(.il4t'tt,R
rl rrillr ltou, tt st'lttt ltt't-s t';tlt :ttltltt'ss
tlrt't1ttt'sliott ol wltltt ttttt't'rtlivcs
, ,r1 tlo, rrrrtl it will rkr tlris tlrlorrglr torrsirlu'ing s<ltttc of'thc wrrys ilt wlrich thcy
,,,
tr
n:,t. nr:rl,ilrg. Slrt't
ilit:rllt, rl
,rrrrl rnlt,r'plcl thosc n:rrrlrlivcs.
Stories and the Social World
stories
of
our days and the stories in our days are joined in that autobiography we
are all engaged in making and remaking, as long as we live, which we
never complete, though we all know how
Hardy, Tellers and Listeners, p. 4)
it is going to end. (Barbara
INTRODUCTION: THE STORIES OF OUR DAYS AND THE
STORIES
IN
ll willt'onsitlcr
wilhirr rr hisloricrrlly rrrrrl socirrlly corrstittttctl worlcl. Ic<lnsidcrstorics
Irr.rq rrs lrollr lcrsotrrccs tlrrrt rlc rlritwtr on ittrcl irs srlciitl and cultural productions
rr,,r.tl lry pcoplc in thcir cvcryclrty livcs to make scnse of those lives. Such stories
,rr,. lrotrnrl up with pc<lplc's cverydiry worlds. Unlike the traditional'Once upon
,r I u n(.' strlry, which, as Asa Berger notes, 'situates the story in the past and sug1,r.:;ls thrrt it takes place in a different world, one far removed from that of the
trllt'r', listcncr, or reader' (Berger rggT: 84), the kinds of stories I am considerrrrli lrclc lre precisely within the worlds of tellers, listeners and readers. In fairy
,,tolit.s, normal rules do not apply (Lacey zooo) but in life stories and similar
rr.rrlutivcs, rules are precisely the point: I cannot tell a life story that does not
,r,llrt'r.c to local (in time and space)'intelligibility norms' (Gergen and Gergen
rrll-i(r). So, a story of a childhood blighted by parental neglect tends to earn
r, .rtlcrs' sympathy because it is (in the twenty-lirst century) intelligible. A story
,rl rr cl-rildhood blighted by witchcraft (intelligible in, say, sixteenth-century
l',rrg-l:rnd) seems likely today to be met with some scepticism.
While, conventionally, the study of narratives has centred on narratology r llt t is on the technical components of narratives themselves - I am more con, r'r rrccl here with the ways in which narratives circulate socially as cultural and
.,,,tirrl resources. These are stories through which social actors make sense of
rlrr. world, of their place within it, and of their own identities. Paul Ricoeur
( rt;r; r ) usefully distinguishes between narratology and emplotment, or the cre.rrivc work of reading and producing narratives. While narratology remains
'rr it [in' the narrative, examining the structure of the narrative itself, the kind
ol rrarrative analysis advocated by Ricoeur (and which I will discuss here) con,;rtlcrs the narrative in its social context: stories completed, not in the compont.nts of the story itself, but in the circulation of relations between story, the
, rrrlrcrl rrs
Steph Lawler
It is hard to take more than a step without narrating . . . The
rs cotrcclttt
OUR DAYS
As Barbara Hardy, among others, has noted, narratives are integral to social
life
(tqzs). People continually tell stories to themselves and to others, gathering up
fragments of the day to make a coherent whole, or fragments of occurrences in
a life to make a coherent life story. Even though most people will not write autobiographies, all of us are engaged in the projects of our own autobiography,
which we manifest every time we tell others about our lives, attend an interview, or simply engage in processes of thinking about and understanding the
world and our place within it. In all of these processcs) we are telling stories to
ourselves and to others. These stories are not simple reflections of a set of
'facts': rather, they are organising devices through which we interpret and constitute the world. And indeed how could wc nor do this, since the social world
is itself, as Somers and Gibson put it, 'storied'l 'l'hat is, stories surround us,
not only in novels, films, memoirs and othcr cultural forms which explicitly
present themselves in terms of stories, but rrlso in therapeutic encounters,
newspaper articles, social theories and just thc cvcrydiry ways in which people
make sense of all of the discrete and divcrsc clcnrcrrts <lf a life.
This chapter is concerned with thc wlys i' wlriclr stories * or narrativesl
become social and cultural resourccs tl.rrrrrgh whiclr people engage in this
l
rloclucer of the story, and the audience for the story, in the context of local rules
rl rvhat constitutes a meaningful story.
Ir
lnstead of interrogating the deep structures of narrative, Ricoeur is more
. ,,rrccrned with the question of what narrative does.Fot him, narrative is a key
nrcrrns through which people understand and make sense of the social world,
,rnrl of their place within it. The world is intelligible because we can situate it
uithin a story. We are intelligible because we can turn the multiple events of
, rur lives into stories. In this respect, existing stories, whether in literary or culIrrral forms, or underwriting social and scientific theories, become resources to
in constructing their own stoties. We may see ourselves, for
cx..rmple, as heroically overcoming obstacles and setbacks in our lives; or
romantically driven by forces outside our control; or stoically enduring illtrcatment. In any case, we are using existing narratives to make sense of, and
trsc for social actors
('tl(l', ils littot'ttt l)ttls tl (liitot'trl tr;lio: tli.1), lnlt'rl)r(lutli Lrtlr r'r'r'rrls in llrt'
liglrt ol't':rrlicr'()tles, so lltitl lltc clrtl ol'llre slot'.v sc('nrs t() ur('\'rt,rl)l\ lirllow li'orn
the [rcginnirtg. Ifoth thc ttrtt'r'rtl<lt' irrrtl thc ilr.r(li('rr('(' lvill prrrtrt iprrtt. in thcsc
proccsscs tlf linking - wh ich l{ic<lcur calls 'cmpkll nt crr I' I h lo rg h rr sh rrrcrl cultural understanding that the se events have a placc irr lll.r'nirn'ativc. I,.rrrltlotmcnt
ls the 'creative centre of narrative' (Ricoeur rygr zq).
