The Narrative Study of Lives

Ruthellen Josselson, Amia Lieblich, Ruthellen H. Josselson, Amia Lieblich

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1993
• Print ISBN: 9780803948136
• eBook ISBN: 9781506320649
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume is especially appealing in that it celebrates diversity and embraces disagreement. . . . The narrative scholar, regardless of her/his research tradition or field, will most certainly benefit from the diversity and depth provided in The Narrative Study of Lives. Editors Ruthellen Josselson and Amia Lieblich have admirably fulfilled their criteria of breadth, coherence, and aesthetic appeal for works included in this volume. Moreover, they have provided the necessary forum for the study of lives and life histories. We can only hope to continue the conversation in future volumes. --Journal of Contemporary Ethnography "Few questions have a longer, deeper, and livelier intellectual history than how we ?construct? our lives--and, indeed, how we create ourselves in the process. But it is a question newly alive today, for modern scholarship has brought challenging new perspectives to the study of life writing. Literary theorists, linguists, legal scholars, and even political activists are bringing new and powerful insights to bear. The Narrative Study of Lives provides a needed forum for the debates now in progress and should attract a loyal and numerous band of readers." --Jerome Bruner, New York University "For those psychologists searching for new approaches to the study of lives, this volume takes an important step toward the editors? promise of filling this gaping hole in psychology." --The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease How do we derive concepts from stories and then use these concepts to understand people? What would have to be added to transform story material from the journalistic or literary to the academic and theoretically-enriching? Addressing these and other such issues as the interface between life as lived and the social times, this group of distinguished contributors from six different countries and four different disciplines explores this emerging new field. Beginning with the philosophical framework that underlies the study of narrative, the book covers such questions as: What makes people want to preserve the stories of their past? What methods can be used to deconstruct a narrative text? Can what we learn from people?s narratives of their past be used to account for their current psychological functioning? What happens if people lose their ability to narrate their story? Can people?s narrative accounts tell us something about identity and its development? Useful to researchers and students of human development and behavior, The Narrative Study of Lives provides rich stories and analysis of narrative approaches to life history.

1

The Story of Life

Hermeneutic Perspectives on the Relationship Between Narrative and Life History

Guy A. M. Widdershoven

The relation between life and story usually is envisaged in one of the following two ways: On the one hand human life is seen as something that can be depicted in stories. The stories that are told about life are measured as to the adequacy with which they describe what happens in life as it is lived. On the other hand stories are regarded as ideals that we try to live up to. Consequently human life is measured against the meaningful patterns presented to us in literary stories. In the first case life is the example that literature is supposed to follow; in the second case literature gives us the example according to which we should live.

Common to both is the presupposition that life and story can be distinguished from one another in such a way that they can be described independently. In this chapter I want to investigate some alternative approaches to the relation between life and story that do not share this presupposition. These alternative approaches, which are part of the movement of philosophical hermeneutics, start from the idea that life and story are internally related. They underline that the meaning of life cannot be determined outside of the stories told about it. Consequently life cannot be regarded as an independent touchstone for the adequacy of a story. Neither, however, can the meaning of a story be determined without any reference to human life as it is lived. Thus a story is never a pure ideal, detached from real life. Life and story are not two separate phenomena. They are part of the same fabric, in that life informs and is formed by stories.

In order to elucidate the common ground of various hermeneutic approaches of the relation between life and story, I will first discuss the relation between story and reality within the philosophy of history. I will argue that this relation is neither one of continuity-nor one of discontinuity. It is hermeneutic, in that the implicit meaning of life is made explicit in stories. I will show that this hermeneutic conception is to be found in MacIntyre (1981) and Ricoeur (1983, 1990), but that Merleau-Ponty (1945) enables us to express it more precisely. Then I will turn to the field of psychology and focus on the concept of narrative identity. I will again discuss the positions of MacIntyre and Ricoeur, and make some emendations from the perspective of Merleau-Ponty.

