Living autobiographically : how we create identity in narrative / Paul John Eakin

Preview of the article : Ever since the publication of Fictions in Autobiography in 1985, Paul John Eakin has been a major presence in the field of autobiography studies. As with his other monographs, Eakin’s latest work, Living Autobiographically: How We Create Identity in Narrative, brings together elegance and range, as well as clarity and conceptual complexity. Like his other works, too, Living Autobiographically covers a wide range of theoretical and autobiographical texts. While not indifferent to literary theory per se, Eakin (as has been apparent for some time) is profoundly stimulated by theory that goes beyond not only the literary but also the humanities. Most notable in this monograph is Eakin’s use of recent research in neurobiology. With regard to his choice of autobiographical texts for discussion, most are American, though Eakin does discuss the Australian writer David Malouf (a long-time favorite of Eakin’s), as well as the Norwegian autobiographical narratives analyzed in Marianne Gullestad’s Everyday Life Philosophers: Modernity, Morality, and Autobiography in Norway (1996). Eakin’s interest in Gullestad’s work, which is based on a project that elicited autobiographical narratives from “ordinary” individuals, shows that he is not solely concerned with so-called “literary” texts, something also seen in his discussion of the “Portraits of Grief ” series that appeared in the New York Times in the wake of 9/11.

Bringing together such disparate texts, auto/biographical procedures, and theoretical concerns is an ambitious enterprise. Most ambitious of all is that Living Autobiographically brings “culturalist” and biological frameworks together as a way of answering the question

Many versions of masculine : an exploration of boys' identity formation through digital storytelling in an afterschool program

Both scholarly literature and popular media often depict predominantly negative and one-dimensional images of boys, especially African-American boys. Predictions of these boys’ anticipated difficulties in school and adulthood are equally prevalent. This paper reports qualitative research that features case studies of nine urban boys of color, aged nine to eleven, who participated in an afterschool program where they learned to create digital multimedia texts. Drawing on an analysis of the children’s patterns of participation, their multimodal products, and their social and intellectual growth over time, the study revealed that these children demonstrated many versions of male selves, and that their digital stories narrated these identities in ways that often challenged hegemonic versions of masculinity. These enactments of identity were made possible by the ways that their afterschool social space structured their activities, as well as by the symbolic means and subject matters privileged in that space, principally digital multimodal narratives and popular culture. At a time when afterschool programs are under pressure to become extensions of the school day, this research argues for recognition of and support for the different functions such programs can serve when structured as alternative spaces for learning and identity formation.

Professional identity in the global sports entertainment industry : regulating the body, mind and soul of Australian Football League footballers

In this article we discuss the ways in which the professional identity of Australian Football League (AFL) footballers — in a physical, high body contact sport — is shaped by concerns to develop different aspects of the body, mind and soul of the young men who want to become AFL footballers. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s later work on the care of the self we argue that narratives of identity necessarily involve a struggle for the body, mind and soul of these young men. Foucault’s work enables us to identify and analyse how relations of power, forms of regulation and arts of governing interact in ongoing attempts to develop the professional footballer. The article explores these issues via an analysis of the rationalities and techniques that inform talent identification and player management practices; and risk management in relation to these practices and processes in the AFL.

Cultural destruction and identity politics : targeting the history of Iraq

Since its inception in 1921, a number of successive regimes have sought to politicize Iraq‟s cultural history in order to develop national identity and foster social cohesion across this rich and complex nation. Foremost among these were the Baath party, particularly under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who used much of the nation‟s Oil wealth to undergo an extensive nation-building campaign. However, identity in Iraq is far from monolithic and various factions have long resisted the state sanctioned version of “Iraqi” identity and asserted alternative histories and narratives to underpin their own identity politics. With the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces in 2003, however, came an unprecedented era of cultural destruction. Following the devastation of the battle phase of the war, there were further attacks on Iraq‟s cultural heritage including everything from the carefully choreographed removal of the giant bronze statue of Saddam in Firdos square, through to military bases set up at sensitive archaeological sites such as the ancient city of Babylon. In addition, Iraqi civilians targeted the cultural history of their nation with wanton looting and arson, as well as systematic attacks on sites of archaeological or ethno-religious significance. More recently, the Shia and Kurdish dominated Iraqi Government have organised the “Committee for Removing Symbols of the Saddam Era” and drew up plans to purge the state of its Sunni dominated past.