\\rl\s'tll)\NAlil{Al'lvl'.1()l'l'()ll'lllNl'l'll"sANl)
SOME BACKGROUND
,,1,,.',.,u,r"quences of siorytelling
r
t,t(()1il.1',\'ls
sociirl wtlrld
il,,rs I lrrrvc rrlgrrcrl, slot'ics rttrr tltl'ottgll slrcirrl lifc sttch tltrrt thc
and then
narratives
filr
r,, rtst'll st,r'ictl, tlrcrrt i( is ttll ctr6ttglr lrl sirrlllly ftl<ll<
(I988), charac,,1r,*, llr:rt thcy irrc llrcrc- llarllrtrrr (.ziu'trilwskl, aftcr Solow
(czarniawska
,l,o<lk,
approach
narrativc!'
is
a
Mrr, thcrc
It ri:it.s this trs ir
is consider
rather'
point'
The
,,o.li { r ). 'l'his, as shc ylirrts out, is inadequate'
lrr sttrcly thcm' (zoo4: +t) "",1,
rr
Although attention to narrative emplotment in social and cultural research is
relatively recent, concern with the social uses and dynamics of narratives has a
much longer history. Ricoeur, for example, takes his notion of emplotment from
Aristotle, whose concept of plot was that of an integrating structure (Ricoeur
r99r). However, attention to narratives has been vivilied from the twentieth
century as a result of a number of intellectual developments. These developments have included, crucially, what has come to be called 'the linguistic turn',
in which language came to be seen, not as a simple and transparent carrier of
'facts', but as integral to the making of meaning. One outcome of this has been
a conceptualising of research, and indeed of social action itself, in terms of
'texts', so that an attention to the 'how?' as well as the 'what?' becomes crucial.
More broadly, however, narrative theory, in the sense in which I use it
here, has to be understood as embedded within a hermeneutic tradition.
Hermeneutics has its roots in biblical scholarship, though it is now more commonly associated with philosophical enquiry associated with phenomenology.
lt takes as its focus ways of understanding. Its concern is less 'what happened?'
than 'what is the significance of this event?' (White r996). This is abour more
than simply understanding the stories themselves: it incorporates, rather, a
view of the social world as always interpreted, and of interpretation as central
to people's social existence. Hermeneutic inquiry focuses centrally on investigations of meaning and interpretation, and locates interpretation within the
specifics ofa history and a culture (Crotty rgg8).
This focus on the centrality of meaning and understanding is vital to an
understanding of narratives, since, I would argue) narratives ahoays snd necessarily build in attempts at understanding. We can perhaps see this most clearly
in its negative - in the ways in which a refusal to be an audience to a narrative
entails a refusal to understand. There may be good reasons to refuse to hear
someone's story but such a refusal is always a violcnt act in that it stands as a
refusal to offer the person any understanding.a Of course, this does not nean
that hearing someone's story entails an automatic understanding: my point is,
rather, that narrative is a necessary (though not a sumcient) mode of understanding of the world.
for those who tell the stories and for those
I would add, for broader social and cultural
-
r,l:rIirltts.
narratives can
lrr t his spirit, I want, in this section, to consider what studying
two feahighlight
can do, I witl
,r, lrit.vc. Irmy consideration of what narratives
other, individual and
tilr.(.s: rlarratives as bridging the divide between self and
',,ot icty'; and as bridging the gap between past and present'
St'll':rnd Other
must challenge
N:il.rttives plunge us into a sociality. whatever stories we tell
firstly, because
reasons:
principal
rlrc r.'yrh oi the atomised individual, for two
any life; and
or
event'
rlrr.r.c is always more than one story to tell about any
,,,.t.0ndly, because we cannot prod.,.. stories out of nothing, and must instead
of narratives
rlrrw oll the narrative ,.rour.", available to us' The multiplicity
.;llrings,nodoubt,fromamultiplicityofperspectives.TakingGina'snarrative
might produce
(:rlxrve), it is easy to consider iht *"yt in which her mother
her own approach to domes,r tlill'erent narrative, perhaps one that explains
might have
tic life, or even one that ..iu,.' Gina's own' Or' Gina's children
childhood'
own
their
about
or
;r clifl'erent story to tell about their mother,
as intiown,
our
for
liurthermore, others' stories sometimes provide the basis
case of early
furnish parts of stories that have been forgotten, or (as in the
itself - which is cont.lrildhood) furnish the stories themselves. Even memory
individual
the
-can be seen as
r,cntionally understood as being'owned'by
Prager, for
l,"ing proiuced in complex, iniersubjective relationships. Jeffrey
.*"Jpl., writes of 'the ways in which the cultural and the interpersonal intergenerally thought to be purely individual' and
l)cnetrate in memory, , prl.",,
to both self and
,,rgu., that memori., ur" 'th" result of an individual's relation
I
rrates
the outside world' (zooo: Sq-6o)'
of interIn general, people havetuite high levels of rolerance for a diversity
below; this variety
pretat-ions andhence of narratives, although, as I will discuss
isnotendless.Thepointlwanttomakehere,however,isthatthisverydiver-
might see as interpresity indicates the ways in which people exist in what we
tivecollectivities.Anattentiontonarrativeremindsusofthis.