The upshot of the discussion will be that from a hermeneutic point of view human life is interpreted in stories. Within hermeneutics, however, there are at least three different views on interpretation. The first sees interpretation as re-enactment (Collingwood). According to the second view interpretation is a dialogue with the text, resulting in a fusion of horizons (Gadamer). The third view holds that interpretation is a process of placing a text in a different context (Derrida). I will sketch these three hermeneutic approaches and discuss their implications for the role of stories in individual life.

From a hermeneutic point of view, human life is a process of narrative interpretation. Psychology and psychotherapy aim at studying this process and furthering it. Psychology and psychotherapy are hermeneutic, in that they try to understand the story of life, and, in doing so, change it. The specific nature of the hermeneutic activity of the psychologist and the psychotherapist can be characterized in different ways, depending on the view of interpretation one endorses. In the last part of the chapter I will distinguish a reconstructive, a dialogical, and an intertextual approach within psychology and psychotherapy, and elaborate their consequences for psychological and psychotherapeutical practice.

The Continuity Thesis and the Discontinuity Thesis in the Philosophy of History

The relation between life and story is much debated within the philosophy of history. The debate is about the relation between historical past and historical narrative. According to the defenders of the so-called continuity thesis, the historical past and the story told about it by the historian are essentially of the same–narrative–character. Those who take the opposite position-the proponents of the discontinuity thesis-hold that the historical past and the historian’s narrative are of a different nature-the one being without structure and the other being structured in a specific way.

A returning quote within the debate is a phrase from Barbara Hardy, who says: “we dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticise, construct, gossip, learn, hate and love by narrative” (Hardy, 1968, p. 5). This sentence can be regarded as a neat expression of the basic tenets of the continuity thesis. It is fiercely attacked by its opponents. One of them is Mink, who simply says: “Stories are not lived, but told” (Mink, 1987, p. 60), thus stressing the ontological difference between life and literature. White (1981) takes a similar position. He argues that narratives are not fit to represent reality, because reality has no beginning and no end. Annals and chronicals stand much closer to the past than the stories of historians, says White.

Hardy’s statement is quoted approvingly by the defenders of the continuity thesis. The most outspoken defender, Carr, claims that life is not just a succession of events (Carr, 1986). Our actions are structured by our anticipation of the future. Like elements of a story, human actions derive their meaning from their connection to prior and later events. Life already has a meaning, before it is a subject of stories. Life is narratively structured, and as such it anticipates historical and literary stories. In opposition to Mink, Carr claims that stories are both lived and told.

According to the proponents of the discontinuity thesis, life and story are fundamentally different. The defenders of the continuity thesis see life and story as essentially of the same nature. From a hermeneutic perspective, both these position are problematic. A hermeneutic position holds that stories are interpretations of life. Story and life are similar, in that both are supposed to have a meaning. The story tells us in a meaningful way what life itself is about. Thus the hermeneutic perspective does not support the discontinuity thesis. Hermeneutics also claims that there is no meaning prior to interpretation. This implies that the meaning of life does not exist independent of the stories that are told about it. Thus life does not merely anticipate stories, its meaning is essentially dependent on stories. In this respect, the hermeneutic position is at odds with the continuity thesis. Against both the discontinuity and the continuity thesis, the hermeneutic position emphasizes that life and story are only meaningful in and through mutual interaction.

A hermeneutic approach to the relation between life and story can be found in the work of MacIntyre (1981). He defines life as an enacted narrative, a story put into practice. Life is lived according to a script that makes it intelligible. In order to understand life, we have to have access to the stock of stories that constitute its dramatic resources. Thus the meaning of life is dependent upon the stories that surround it.

The hermeneutic relation between life and story is a central theme in the work of Ricoeur (1983). According to him, life becomes human by being articulated in a narrative way. Life has a pre-narrative structure, which is changed into a narrative structure by the plot of a story told about it. Life has an implicit meaning, which is made explicit in stories. In the process of emplotment the relatively unclear pre-understanding of daily life is changed into a more lucid literary configuration. Thus the stories told about life change it and give it a more specific form. The relation between life and story is a hermeneutic circle: The story is based on the pre-understanding of life, and changes it into a more fully developed understanding.

