Understanding 'Small Stories' in Identity Narratives

1. small stories:a narrative-discursive approach to self & identity • The narrative canon • Narrative as representations • Departure from the canon • Narratives as actions/interactions • Small stories as means to analyze “identities-in-interaction” <<a process orientation>> • Example (“I’m Shaggy”) • Wrap up (how ‘small stories’ contribute) Michael Bamberg APA 2005 Narrative Psychology --- State of the Art Thanks to Alexandra Georgakopoulou

2. Stories versus Narrating • Stories & Life as ‘resource’ <the CANON> • We HAVE a life/story (to tell) (as resource) • “Life is meaningful coz it’s a story” • Stories as an Epistemology • anti-positivist methodology in the social sciences • Narrative as social interaction <narrating> • stories-in-interaction (= “small stories”) as ‘navigating’ through ‘interactive trouble’ • stories are situated actions <with selves in interaction> • Ritualized/habitual performances - sedimented through iterative performances - hailing subjects into being (potential of resulting in ‘identity’) • Where selves (identities) come to existence (EMERGE)

3. Analysis ofstoriesversusnarrating (as an activity) • Analysis of STORIES <the CANON> • Themes (partic. how ‘self’ is “thematized”) • Coherence (underlying ‘sense’ of a unified self) • Analysis of NARRATING<as mundane activity> • interactive operations • <as “identity negotiations/confrontations + co-constructions”> • discursive resources • <the rhetorical means to CONSTRUCT stories> • Discursive POSITIONS<positioning analysis>

4. Open Issueswheresmall storiesmight be worthwhile • Overemphasis on stories about ‘the self’ • Underplaying/-theorizing stories we tell about others • Overemphasis on ‘long stories’ (interviews) • cutting out/devaluating everyday, small stories • cutting out re-tellings, allusions to tellings, refusals to tell • Overemphasis on ‘past’ and ‘single’ events • Cutting out/devaluating ongoing stories, stories about future, hypothetical events • Cutting out/devaluating stories as trajectories, intertextual links between stories

5. Relationship between Canon and small stories • Complementation • How does this unified sense of self come to existence (issue of development + acculturation)? • how does the person in his/her particular culture and socio-historical context learn to “sort out” what is called life - and what makes life “worth living” (=what constitutes a ‘good’ life and a ‘good’ story) • Contrast • Differences in terms of ‘identity’, ‘development’, ‘narrative’, ‘language/discourse’, ‘entitlement +power’ …

6. Identifying +Analysing ‘small stories’“narratives-in-interaction” • Three levels of POSITIONING • Characters are positioned vis-à-vis one another • Who is doing what to whom? • Speaker and audience are positioning each other • Lecturing, advice giving, accounting, etc • Speaker positions ‘a self’ / his/her ‘identity’ • Expert identity, hetero-sexual self, masculine identity • Positions as interactively accomplished (in and through the use of discourse)

7. expl :“It wasn’t me, hey, I’m Shaggy”<<transcript>> • Same group of ten-year-olds + adult moderator • Moderator question: “what do YOU boys find attractive in girls?” • borrowing ‘a male friend’ and ‘a girl’ <oohing her legs> • positioning level 1 • borrowing another speaker • positioning level 2 • borrowing ‘Shaggy’ • positioning level 3 lines…

8. ‘Shaggy’ • It wasn’t me Honey came in and she caught me red-handed it wasn’t me CHORUS: but she caught me on the counter it wasn’t me saw me banging on the sofa it wasn’t me I even had her in the shower it wasn’t me she even caught me on camera it wasn’t me

10. Moderator question: “what do YOU boys find attractive in girls?” • borrowing ‘a male friend’ and ‘a girl’ <characters IN the story> <positioning these characters vis-à-vis each other> <<WHY?>> • Positioning level 1 • borrowing another ‘speaker’ <turning to audience + positioning them as ‘speakers’> <letting THEM ‘voice’ and perform the problem/trouble> <<WHY?>> • Positioning level 2 • borrowing ‘Shaggy’ <claiming + performing Shaggy’s identity> <<WHY?>> • Positioning level 3

11. simple explanation: • Attraction talk is “trouble talk”: • Getting caught admiring girls (by ‘whooing’ their body parts or engaging in ‘attraction-talk’) makes you vulnerable • “borrowing” the Shaggy persona seems to be a way out of this <navigating vulnerability> • more complex issues: • There are cues orienting toward the project at work that this isn’t meant to be taken seriously <false compliance - parody -- detaching himself - mimicking> • Display of equivocating positions in order to avoid ‘fixity’ and simultaneously engage in relational friendship-work …what this .. my frie:nd ..what his frie:nd…

12. ‘Shaggy’ as an example of ‘identity displays’ • with different identity positions “WITHIN the same speaker” (“voices”) <interactive and relational accomplishments orientated toward “avoiding fixity”>

13. Kind of conclusion Speaking to narrative inquiry audiences • Informing narrative inquiry approaches • reflecting ‘texts’ + ‘contexts’ • re-considering the use of stories in interviews • de-emphasizing stories as ‘method’ Emergence of a “sense of self” ---by way of studying the SMALL STORIES people tell in their EVERYDAY interactions Identity Development as Process �

14. Speaking to broader audiences • Re-theorizing ‘narrative’ • Revisiting defintitinal criteria of ‘narrative’ • rethinking the prototype (thematic coherence, structural unity, low vs high tellability, etc.) • what ‘other’ kinds of (other than personal, past-event, experiential) narratives ? • Increasing analytical compatability • Cross-fertilization with interactional paradigms • co-construction issue • teller-audience-relation accomplishments • telling roles, entitlement issues , empathy etc. • Rethinking + reformulating the ‘voices approach’