Ilont'r't'1, it is pt'r'lrlrlrs itt totrsirlt'r'irrg llrc sctorrrl porrrt tlrl rr,rls irr rvlriclr
rrrlivirlrrrrl sot'iirl :tclors tllrrw orr witlcr t'ulltrrlrl r.r.soru.r ('h ln Prorlrrr.irr13 rrirr.r.rr
ivt's llrrrl:t clrirllcllgc t() tlrc scll-othcr llirrrtry is rrrost tlt'rrr'l\ sr.t.rr. I lrirvc
llcrrtl-y strggcslecl tlral irrclividual narrativcs nrusl corrfirrrrr to irrtclligibility
rrlt's whiclr xrc socirrlly lnd historically specilic. M<lrc thrrrr this, lrowcvcr, fbr
cvcrrrl ruthors, thc social world is filled with stories: it comcs to us alreadv
;trlricd'. Somers and Gibson argue:
lr:rgrrrcttlsitrtrlrtrrolltcrl'cl)l'csclllrlli()lt rt ttitt'rativcin whichcvcntsbringabtlut
ntlrt.r' cvcnts: rt urtt't'ltivc with ir bcgirrtliltg, ir rniddle, and (however deferred) an
r.rrrl.'l'lrcrc is, in othcr words, no unmccliatcd access to the past and, indeed, the
rr.r'y rrcl 9f rccalling and tclling the past is an exercise in interpretation.
'I i I nrirkc this point is not simply to notice that memory is unreliable, although
fS]tories guide action; . . . people consrruct identities (however multiple
and changing) by locating themselves or being located within a
repertoire of emplotted stories; . . . 'experience' is constituted through
narratives; . . .people make sense of what has happened and is
happening to them by attempting to assemble or in some way to
integrate these happenings within one or more narratives; and . . .
people are guided to act in certain ways, and not others, on the basis of
the projections, expectations, and memories derived from a multiplicity
but ultimately linked repertoire of available social, public and cultural
narratives. (Somers and Gibson r9g4: 38-9)
If
the social world is always-already storied, it puts constraints on the stories
produce. Gina's narrative, for example, only makes sense in a time and place
r which we understand mothering as significant, if not decisive, for how the
hild (and especially the daughter) rurns out; in which we associare certain
rays of living with certain class milieus, and so on. our social milieu also proides a set of resources on which we can draw to produce our own stories. There
re, for example, the plots provided by the literary tradition, but narratives are
lso provided by soap operas, 'expert' advice, talk shows and so on. Through
sing existing narratives we create our own.
If this is so, then narrative provides us with means of contextualising people's
rdividual narratives, so that they are always embedded within publiclyirculating narratives that are specific to times and places.
,,e
'ast and Present
Memories are their own descendants, masquerading as the ancestors
the past. (David Mitchell, Ghostpritten,p. 326)
Ilowt.vt.r', llrr.pitsl, lreirtg llrc l):lsl, ls tto lottgt'l tlitll rrs. lt lilt's ott ottly itt
rr.'r't.st.1l:rlitlrrs 6l ilscll il tllc:rrns, ntctttotics, itttrtgt's, lttttl, ltllovc lrll, irr tlrc
,,t.r.it's rlr rrrrr-r-rrtivcs wlriclr work rrs ln('iuls ol'lllirrgirrg togctlrcr thesc rrlctliltccl
of
.ny research which aims to understand how people themselves live and undertand their everyday lives must consider the past as well as the present. No-one
ves in an eternal present and the past - both individually and socially informs
nd impacts on people's presents. AsJohn Berger has observed, ' ,,I am,' includes
ll that has made me so . . . It is already biographical' (Berger rygz: 37o_l).
is to consider, firstly, the significance of memory for narratives - and
interpre, ',1,ecially for life narratives; and, secondly, to foreground the role of
depends
is
remembered
what
zoo3):
(Misztal
t.,ti,,rr. Memory is reconstructive
a video
like
watching
is
not
orr whtt 'makes sense' in the context. To remember
rt is.
lt
(l lrrcking r9g5). As Carolyn Steedman comments:
Wc all return to memories and dreams . ' ' again and again; the story we
tcll of our life is reshaped around them. But the point doesn't lie there,
brrck in the past, back in the lost time at which they happened; the only
point lies ininterpretation. The past is re-used through the agency of
social information, and that interpretation of it can only be made with
what people know of a social world and their place within it' (Steedman
r9B9:5)
in
Steedman herself develops this point in her own exploration of narrative
contains
book
this
liaes,
of
troo
Ltrndscape for a Gootl woman. Subtitled A stnr.y
rl,. story of St..d-ur,'s own life together with that of her mother' These life
a
rrrrrratives are interwoven with social history, fragments of fairy stories, and
The text as a whole is framed by
Psl,choanalytic case study (Freud's 'Dora').
Sr".d-an's own analysis of the various narratives contained in the text, as well
meta-commentary on narrative itself. Steedman's text considers individual
relalriographies in the context of social relations. Indeed, by considering social
why
riOns in their historical and political specificity, she is able to consider
rrs rl
cvcnts become 'ePisodes' at all.
It is difficult to summarise this complex text) but one of its striking features
the lives
is the ways in which Steedman embeds her own autobiography within
,,f'others, and within the historical contexts of her parents' and grandparents'
pecuworlds. She embe{s it, too, within a political analysis which highlights the
up
growing
girl
lilr marginality and estrangement of the 'clever' working-class
irr the mid-twentieth century. ^fhus, Lundscape illusttates the two features of
larrative's bridging work that I am highlighting here (self/other; past/present)
a particuand also demonstrates the broader point that all stories are told from
and
embeddedness
lar point of view. The following passage gives a sense of this
these interconnections:
p
trt{t,t,
tlpstirils, tt lottg littte ltgo, ltnl'rrrollrt'r'llr:rtl tlrt.rl, st,rrrtl1lf,, o1 tlrt. lrlrlt.
lloorlro:utls in lltt. lirrrtl Irctll.oorn, jrrst rrlicr. ll,c rrrort.rl lo llrs lroust,irr
Stlcalhrrrrrllill itr rgqI,lr)y[r:r[lysistcr.irrlro.t'ru.r.y t.ot.Wt. lxrlhr,vllt:hctl
thc dr"rnlpy rctrcating figr-rrc ol'the hcirlth-visilol thlorrgh tIc cr1'lrrirrlcss
windows. Thc womirn had said, "l'his housc isn't lit firr.rr llrrby' . .
