scholarly journals A Narrative Practice Approach to Identities: Small Stories and Positioning Analysis in Digital Contexts

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-261
Author(s):  
Korina Giaxoglou ◽  
Alexandra Georgakopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Practice Approach ◽  
Narrative Practice ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Positioning Analysis

Identity negotiation in small stories among German adolescent girls

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Spreckels
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Analytical Study ◽  
Identity Negotiation ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Small Story ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Positioning Analysis ◽  
And Gender

In recent years, a change in narrative and identity analysis, which Georgakopoulou has called “a ‘new’ narrative turn” (2006, p. 129), has been observed. This term refers to a shift of focus from the traditional “big stories”, i.e., narratives as a well-defined and delineated genre with an identifiable structure, towards non-canonical “small stories” (Bamberg, 2004). In this article, I will discuss a “small story” in terms of identity negotiation. The data are taken from a larger ethnographic conversation-analytical study of a group of German adolescent girls, who interactively negotiate and construe group and gender identity through their categorization and disaffiliation from various out-groups. I will illustrate this phenomenon by drawing on concepts such as positioning analysis (Davies & Harré, 1990), identities-in-interaction (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998), and membership categorization (Sacks, 1992). Besides discussing content-related aspects of the sequence the small story is embedded in, I will analyze the structure of it employing elements of traditional narrative models such as that proposed by Labov and Waletzky (1967) and combine them with elements that belong exclusively to the interactive construction of “small stories”. At the end of my analysis, I will draw on Quasthoff’s model of narratives-in-interaction (2001) to argue that in close-knit groups of friends, small stories at times only minimally deviate from the ongoing turn-by-turn-talk.

“To have or not to have a boyfriend?” Large identities in small stories

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-376
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Saloustrou
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Friendship Group ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Small Story ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Positioning Analysis ◽  
Micro Analysis ◽  
Old Greek ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

AbstractIn this paper, I draw on recent work on small stories that has been proposed as a counter-move to the dominant paradigm of big stories. Small stories are fragmented, heavily co-authored and open-ended tellings, and have proved a prime site for the joint drafting of identity positions in concrete interactional sites. The context in which the use of small stories is examined in this study is a group of three 20-year-old Greek women, who portray themselves as best friends. This friendship group was studied ethnographically in Syros (Greece) between 2014 and 2015, and data collection involved 10 hours of audio-recorded conversations, as well as field-notes. For the analysis of the participants’ small stories, this paper draws on positioning analysis and conversation analysis vis-à-vis small stories research as a framework to study identities-in-interaction. In particular, it employs the model of positioning in the fine-grained micro-analysis of a co-authored ‘small story’ about relationships with men. It demonstrates how the deferrals of telling and the refusals to tell are as integral a part of the analysis as the actual telling, since they allow us insights into the teller’s contradictory views about big issues and large identities. Moreover, the findings show how the teller manages the participation framework in cases of narrating difficult topics and ambivalent identities.

scholarly journals Older Women’s Situated Identities: Positioning Analysis Applied to Stories about Everyday Experiences Dealing With Physical Functional Changes

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Makie Kawabata ◽  
Miya Narushima
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Significant Events ◽  
Social Encounters ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Everyday Experiences ◽  
Positioning Analysis

Identities are not only constructed through coherent and unified stories about significant events but also formed within the interactions during everyday social encounters. Using positioning analysis, we explored how older women’s “small stories” from interviews can be used to identify their “situated selves” and how positioning analysis contributes to enhance our understandings about their experiences of physical functional changes. Positioning analysis helped us see how they continuously modify their positions to reconstruct their identities while they talk about everyday life. We should pay more attention to “small stories” about everyday activities as well as their coherent “big stories.”