Although both MacIntyre and Ricoeur see a hermeneutic relation between life and story, in which both sides influence one another, they share an emphasis on the story as the instance where meaning is created. For MacIntyre, life has meaning because it is lived according to a narrative script. For Ricoeur, it is only in the story that the meaning of life really takes form. Both underestimate the role of life in the creation of meaning, which is fundamental in the sense that life is the base for every possible story that can be told about it. This is a central idea in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty (1945), which places the pre-reflexive in the center. According to Merleau-Ponty, pre-reflexive experiences are the foundation of reflexive notions. He explains this by referring to Husserl’s concept of Fundierung. Merleau-Ponty elucidates this concept as follows:

The relation between reason and fact, eternity and time, like the one between reflexion and the pre-reflexive, thought and language or thought and perception, is a mutual relation which is called Fundierung in phenomenology. The phenomenon which is the foundation–time, the pre-reflexive, facts, language, perception–is prior in so far as the phenomenon which is based upon it, presents itself as a determination or an explicitation . . . , and yet the foundation is not prior in the empiristic sense, and the phenomenon which is based upon it is not merely derived, because the former manifests itself in the latter. (1945, p. 451; trans, by Widdershoven; italics in original)

Following Merleau-Ponty we can characterize the hermeneutic relation between life and story as a relation of Fundierung. Life has an implicit meaning, which is made explicit in stories. Such a process of explicitation presupposes that there is already something present. What is present is, however, not just there to be uncovered. It is shaped and structured in a process of articulation. A story about life presents us life as it is lived, and as such life is the foundation of the story. In presenting life, however, the story gives life a specific sense, and makes clear what it is about. Thus a story is based on life, but it is not determined by it because it is an articulation of life that gives it a new and richer meaning.

Narrative Identity

The discussion within the philosophy of history about the relation between life and story has consequences for the field of psychology in its reference to the place of stories in individual life. Like historians who tell stories about the past, people tell stories about their life. Stories are somehow important for our identity: They tell us who we are. Again it can be asked what relation these stories have to the persons we are. Do they merely describe the experiences we had in the past, or are they in some way constitutive for our (past and actual) experiences?

An example may be helpful to elucidate the place of stories in individual life. Marcel Proust, whose work can be regarded as an illustration of the thesis that narratives create individual life (Rorty, 1989), touches upon the relation between experience and story when he describes a visit to the theater, where Berma performs Phèdre (Proust, 1919). The narrator tells us how he tries to retain each utterance and each expression of Berma, in order to be able to remember the experience fully. In this, however, he does not succeed. In fact, his ongoing efforts to capture the present cause him to see hardly anything. His first feeling of admiration is aroused by the applause of the public. It is only later, when he reads the report in the newspaper, that he becomes truly convinced of the qualities of the performance. The narrator describes how the story in the newspaper fuses with his own experience, and adds something to it, so that his admiration grows, resulting in the exclamation: “What a fabulous artist !” He then notices that this may seem not very honest, because the experience in the theater was not nearly as positive as his judgment after reading the critics. He warns the reader, however, not to draw the conclusion of dishonesty too easily. Our stories about what we have experienced are always influenced by those of others, the narrator says, and we derive much of the strength of our most personal ideas from familiar ideas in other persons.

This example shows that experiences have little value as long as they are not connected to, or, as Proust says, fused with stories. This is not only true of relatively unimportant experiences, such as going to the theater. It also holds for experiences that are supposed to change our whole life, for example experiences of deep love or grief. We only become aware of the significance of these experiences by telling stories about them and fusing them with other stories. In this process the pre-narrative structure of experience is articulated and changed into a narrative pattern.