And Il I will do everything and anything unril rhc c'cl
days t'
'l'my
stop anyone ever talking to me like that woman talked to my
mother. It
is in this place, this bare, curtainless bedroom that lies my secret
and shameful defiance. I read a women's book, meet such a woman at a
party . . . and think quite deliberarely as we ralk: we are dividecl: a
hundred years ago I'd have been cleaning your shoes. I know this ancr
you don't. (Steedman rg8g: r-z)
4t
Stolics:n'('n{)l 'licliotrs'itt tltc scttsc ol lrt'itrg'tttlttll'ttp'. ltirllrt'r,
rr.rlllrlivt's rrlt'tlt'vit't's lo plorlrrtt't't'r'l:tirr li,irrtls ol tttcltttittll. I lt'y to ttsc
r,tolies to lcll wlrrrt I thirrli is tlrt'lrrrtlr rt locrtlctl, enrtlocliccl, cotrtingcnt
tnd !lttrtfitrr'r'e:rl lrutlr. (ll:rr':rwrr-y tt)g7: zlo ctrtphasis addcd)
.
Here, emplotment takes place around steedman's 'secret and shameful
defiance', instilled out of watching her mother's humiliation at the hands of the
health visitor. out of the curtainless bedroom, the baby in the cot and the
woman at the party, Steedman weaves a story of classed identity, class envy and
class politics. As she writes, all stories are 'the same story in the end: the story
of how the individual came to be the way she is' (Steedman rg8g: r3z), and this
is the story of how Steedman came to be the way she is.
Steedman's text, however, takes us both into and out of this story. By considering the context (the history, the politics) and the inrer-texruality of her
story, she is able to offer her own interpretations interpretations, in part, of
her own memories - which make the narrative more than the sum of its parts.
THE THORNY ISSUE OF .TRUTH'
The issue of whether or not a narrative is'true'is usually bracketed within contemporary analyses. czarniawska, for example, while acknowledging that analysts do not have to accept 'tall tales', suggests that questions of fact or fiction
are of little concern, especially when considering not what a text says, but how
it says it. while sociologists from the chicago School, working in the midtwentieth century, often went to great lengths to determine whether their
respondents' narratives were factually correct or not, few researchers now
trouble themselves with the problem.
In fact I think there are good reasons for this, not least a perception of the
inadequacy of the correspondence theory of truth, in which (narrative and
other) texts refer to an unproblematic world of facts 'out there'. If everything
is symbolically mediated (and from a narrative perspective, it is) then to
propose that there is a world of things rhat escape this mediation is illogical. So,
for example, Donna Haraway argues:
that'truth'is to be found in location,
rrrlrorlirncnt, contingcncy. I think what lics behind this comment is Haraway's
ll.rr:rrvrry, thcu, scct.tts to bc suggcsting
r
r,lrrs:rltoclaimauthorityfbrherstories-arefusaltoclaimthatanyoneaccount
r,, tlrt''gocl's eye view'(Haraway r99r). This is part of her critique of a spuri,
, rlrjcclivity that claims to be able to see the world 'as it is', while really being
'rrs
rlrl srrbjcctive position of those with the power to claim objectivity. In terms of
I l:rr:rrvay's analysis of knowledge-production, this has been an important crit rr;rrt'. llut to sce 'truth' as inhering in located-ness may lead us into difficulties.
I ).rr't nrrlratives make some moral claim for recognition?
'l'lrerc are certainly times when people demand a recognition that some
rlrrrrgs l'rappened while other things definitely did not. For example, Lundy and
\ lr ( iovern's (zoo6) study of a participatory action research project in Ardoyne,
N.r'thcrn Ireland, was concerned with precisely the importance, to partrr'ilrrrnts of different religious communities, of having specific truth claims valrrl:rtctl. In this example, truth claims are politically important. While the
,lrlliculties of establishing them cannot be underestimated, it is clear that they
( .urrot simply be dispensed with.
I would also argue, however, that contested claims to truth can tell us sometlrirrg interesting about narrative itself. That is, they can tell us something about
rlf c irlrportance of an interpretiue community. To illustrate my argument here, I
ru ill cliscuss the complex narrative of Binjamin Wilkormiski.s
Wilkormiski is a Swiss musician and instrument-maker who, in r995, publrslrcd a memoir, Bruckstilcke, in Germany. Several translations quickly foll.rvcd, including the English version, Fragments: Memories of a Childhood,
r, 1.; 9 r g4B. The book was a memoir of a Jewish child's experiences in a Latvian
llhctto and in Nazi death camps, and, after the war, in a Swiss orphanage. It
r t't'cived tremendous critical acclaim and won a number of prestigious awards.
't'he publication of the memoir brought Wilkormiski to public attention and
tlrcre were numerous lecture tours and invitations to speak. It seemed clear that
lris rpparent psychological distress was an outcome of his traumatised childlrood. In other words, in the narrative of Wilkormiski's life, the story of 'how
lrc came to be the way he is', to paraphrase Steedman, is a story of extraordin,rly suffering. His adult life is made explicable through a plot that is familiar tlrc obscene plot of Nazi genocide.
