’s his name< 14 K: mister La:: Noe:: {deliberately pronounced} 15 A: I thought you said mister Rabado= 16 V: =uh huhhuh I was about to say what [ (…………..)] 17 K: [anyway he’s in my summer school]

12. Attempted second story and challenges to narrative reliability • Second story attempt • “mister Lanoe hit on my mom” • Challenges to reliability • “WHO” • “who? What’s his name” • “I thought you said mister Rabado” • Weak responses to challenges • “my school,” “summer school” • over pronunciation

13. 17 K: [anyway he’s in my summer school] and you know the teachers had to come in I mean the parents you know for the uh >whatever (.) you know (.) look around the school< and then you know mister Lanoe ev’ry see everytime he’d see my mom he kept going “Kev uh your mom comin tomorrow?” <“no mister Lanoe uh the thing (.) is in 2 weeks”> (deliberately) “oh awright” 18 V: [huhhuhhuh] 19 B: [huhhuhhuh] 20 K: he he liked (.) you know (.) yeah=

14. Neutralizing the challenge • Using a dismissive marker as initiator • “anyway” • Providing additional credible detail • “parents….look around the school” • Recruiting agreement • “you know” • Styling the teacher’s voice as importunate • “everytime,” “comin tomorrow?” • Inverting teacher-student power relationship • Styling own voice as didactic and patient

15. Positioning: Fine tuning • Vis-à-vis his interlocutors • My experiences are equivalent to yours • We share solidarity against badly behaved teachers • Vis-à-vis master narratives of heterosexuality and adulthood • We can identify and criticize undesirable, desperate forms of sexual conduct • We can turn the tables on adults • Vis-à-vis a ‘sense-of-self’ • Practicing/working toward/testing out a sense of “this is me”

16. Conclusion • So, rather than assuming the existence of identity + sense of self – and viewing narratives as reflections thereof, we are suggesting studying the emergence of a sense of self by way of exploring the SMALL stories people tell in their EVERYDAY interactions