This paper argues that the unprecedented scale and magnitude of the destruction of Iraq‟s cultural history has played a part in eroding the various intersecting and overlapping versions of identity politics in Iraq. In turn, this has provided fertile ground for terrorists and sectarians to plant the seeds of their own narrow and deadly ideologies. This has brought about the rise of ethno-religious based violence and seen a series of bloody and protracted conflicts emerge between previously peaceful and compatible factions. In this way, Iraq serves as a powerful case study in furthering academic discussion on the complex inter-relationships between cultural and historical destruction and identity politics, sectarianism, violence and democracy.

Defining national identity? Visiting the architectural spaces of the Museum of Scotland

National Cultures construct identities by producing meanings about the nation with which we can identify, meanings which are contained in the stories which are told about it, memories which connect its present within its past, and images which are constructed of it. A museum, the repository of a nation’s culture, which connects the past to the present through recounting stories about the artefacts of past cultures is clearly significant in representing the culture of a nation.

This paper explores the architectural spaces of the new Museum of Scotland, which opened in Edinburgh in November 1998. The museum has opened at a crucial time in Scottish history. The Scottish cultural renaissance is manifested in the increase in cultural production and call for Scottish cultural institutions. Parallel to this renaissance are political developments with the re-creation of a Scottish Parliament in 1999. When the idea of ‘Scotland’ is itself in a state of flux, the stories of the nation told in the museum, which attempt to give a sense of location, a connection between the individual and the nation are especially important.

Thus, issues of identity and ‘self’ are crucially important in understanding the contemporary museum. Within this, the relations between the production of these narratives and their consumption by the public are little understood. The majority of studies have concentrated, although not exclusively, on the production of museum displays, primarily with the "politics and poetics" of display. This paper analyses the relationship between producer and consumer within the Museum of Scotland, attempting to reconnect the forces of production and consumption. In doing so, it focuses primarily on the differing conceptions of the ability of the Museum to be able to narrate the nation.

Based on interviews both with museum staff and with visitors to the museum, it argues that an understanding of the relationship between the museum and Scottish national identity can only be considered through an understanding of the tension between the producers’ intentions and the way in which consumers conceptualise the museum as a space for "telling the nation".

Reaping identity meanings from an agrarian past : southern harvesters of commercially cultivated regional heritage

Extending knowledge of the cultural shaping and variegating of white identity that occurs through the commercial diffusion of identity myths, we examine the reception of Southern identity myths promoted in the oppositional narratives of New South commercial media. We characterize oppositional narratives as texts which operate by eliciting an interpretive reading that devalues rather than supports the surface narrative, and explain the duplicitous text as one intended to seduce a dominant power, while empowering and bolstering identity of a marginalized group. After elaborating how oppositional discourse can serve to reinforce the identity frame constructed by regional media producers, we report on a study examining how urban and rural Southerners read and respond to this discourse. Our findings highlight mediators in the relationship between individuals’ oppositional readings and their alignment of identity in a manner responsive to it.

The use of Western brands in asserting Chinese national identity

Chinese consumers employ Western brands to assert competing versions of Chinese national identity. These uses emerged from findings that Chinese form meanings of Western brands, drawing from select historical national narratives of East-West relations: the West as liberator and Western brands as instruments of democratization; the West as oppressor and Western brands as instruments of domination; the West as subjugated and Western brands, by their own subjugation, as symbolically erasing China’s past humiliations; and the West as partner and Western brands as instruments of economic progress. Our emergent theory elaborates processes by which Western brands are shaped by macrolevel, sociohistorical forces to motivate consumers’ responses to them as political action tied to nation making.

Instilling postcolonial nostalgias : Ned Kelly narratives for children

This essay examines books for children focusing on Ned Kelly and the Kelly gang, published from 2000 to 2011. Drawing upon theories of narrative, memory and nostalgia it analyses the narrative strategies and visual images through which these texts position readers, and their investment in formulations of the Australian nation. The essay argues that these books function as exercises in restorative nostalgia, producing palatable versions of Kelly as an Australian hero, and articulating connections between the Kelly legend and Australian national identity. By foregrounding Kelly's Irishness and by representing him as a “good badman”, these Ned Kelly narratives for children, which range across fiction, non-fiction, picture book and play script, reinscribe versions of national identity which occlude more complicated narratives. In particular, their emphasis on struggles between Irish and English settlers, and between selectors and squatters, displaces Indigenous histories, colonial violence, and systemic discrimination against those deemed outsiders to the nation.

