Narratives of Identity and Place

ISBN-13: 9780415480475 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 160 str.

Stephanie Taylor

Opis

Contemporary Western societies are marked by movement. Traditional connections to birthplaces, home towns and countries are broken as people relocate and migrate, yet where we live remains significant in shaping who we are. This can have a special importance for women in terms of community and family change. This book explores the changing meanings of place for our identities and life stories in the 21^st century, using an empirical approach developed in narrative and discursive psychology.

Stephanie Taylor introduces a theoretical and empirical approach to the study of identity, which follows the ‘discursive turn’ and ‘narrative turn’ in psychology. Place-related identities are investigated through the analysis of women’s talk. The book shows how commonsense meanings shape and limit people’s identity work to establish a connection to place. It argues that talk about place, and especially place of residence, enables a complex positioning of self and others in which identities of gender, class and national identity intersect. It explores ‘new’ identities of place, and the trouble which women encounter in their identity work around where they live.

Narratives of Identity and Place presents a unique and valuable integration of the popular methods of narrative and discourse analysis, compellingly demonstrating the value of these approaches for research on identity.

Spis treści

1. The Meanings of Place for Identity. 2. Narrative in a Contemporary Identity Project. 3. Place, Gender and Identity. 4. Places I Remember: Memory and Continuity in a Life Narrative. 5. A Place for the Future? Trouble in Identity Work. 6. New Identities of Place? Opportunity, Choice and Personalisation. 7. Places of my Own: Residence and Nationality in One Woman's Identity. 8. Conclusion.

O autorze

Stephanie Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Social Sciences at the Open University. In addition to her published work on identity, including creative identities and identities of place, she has written on qualitative research methods, including discourse analysis, ethnography and narrative analysis.