What then is narrative identity? It is the unity of a person’s life as it is experienced and articulated in stories that express this experience. This view of personal identity is close to that of MacIntyre (1981), but it is not completely the same. According to MacIntyre, the unity of a person’s life is dependent on being a character in an enacted narrative. We live our lives according to a script, which secures that our actions are part of a meaningful totality. Our actions are organized in such a way that we can give an account of them, justify them by telling an intelligible story about them. I agree with MacIntyre when he says that our actions show a unity that can be expressed in a story. I disagree, however, with his assumption that the unity that is put forward in the story is already present in the action. MacIntyre seems to overlook that the articulation of the implicit unity of life in an explicit story is itself part of the process in which identity is created. We not only live our lives in such a way that we can tell stories about our experiences and actions. We also, in telling these stories, change the meaning of our experiences and actions. Here I can refer to the narrative of Proust, which I recapitulated above. By telling a story about a visit to the theater, and mingling this story with that of others, the experience of Berma’s performance is changed from a vague and fuzzy feeling into a deep admiration. Exactly this change of experience by later stories is missing in MacIntyre’s account of narrative identity.

Ricoeur (1990) criticizes MacIntyre for overaccentuating action as enacted narrative and underestimating the role of narratives outside of action. According to Ricoeur, the meaning of action is articulated in stories, which bring the action in relation to a specific plot, and thus make its meaning more explicit. Whereas actions in themselves are already part of a global plan of life, or a script (as MacIntyre says), this global plan of life can in turn be related to literary stories, which can enrich a person’s life. Ricoeur states that a “detour through fiction” has its advantages (p. 188). Literature can be regarded as a laboratory in which experiences can be tested, and in which the relation between action and actor can be made visible.

Whereas MacIntyre seems to overemphasize the role of the story in life itself, Ricoeur seems to overaccentuate the role of the story outside of life. It is significant that he lays much weight on literary stories as the place where the meaning of life is really created. Ricoeur seems to forget that stories have to have a foundation in life, if they are to be effective. Moreover, he completely overlooks the stories we tell in everyday life in order to explain our experiences.

Ricoeur stresses the role of literature, and thus has a rather highbrow view of personal identity. In my opinion, the stories that people use to express the unity of their lives do not have to be literary. The narratives in which people articulate their actions are mostly quite common. They are related to everyday life and everyday experiences. Thus personal identity is not primarily created through classical works of art. It is the result of an interaction between personal experiences and personal stories, entwined with stories of others in ordinary life. Again I can take Proust for my witness. It is not through literature that the narrator learns to specify his experience of Berma’s performance. His admiration develops as he hears the applause of the public, and as he reads the story of the critic. We can only learn from stories if they have a direct bearing on our experiences. Of course, literary stories may have this quality, but they are not always useful in this respect, and they certainly are not indispensable.

From a hermeneutic point of view, personal identity is dependent on a mutual relation between lived experience on the one hand, and stories in which this experience is articulated on the other hand. Personal identity presupposes a felt unity of experiences. This unity serves as a foundation for stories, which express experience and thus make its unity manifest. Here again we see an example of Fundierung in the phenomenological sense. Personal identity is the result of a hermeneutic relation between experience and story, in which experience elicits the story, and the story articulates and thereby modifies experience.

Stories as Interpretations of Life

Thus far we have seen that, from a hermeneutic point of view, stories are based on life, and life is expressed, articulated, manifested and modified in stories. Stories make explicit the meaning that is implicit in life as it is lived. In stories we aim to make clear and intelligible what life is about. Thus stories are interpretations of life in which the meaning of life is spelled out, in very much the same way as the meaning of a text is spelled out in a literary int...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• A Narrative Introduction
• 1. The Story of Life: Hermeneutic Perspectives on the Relationship Between Narrative and Life History
• 2. The Incomprehensible Catastrophe: Memory and Narrative
• 3. A Moment’s Monument: The Psychology of Keeping a Diary
• 4. Reconstruction of Life Stories: Principles of Selection in Generating Stories for Narrative Biographical Interviews
• 5. Looking at Change: Natasha, 21: New Immigrant From Russia to Israel
• 6. Identity and Context: How the Identity Statuses Choose Their Match
• 7. Altered Views: Fathers’ Closeness to Teenage Daughters
• 8. Narratives of the Gendered Body in Popular Autobiography
• Index
• About the Contributors