Myths and absent signifiers in representations of Aboriginal identity in Australian cinema

This article examines how meaning is always articulated in the ideological and political structures of society. This becomes apparent when evidencing articulated Aboriginal representation in Australian cinema, which signifies a representation on screen expressive of the ideological and political structures of the historical time periods in which the films were produced. Meaning, which is the relationship between the signifier and its signified, includes both denotation and connotation. Specific connotators can load a sign with multiple meanings leading to a chain of connotations.  The connotations of Aboriginal identity in Australian filmic narratives are influenced by a chain of additional signified, those of: socio-cultural variables and dominant discourses. This article analyses these chains of connotations through an examination of myths and absent signifiers in filmic representations of Aboriginal identity. The films investigated are: Jedda (Charles Chauvel 1955), Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg 1971), Night Cries (Tracey Moffatt 1990) and Rabbit Proof Fence (Philip Noyce 2002).

Film, representation and the exclusion of Aboriginal identity: examples from Australian cinema

Throughout the latter half of the past century cinema has played a significant role in the shaping of the core narratives of Australia. Films express and implicitly shape national images and symbolic representations of cultural fictions in which ideas about Indigenous identity have been embedded. In this paper, exclusionary practices in Australian narratives are analysed through examples of films representing Aboriginal identity. Through these filmic narratives the articulation, interrogation, and contestation of views about filmic representations of Aboriginal identity in Australia is illuminated. The various themes in the filmic narratives are examined in order to compare and contrast the ways in which the films display the operation of narrative closure and dualisms within the film texts.

Interviewing pairs: discussions on migration and identity

This article examines a research method of conducting interviews with pairs of individuals, who may be friends or relatives. The authors critically reflect on their experiences of collecting qualitative data in an interview with two respondents. While one-on-one interviews and focus groups are more established and well-studied forms of gathering research data, we argue that paired interviews as a data collections method present additional advantages as well as some challenges for qualitative researchers. The researchers embraced the opportunity to interview pairs of individuals with the intention of minimising the asymmetry of power habitually inherent in interview situations. In the authors' experiences, paired interviews served to empower those being interviewed and reduced the discomfort felt by some in the personal interview situation. This form of interviewing tended to give more autonomy to the respondents and prompted them to provide more nuanced responses. Paired interviews assisted respondents in feeling relaxed and comfortable, provided a vibrant environment that encouraged respondents to build on each other's ideas and enabled them to enhance each other's stories. Respondents were better motivated to build discussions around an interview question and then illustrate their responses with examples. In our studies, we found that our respondents tended to offer more thorough and comprehensive narratives in the setting of a paired interview.

Leaning towards collegiality: narratives of university communities of practice

This study explored the relationship between professional learning, community, narrative and identity in strategic communities established to enhance teaching and learning at three Australian universities. It adds to the field by proposing an adaptive model for understanding and fostering future communities of practice in higher education.

Sex Trade Involvement in São Paulo, Brazil and Toronto, Canada: Narratives of Social Exclusion and Fragmented Identities

An extensive international literature has been developed regarding the risk trajectories of sex trade-involved children and youth. This literature has not, however, substantially incorporated the narratives of youths regarding their experiences. In this article, the contemporary literature on child and youth sex trade-involvement is reviewed and the findings of a qualitative analysis of the narratives of 14 youth from São Paulo, Brazil and 58 youth from Toronto, Canada are presented. Substantial similarities were found between the groups of narratives with respect to abusive and unstable home experiences, pathways into the sex trade, social exclusion, and the impacts of the sex trade on physical and mental health. Key areas of divergence included the roles of poverty and drug use in entering the sex trade. The implications of shared experiences of social exclusion and fragmented identity across differing sociocultural contexts for policy and intervention are discussed.

The complex construction of psychological identities in Palestine: Integrating narratives and life experiences

Palestinian youth is challenged by multiple discourses in the process of constitution of its identity. This discursive multiplicity, characteristic of contemporary global societies, is confronted with personal life experiences, giving meaning to primarily nebulous affective impacts in the social environment. Starting from a semiotic-cultural perspective in cultural psychology one can establish a link between the notion of master narrative used by Hammack (2010) and the notion of myth-using the conception of ideology as a bridge that articulates both. Antinomies in the self-biographic narratives presented and discussed by Hammack (2010) support the master narrative of Palestinian identity and enter into interactions with other psychological identities of the interviewed youngsters, such as their religious tradition and secular education. Symbolic elements that are brought to the identity-making process by the diverse narratives are to be seen as resources for the comprehension of life experiences, demanding an integrative effort in the face of what is known and unknown in relation to alterity.