It quickly become clear, however, that, according to all the available evitlcnce, Fragments was fraudulent. Investigative work by a Swiss iournalist,
I )aniel Ganzfield, and later by a Swiss historian, Stefan Maechler, revealed
(,t{t,1,
llirrfrllrrirr Will.olrtrrski lo ltrtvt' ltt't'tt lrolrr lll'rlro ( iror,1t..rrr, ,r Srrrss ( it'rrtile,
lrolrt to rr sirrglt. rrrolltcl irnrl srrlrsct;rrt.rrll.y rrtloPlt.rl lrt, ;r rr.r.;rltlrl, .Sr,viss
col'll)lc. Ilc wrts nol -fcwish, ttol l,rtlvirur, rtrrtl lrrrtl rrcvt'r'lrt't.rr irr;r t'rrrrrp.'l'his
rcvclation brought ltublic outcry ancl thc willrrlrrrw:rl ol llrizcs rrrrtl awards.
Wilkormiski,/Grosjean, howevcr, ref-utes this cvidcncc irnrl lclirscs to acccpt
that the memoir is in any way fraudulent. Indeed, he has indicated that he
regards any failure to believe his story as a form of holocaust-denial.
I certainly do not want to offer any kind of psychological or other analysis of
Wilkormiski himself. I am, rather, interested in two different issues: firstly, the
appropriation of other stories as the raw materials from which to make one's
own, and secondly, the reception to this narrative. Does it matter that it was
false? Indeed, how can one know whether
it is or not?
Gross and Hoffman suggesr that wilkormiski's itlentification with the
Holocaust - even to the degree of inserting himself into a story that was nor
his - is perfectly coherent in a contemporary 'victim culture'. They write:
It is easy to dismiss wilkomirski
as someone whose personar suffering
has led him to over-identify
with victims of the Holocausr, but in [a
contemporary] victim culture . . . this is just what he is supposed to do.
Institutions as influential as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum teach
the Holocaust through transference and identification. (zoo4:34)6
ln other words, wilkormiski has successfully achieved identification with what
Lauren Berlant has called 'the subject of pain' (Berlant zooo), and it is hardly
surprising that he has done so, especially in 'an age of identity politics, when
being a victim is a mark of distinction' (Gross and Hoffman 2oo4:32). He has
taken existing narratives - apparently as diverse as Holocaust memoirs and the
ohildren's story Heidi (Maechler zoor) - to produce his own story and his own
identity. Analysts' accounrs poinr ro the likelihood that he himself is invested
in this identity and in some sense believes it to be his own. Isn't this what we
lll do? I have argued, following Ricoeur and others, that we draw on the narra[ives of our time and place to creatively assemble a life narrative of our own.
But Wilkormiski's is a narrative identity cast adrift from the facts of the case
ls embodied in offrcial documents, and in the memories and life histories of
rthers. Any one of these can be faulty, of course, but the weight of evidence
would seem, on every count) to bear against the Wilkormiski story. So we are
:eturned to the question, does it matter?
Audiences tend to expect claims which are passed off as true (as in written
nemoirs or even spoken accounts) to accord with the 'facts'. otherwise, some
rreach of sociality is seen to have occurred: the perpetrator of the lie has broken
r set of social rules. While most people are probably comfortable with the
lotion that all facts are interpreted, there does seem to be an expectation of a
4.t
r, l,tl rortsltip lrt'l wt't'tt lltt l ;tttrl rrlt.ll)r'('lirl iort, irt llty ;tr't'ottttls lts rttttt'lt rts itt ltt'lt
rrrit'rrtr:rlyst's. Nort lit tion rrrrrr';r(irt's, il is cxpt't'lctl, trtrrsl uccortl iil sttttr( rt,u,.)r,
rrot only witlr scts ol'irrtclligilrilit.y lrrlcs, brrt with lhc rrccounts atrd mcmclries
,1,
,rrr,l
lt'tot'rlirtgsol'othcrs.Wlrcrrthcyckrnol,:lscrlscof'bctrayal-abrcachofa
lrrlct ol socirrl pronrisc - li'cqr,rcr"rtly occurs. This is because, as I noted
,rl'ovt', lilc nrrrrrrtivcs cill-r ncvcr bc individualised, atomised accounts, but must
rrr, lrrrlc sonrc account of the lives of others. The ethical imperative seems to lie
rrr ,r rlt'rrrrrnd that narratives ought to be rendered sufficiently faithfully that
,tlrt'r's cirrr rccognise the story and, if they are sufficiently close to the storyt, llt'r', should be able to recognise themselves within it. This must go beyond an
r rrrotionrrl identification ('yes, it was like that for me') to a more'objective'
rr['rrtilic:rtion ('yes, it was like that').
( )l' course there are numerous difficulties here since memory, as I noted
,rl,ovt', is notoriously unreliable and, clearly, people often remember the same
r r t'rr I cntirely differently - the source of many familial disputes. Wilkormiski's
rr.rlr':ltivc, however, was not only false but could not be attributed to an idio'.\ n( r'asy of interpretation - after all, he was either in the camps or he was not.
',r,r r,rl con
llrrt, crucially, his story laid claim to a'privileged'suffering identity - that of
l lokrclnst survivor. It may be, as Gross and Hoffman argue, that he was only
nlrt'.ying the demands of a culture that encourages identification with a
,,rrllcring other and indeed encourages the forging of an identity on that basis.
llrrt thc public respznse to his life narrative would suggest that, however strong
tlrt'tcndency to value pain as a means of identification, this is not considered
to lrc sufficient to guarantee the truth of an account. It would suggest, further,
tlrrrl some form of social contract is seen to be broken when people overtly fabri('rrlc an identity that does not accord with the narratives and lives of others
(tlror"rgh again, I must add, there are certain levels of tolerance in some cir( lullstances, and not in others).
