Life Event Storiesepisodic interviews

• Detailed narrative accounts of particular experiences

• In connection with life histories - standing alone

• Interview-style ranging between more open-ended and structured (semi-structured)

• Topics: chronic pain, my first kiss, divorce � Work with some DATA (Betty tells her story)

Why analyzing stories?

• GUIDING QUESTIONS– What are narratives?– What are they used for?– Identity and identities– Identity analysis

What are narratives?

• Narratives in narratology– Narratives as texts– Narratives as themes

• Narratives as discourse– as talk-in-interaction– as actions that do jobs

• Narratives as ‘sense-making devices’<<ambiguous - slippery --- but interesting>>

Dimensions (Ochs & Capps, 2001)life event approaches vs small stories

• Tellership• one teller versus multiple co-tellers

• Tellability• high versus low tellability

• Embeddedness• detached versus contextually and situationally embedded

• Moral stance• certainty versus uncertainty

• Linearity, temporality, causality• closed temporal + causal order versus open arrangements

What are narratives used for?

• they engage in projects such as» Tellership

» Tellability

» Embeddedness

» Moral stance

» Linearity, temporality, causality

– They are making <more informed> claims about who I am

• in WHAT is said & HOW it is said

– They are producing Speaker-Audience relationships

– They <interactively> establish IDENTITY

Identity and Identity Analysis

• Constructions of answers to ‘who are you?’• In all talk-in-interaction• With narratives as talk in social interactions

• Analysis of such constructions• Analysis of narratives <forms>• Analysis of social contexts <functions>

• Narratives as tools // heuristics• For the analysis of subjectivity and selves• For the analysis of interactive situations

• Linking subjectivity and social interaction into the empirical site where both are emerging

Implications for narrative analysis <micro-genesis>

• No direct access to selves and identities through the stories of story tellers

• Indirect access to how story tellers want to be understood ‘here + now’ <locally>

• Starting with the story– Analyzing the construction of characters in space + time of the

story-realm

• Adding the interactive context– Analyzing the discursive context of telling the story

Micro-genesis vs. Macro-genesis

• Microgenesis– As a form of analysis

• Bottom-up

• Selves in interaction as agents

• Analysis of interactive structures

• Advantages + disadvantages

• Macrogenesis– As a form of analysis

• Top-down

• Macrostructures as social agents

• Analysis of social structures

• Advantages and disadvantages

Positioning & Positioning Analysis

• Level 1:• Positioning characters in the story (referential plane of what

the talk is about) --- (characters can be ‘I’ and ‘you’)

• Level 2:• Positioning myself as speaker vis-à-vis my interlocutors

• Level 3:• Positioning myself vis-à-vis myself --- drawing up a position

vis-à-vis dominant discourses (master narratives)

• Analysis proceeds from level 1 to 3

Some DATAthis morning

• Sequencing exercise• What are events - what is a sequence?

• Betty positioning her friends & herself• What is the sequence of events?

• What is the theme?

• What does her story mean?

• Positioning with Davie Hogan• Stories about others - embeddedness - tellability

This afternoon

• Positioning self + gays (by way of a girl)

• Stories about self + others - embeddedness

• Positioning self + Linda Larssen• Stories about self - embeddedness - who am I?

• Role of the interviewer in group interactions• Doing ‘research agenda’ - question of authenticity