Small stories, positioning analysis, and the doing of professional identities in learning to teach

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cate Watson
Keyword(s):  
Student Teachers ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Learning To Teach ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Construction Of Self ◽  
Small Story ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Positioning Analysis

Interest in the narrative construction of identities has become widespread in social research. Much of this research focuses on the grander narratives we tell about ourselves, the big retrospectives elicited from interviews. However, if identification is conceived as an ongoing performance accomplished locally in and through everyday interactions then it is the narratives that emerge in this context that become the focus of interest. “Small stories” are the ephemeral narratives emerging in such everyday, mundane contexts, which it is argued constitute the performance of identities and the construction of self. Drawing on Bamberg’s Positioning Analysis, this paper examines the construction of identities in a “small story” told by two student teachers, showing how this enables the participants to make claims about their developing professional identities. The paper also examines positioning analysis and its ability to link these locally produced identities to wider discourses.

Constructing a professional identity as an in-home carer

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Jane Blundell
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Positioning Analysis ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which foreign live-in carers are able to construct agentive identities which counteract negative discourses regarding care work, sex and nationality. Design/methodology/approach Interviews with women working as carers in Bologna form the basis of this research which focuses on “small stories”. Using positioning analysis, both the immediate context where the narrative takes place and the wider societal discourses being referenced are examined. Subsequently, common recurrent discourses related to being a foreign carer in Italy are identified. Findings The interviewees make strategic use of prevailing negative discourses to construct counter narratives to avoid being positioned as low-skilled workers and to permit them to reject negative stereotypes of what it means to be a carer. In addition, more positive identities are constructed. Practical implications These findings suggest that a sociolinguistic approach can help towards a better understanding of the lived-experiences of foreign care workers, as it can reveal aspects of carers’ lives which do not easily fit into the categories which are often the focus of larger-scale, thematic studies. Originality/value This paper combines an analysis of content together with an analysis of the construction of narrative to present a more complete picture of the reality of working as a carer today.

scholarly journals ‘Don’t just travel’: thinking poetically on the way to professional knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 535-545
Author(s):  
Vinette Cross ◽  
Dean-David Holyoake
Keyword(s):  
Professional Practice ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Narrative Practice ◽  
Found Poetry ◽  
Interest In Research ◽  
Researcher Identity ◽  
Doctoral Experience

This paper describes how the medium of ‘found poetry’ is incorporated into a doctoral programme for nurses, educators and allied health and social care professionals at the start of their various doctoral journeys. It advocates a narrative practice approach to issues of researcher identity and reflexivity. ‘Finding’ the poems begins with the creation of collages as representational anchors for students to talk about themselves, their professional practice, their hopes and expectations of the doctoral experience, and their research ideas. (Re)presenting their transcribed talk as poetry involves culling and playing with words, phrases and segments, making changes in spacing, lines and rhythm to arrive at an evocative distillation (Butler-Kisber, 2002). This process enables each person to bring stories and/or fragments of experience into critical engagement with others. Poetic thinking functions pedagogically, helping students find a critical voice to enliven and hone their reflexive writing in relation to their doctoral experience and their research positioning. Arts-based methods of inquiry are an ongoing topic of interest in research communities. Found poetry is a useful starting point to explore creative means by which research participants can recount their stories, and equally, by which researchers can witness and disseminate what they have to tell.

A Process Model of Social Development Supervision in Social Work

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mpumelelo Ncube
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Supervision Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Development Approach

Supervision practice in social work is understood as the mainstay of the profession. However, various studies have pointed to the inadequacies of supervision to facilitate quality service provision. Previous studies have reflected a general misalignment between the approach to supervision practice and the approach to social work practice as one inadequacy leading to the failure of supervision practice. Although there are numerous supervision models in the profession, some of which are aligned with certain practice approaches, none is directly identifiable with the social development approach, which should be at the core of social work orientation in South Africa. Thus, this article provides a process model of supervision in social work that aims to establish a dialectical relationship between supervision and the social development practice approach. The study was underpinned by Thomas’ research and design process, which was used to design and develop a social work supervision model mirroring a social development approach. The paper concludes with recommendations related to the use of the developed model.

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