' l'he main point I want to make here is that the breach of sociality that is seen
to occur when people take on a fraudulent identity is another indication of the
h crently social character of narrative identity. Narratives are collective in the
r r r
sense that no narrative belongs to the teller alone: they also incorporate the nar-
rrrtives of others. They must, as Hacking puts it,'mesh with the rest of the
rr rrrld and with other people's stories, at least in externals' (Hacking ry95: z5r).
As such, they must contribute to a form of sociality in which (within certain
liruits) they are seen as more or less according with the knowledge and experir.'rrcc and indeed the narratives of others.
'fhe Wilkormiski case raises some important issues. It illustrates the ways
rrr which people draw on a repertoire
of existing narratives to produce their
own narrative, the significance of an audience in receiving, understanding and
irrterpreting a narrative, and the central importance of the time and space
rvithin which personal narratives are embedded. It also tells us something
(lt{t,t,
illt;tot l:tttl :tlrottl llrt'r'ollt't'tivt', tlt'cpl1 sotirrl t'lr;rr';tt lcr nl
rr,n r.rlr\(..
It':tcl llclwcctt ottt'sclvcs;ttttl olltct's tlcrnrrrrtls son'r('nrnrnrrl lr.rt.lol
'l
rr1r,r.t.t.rrrcr.rl,
thitl l)col)lc citttllo[ sirrtltly clairrr to bc whatcvcr':rrrtl wlrot.vt.r. llrr,l wryrt,11r;
at lcirst, sLlch a mrlvc will not work without thc corrscrrl rlrtl rrgr.ccprcrrt 6f
so
others.
ln irll of thcsc approaches, it is clear that the power to make meaning resides
rrcirlrcl cntircly with the'author'of the narrative, nor with the researcher (the
',rrrtlicncc'). Whcrc this meaning is made shifts between the different positions,
rr rth thc empathic mode privileging the author, the interactive mode privileging
rlrc lc:rdcr, and the transactional mode setting up a dialectic between both parties.
lrr practice, I think most researchers would be inclined to combine these
,r1'prrrlches but Crotty's schema is a useful starting point for thinking about
,rrr:rlysing narratives. It also raises an interesting point that he himself does not
llursr.lc. Crotty seems here to be concerned with how researchers can approach
rlrt' 'l'rnished' text, but in some cases (such as Gina's narrative, above) the text
r:, rrot linished by the time the researcher gets to it, but co-produced within the
r lscrrrch setting. Clearly, if a researcher is interested in producing research
tt'rts (for example, interview transcripts) that contain narratives, then s/he
rrrrrst enable and encourage research participants to produce those narratives.
llrrt in important respects, such narratives are always co-productions. Even if
llrc researcher's intervention is minimal, the prompts used and questions asked
rr,ill guide research participants in certain directions.
lndeed, we are never dealing with one narrative but several, or, at least, with
st'vcral stages in the production of a narrative. It is worth outlining these stages.
USING NARRATIVE IN CULTURAL ANALYSIS:
INTERPRETING THE INTERPRETERS
so far, I have suggested that an examination of narratives enables a greater
focus on the collective, social character ofthe world anrl enables, too, a contextualising of the subject of narrative within time and space. personal narratives
do not exist in a Yacuum but draw from a range of available cultural narratives.
And then, of course, having gone into social circulation, they too become
resources on which to draw, whether on a small or a grand scale.
Narratives as used by people in their everyday lives can take a number of
forms. They can be'found'as in, for example, urban myths (see Moriarty 2oo5)
or in published accounrs like that of Wilkormiski; they can be elicited, as Ginals
was, in interviews - in her case, over the course of four interviews; they can be
produced by the analyst herlhimself, as steedman's Landscape is. How, then,
can the researcher approach the task of exploring and analysing narratiyesl
clearly, when reading and analysing narratives, it is important to be conscious of the multiple levels of interpretation
- and multiple narrarives - at
work. There is the interpretation offered by the 'author' of the narrative, and
tuthor.
In the third, transactional mode, thereisa more active engagement with the text:
ol tlrt't'rrlirrgt'nr('nt ('onl('s sorrrt'llrirrtr1 tlrrilt'rtt'rv.'l'lrc irrsiglrts tlrrrt
('nr('r'g('w('r'('n('v('r'irt llrt'trirrtl ol llrt'rrrr(ltor'"'l'lrc-y iu'c rtot irt llrc
.rrrllror''s lcrt.'l'ht'y w('r'('n()l rvitlr trs rrs wc piclictl u1l thc tcxt lo t'cacl it.
'l'lre.y lrrrvc corrrc inlo bcing irr rrrrtl oul ol'oul crlgirgcnlcllt with it.
(( ,rol ty r rtgfl: r o9- r o)
( )rrl
lrc r.orr
the interpretation of that interpretation undertaken by the researcher. The
finished product - another narrative will then be subject to the interpretations of readers, who may then engage in writing with the text . . . and so on.
How; then, can the researcher approach narrativesl I do not think it is possible to lay down rules, but Michael crotty gives a useful schema in his suggestion of three ways to read texts: empathic, interactive, and transactional.
