Sunday Morning Reconsidering SMALL STORIES –what have we learned thus far? –How important IS the context of telling? Exercise 3 –10-year-olds on “why girls are disgusting” Exercise 4 –13-year-olds on “why it is okay to tease girls” Sum Up

Davie Hogan story –4 boys sitting around the campfire The “Davie Hogan Story” –What is the story about? a fat boy, barforama, revenge, turning the tables on adults, ‘coming of age’ (in America) Two versions Two different perspectives: (i) more detached (ii) more involved –The Interactive Situation: Story negotiation beforehand –What is the story about? Story negotiation after the story –What did it mean? Stories as LOCAL sense-making mechanisms Different versions -- Different meanings Micro-Analysis (i) story (ii) turn-by-turn actions –STORY as part of a situated, ongoing interaction

Betty’s losing-her-dress-story Two versions/perspectives (same Betty?) –Same speaker (Betty as speaker/narrator) –Same events (buying a dress, looking great, losing the dress) –Betty as ‘answering different questions’ –Betty as ‘displaying different selves’ –Betty as ‘performing different identities’ MICRO-analysis of the language used to construct ‘detachment’ versus ‘involvement’ (= the construction of stance or valuation ) ‘Perspectives/Stances’ on life = ‘identities’ Identities as ‘interactively occasioned/performed

Implications of this View of Self & Identity 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 narratives as the sites for iterative identity projects ANTI-ESSENTIALISM + ANTI-DETERMINISM

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

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

SUM UP Narrative Methodology –Life Stories –Life-Event Stories –Small Stories Narratives in Culture –Narratives in Cultural Psychology Narratives in Cross-Cultural Psychology Cultural + Cross-Cultural Psychology Places for publishing: –Cultural Psychology + Narrative Inquiry (Clark Univ) (graduate studies)

advertisement Applications for Graduate Studies in Cultural and Narrative CLARK UNIVERSITY Developmental Program –No fees –Stipends of $12,000 per year (TA-ships) –Close work with your mentors