The empathic mode represents an attempt to understand (though not neceslarily to agree with) the author's standpoint. 'The author is speaking to us, and
we are listening. we try to enter into the mind and personage of the author,
;eeking to see things from the author's perspective, (Crotty
rygl: rcg). The
tnteractiz:e apltroach goes beyond this to a dialogue with the author (I assume
that crotty does not have in mind a literal dialogue, as one might have, say in
ln interview, but rather an internal dialogue with the author as we read the
:ext). In this mode, reading can become more critical and the text can be read
against the grain': that is, against the apparent or manifest intentions of its
+5
'I'hc prorluction
of a narratipe.In the case of 'found narratives', the researcher
not know about the conditions or circumstances in which the narrative
n'irs produced, but if narratives are produced within the research setting,
tlrc researcher not only knows about the narrative's production, but is a coproducer. That is, the kinds of questions asked, the framing of the research, the
rcscarcher's own intervention, and so on, will all inform the narratives produced
lry research participants. It is important to note, however, that the narrative is
rrrrlikely to have been produced ah initio within the research. Rather, research
rnrrv
.
prlrticipants bring to the research their own interpretations of, and stories about,
their worlds 'the stories of their days and the stories in their days'.
'l'he unalysis of a narratiae . Here, the researcher/analyst seems to have free
rein
in taking and analysing a complete (if not a final) narrative. Indeed, this notion
of 'free rein' chimes with a contemporary emphasis which privileges the reader,
lrrther than the author, of a text (in this case, a narrative text). Clearly, to say
that a text means whatever the author intends (Knapp and Michaels rg85)
.1ll litt"t'il
itssunr('s ir
,t
LAwt,l"t(
ll\rll
rrlso irsisunr('s
()l nr('rilrinl', lur(l sul)v('r'ls lr!ly nr)liotr ol rrrrrllrPlt'rrrt':tnings. ll
llrrrl llrt' t't'rtrlt't'('()ul(l l'l/rp wlrltl llrc lrullr{r' ittlt'rttls, rutrl, ittrlt'ctl,
it wotrltl rlo irw:ry with irny rrecrl lor rulrrlysis sincc llrt' rrru r';rlivc worrltl sirrrply
'spcali Iirr itscll''.'l'hat it crlr.lnot indicltcs tlrc wrtys irr wlriclr ,'c'11lct's will bring
thcir own intcrprctatit)ns to thc tcxt a staplc insight ol'lrcrrrrcrrcutic thc<lry.
For example, Gina's narrative is (in my interprctation) 'about' r11orc than a
tidy house, dreams of jam-making and children like the Famous F'ive. It is also
llrrt ltow is llr;rl inl('r'pr'('l;rlr(,n lo lrt'rrrirtlt'rrt rrll? Wlrrrt tltt't'l's t'xlst ott tlrc
r,',r'.tlt'lro''s irrtcr'1r'ctrrliorrl lrr rltrclr rt'scrrrt'lr, nr('ilsulcsol'v:rlirlity woultl sct'vc
,r', r;rrt lr t'lrct'lis, llrrl llrrllrrrr:r (.zlrlrtirrwslilr iuHucs tltltl convcrtlional rtrttirnts ol'
r,rlrtlrty wlrich shc tlclirrcs hcrc rrs tlrc (rcsealclt) tcxt's corrcspondcncc tcl the
rr,,r'lrl rlo not worli whcu corrsiclering narrativcs.'l'his, she argues) is because
'about' authoritative discourses of motherhood in which 'free expression' in
children is valued (and tidy houses are not!); about class relations in which it is
better to have a'big rambly house'; about Gina's relationships with her mother
and with her children. None of these things is directly referenced in the text.
My referencing them as part of my interpretation is a result of my own focus
as researcher, my reading of her narrative in a context, and against a backdrop
ofother texts. It is, ofcourse, open to different, oppositional interpretations in
llr, t orlcsl'ronrlcrrcc thcory of'truth in which texts ('words') correspond with
tlrrrrl',s'oul thcrc'('worlds') - docs not work. We cannot compare'words'with
'rr,r'ltls': wrlrlds arc always interpreted and symbolised within words (or in
ltlrt l firrnrs). In the end we can only compare texts with other texts.
'l'lris is an important point when thinking of what narratives can do.
( .rrrpiu'ing'words with worlds' is a hopeless mission when everything comes
r, rrs culturally mediated. However, the definition of validity outlined by
I ,z;rlrrirrwska - correspondence with an unmediated idea of 'the real world'- is
,,rrll onc clcfinition of validity. A broader, more encompassing definition con-
its turn. Paul Ricoeur argues:
,
text always takes place within a community, a
tradition or a living current of thought, all of which display
presuppositions and exigencies, regardless of how closely a reading may
be tied to the quid,, to 'that in view of which' the tert was written.
fE]very reading of
a
(Ricoeur zoo4a:3)
On the other hand, can a text mean anything at alll Can it be entirely set free
of its author? In some ways it can, but there are some things that it would seem
perverse to claim a text is about. There is, as Umberto Eco (tggz) argues, an
'aboutness' to a text that sets limits on interpretations. Texts are not necessar*
ily internally consistent or coherent, but they are rarely completely incoherent
either. The point I want to make here, however, is that there is a range of interpretations to be made, but that range is not infinite. Nevertheless, an important
insight of hermeneutic approaches is that the interpretation can go beyond the
initial interpretation of the author. Crotty argues:
Included in much hermeneutic theory is the prospect of gaining an
understanding of the text that is deeper or goes further than the
author's own understandings. This aim derives from the view that in
large measure authors' meanings and intentions remain implicit and go
unrecognised by the authors themselves. Because in the writing of the
text so much is simply taken for granted, skilled hermeneutic inquiry
has the potential to uncover meanings and intentions that are, in this
sense, hidden in the text. Interpreters may end up with an explicit
awareness of meanings, and especially assumptions, that the authors
themselves would have been unable to articulate. (Crotty rgg8: 9r)7
i r rrs whcther the completed research does what it claims to do and shows what
rt t lrrirrrs to show. Here again, however, such validity criteria are not necessar-
rlr strrightforward when considering research based on narrative analysis,
l r( ( :r usc such work tends to be
- and can only be - more concerned with explor,rriorr than with showing'results'.
If
narratives are concerned with under-
,,t.rrrrling and meaning, and if meanings are indeterminate, then pinning down
l,r('( isc criteria for validity is going to be difficult.
I )ocs this mean, then, that'anything goes'? I think this is far from the case
attention to how the narrative is produced, analysed and presented
rrcial. Above all, I would argue the notion that the research must show and
',,rr rvhat it claims is crucial. In the end, however, the analysis of narratives is
,rn irrlcrpretive exercise for which the analyst must take responsibility; about
rr lrit h s,/he must be reflexive; and which s/he must open to as much scrutiny
.r.. lrrrssible. This is why the third stage in narrative research - the production of
rt tt'st'drch, narratiz;e - is also important. In this, the researcher's own account of
lr,rv lhc analysis'came to be the way it is', clarity, reflexivity and openness are
, rrrt'iltl.
Irr sum, the study of narrative can offer researchers and analysts important
rnsights into the social world. Narratives, considered as cultural resources
,rrrrl lhrrt an
r', .
r
lrich people use creatively to situate themselves within worlds, show the
,,rrrpler ways in which people interpret the social world, and the ways in which
r lrt'.r'
1'rosition themselves enmeshed in links of self and other, past and present.
rr
,
\t]MMARY: KEY POINTS
r
Narratives are always bound up with processes of interpretation and
understanding.
+o i\ l r,,r'rl r,Awr,r',K
"t.,
cxpkrtlirrg llrc rrryllr ol
'\rrst lrr,vitz.
rttttl olltt'l', l)rtsl ;ttl(l It('r('ttl,llrttrr
llrc rrlorrriscrl irrtlivitlrrrrl, r'rislrrH rr iur t'lct'ttrtl
.;tol'1,) rrrrrl lrc srrggcsls, iury
l)rcscnl.
o Narrativcs link togcthcr cvcnts and thc intcrprcl:rliort ol'lltosc cvcltts.
o Narrativcs always have a (rcal or imagincd) audictrcc witlr wlrtltrr rr
r
social contract or social promise exists.
The analysis of narratives is multi-layered and requires sensitivity
and reflexivity on the part of the researcher.
fr
FURTHER READING
Much work on narrative emplotment tends to deal with narrative at a conceptual level, rather than with the analysis of narratives in various kinds of texts.
Nevertheless, this work is important, especially since, as I noted above, the
question of what narrative rs is often left vaguely or un-defined. Somers and
Gibson (tqq+) give a clear exposition, as do Ewick and Silbey (tqqS) while also
discussing some examples of narratives in legal settings. Richard Kearney
(zooz) considers both fictional and non-fictional narratives and deals with the
distinction between truth and falsehood. Kearney's work on Paul Ricoeur
(zoo4) is an excellent introduction to Ricoeur's work. There is some interesting life history work which considers (albeit often rather obliquely) issues of
narrative. Some good examples include the work of Prue Chamberlayne and
collaborators - see, for example, Chamberlayne et al. (zooo), Miller (r999) and
Stanley (rgg").My own work on the mother-daughter relationship (Lawler
rggg, zooo) uses narrative to explore life trajectories, especially through classed
moyement. Barbara Czaniawska (zoo4) offers an interesting look at the uses and
applications of narrative research, and provides an excellent resource for
anyone embarking on this form of work.
NOTES
I. Even though there is some debate about whether stories and narratrves are
identical, I will use both terms more or less interchangeably throughout this
chapter since, for the purposes of my argument here, they do the same work.
) The Famous Five are a group of four white, middle-class children and a dog
who feature in a series of books written between the rg4os and the rg6os by
the English children's author Enid Blyton.
A pseudonym.
+. In r9go, Claude Lanzmann, maker of the film Shoah, refused to be present
at a screening of a Dutch Iilm about Edward Wirths, a camp doctor in
.'t .
l,ir
l,irrrzrrrrurrr, llrc st rt't'nitrp, ol tlrt'lilrrr (tlre tcllirrg ol Wirtlr's
lirrrrt ol nru't'rtlivc rtltotr( lltc l)ct'l)cll'ittot's o('lllc
I lolot'rrtrsl, nct'cssiu'ily crrlrrils iln irttcrul)l rtt utttlcrslitttdirrg: tsking thc qucstrorr 'wlry?' which, ltc rtl'14ttcs, shrltrl<l ttol bc askcd about the Holocaust. The
poirrt lrct'c is not wlrcthcr or rrol l,rrltztrtann is right, but that, both for him
,rrr<l lirr llrosc who clisrrgrccd with hirn, the question'why?'- the impulse to
o N:rlrrrlivt's lirrl. togctlrt'r'st'll
rrrrtlclstiurding - is an intrinsic part of narrative. See Lanzmann (r995).
I l:rlic rly:rccount of Wilkormiski's life from Lappin (tqqq) and Maechler
(:oo r ). I discuss this case in more detail in Lawler (zoo8).
'l'lrc llolocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC does this through,
lirl cxirmple, assigning visitors identity cards with the names of victims on
tlrcrn. Visitors do not know at this point whether or not they will 'survive'.
lrr this way, as Gross and Hoffman point out,'The emphasis is on the vist t'r'rrl, the emotive and the artifatual: the museum personalizes history,
t'ncouraging visitors to identify with and put themselves in the place of the
viclims. This is precisely what Wilkormiski has done' (zoo4: 34).
'l'his is similar to Michael Pickering's observation, in Chapter
r of this
volume, that researchers need to take account not only ofwhat research subiccts say, but also of the social location of the research subject. As he suggests, respect for the accounts ofresearch subjects does not necessarily mean
tlrat their accounts are the last word on the subiect.