“It’s like, ‘I’ve never met a lesbian before!’”

Pragmatics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Shrikant
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Personal Experiences

This paper uses membership categorization analysis to illustrate how five women invoke multiple female gender and sexuality identity categories in personal narratives to construct the device of womanhood. The five racially diverse women include four self-identified lesbians and one heterosexual and range in age from mid-twenties to early forties. Analysis of their two hour audio recorded interaction illustrates that gender and sexuality cannot be understood as a binary difference between men and women. These women use revolutionary categories, defined on their own terms rather than by outsiders, to characterize women they encounter in their personal experience (lesbian and otherwise). The revolutionary categories exemplify a diversity of female gender and sexuality identities and ultimately challenge heteronormative conceptions of female identity while simultaneously constructing a lesbian counterpublic. Thus, the personal experiences of these women, as related through everyday narratives, turn out to be highly political.

Membership categorization analysis of racism in an online discussion among neighbors

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Natasha Shrikant
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Online Discussion ◽  
Reported Speech ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Online Interactions ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract This article addresses relationships between micro and macro aspects of language use through analyzing online interactions among neighbors discussing racism in their neighborhood. Membership categorization analysis supplemented with critical theory highlights how the ways neighbors name, characterize, and position categories orients to their rhetorical and identity goals (to construct reasonable stances, to seem not racist), which in turn motivates alignment with critical, folk, or colorblind ideologies of racism. Thus, ideologies do not determine interactional choices participants make, but rather are constituted by those choices. Findings also illustrate how discursive strategies such as reported speech, absurdity, three-part lists, and metadiscourse support ways that neighbors organize categories and achieve their aims. Additional contributions to this study include demonstrating the utility of membership categorization analysis for analyzing discourses of racism and providing practical insight into how racially diverse groups can have productive conversations about racism. (Racism, ideology, membership categorization analysis)*

scholarly journals The Methodological Framework for the Study of Nostalgic and Personal Narratives

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 945
Author(s):  
Ivan Kovačević ◽  
Dragana Antonijević ◽  
Žarko Trebješanin
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Free Form ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Ethnographic Data

Nostalgic narratives occur in two major forms – as historical nostalgia and as personal nostalgia. Personal contents and historical stories can be registered in the free form of life stories, a well-known genre in folkloristics, as well as in narratives obtained through two forms of interview. The first form of interview is generated from anthropological tradition, or rather, ethnographic data gathering and refers to descriptions of social, economic and all other elements of the past, while the other form of interview, generated in psychology, similar to an in-depth interview, refers to personal experiences from an earlier time. When nostalgic narratives are collected using either of these two approaches, it is possible to a) conduct an analysis of each narrative on its own, or b) compare them in order to determine similarities and differences. Based on this it is possible to determine where and how descriptions of the past which do not coincide with personal experience are generated, which is the main characteristic of both yugonostalgia and other similar ways of remembering the past.

Caribbean Spaces

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Boyce Davies
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Dynamic Complexity ◽  
Private Space ◽  
Caribbean Culture ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Migratory Patterns

Drawing on both the author's personal experience and critical theory, this book illuminates the dynamic complexity of Caribbean culture and traces its migratory patterns throughout the Americas. Both a memoir and a scholarly study, the book explores the multivalent meanings of Caribbean space and community in a cross-cultural and transdisciplinary perspective. From the author's childhood in Trinidad and Tobago to life and work in communities and universities in Nigeria, Brazil, England, and the United States, the author portrays a rich and fluid set of personal experiences. The book reflects on these movements to understand the interrelated dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality embedded in Caribbean spaces, as well as many Caribbean people's traumatic and transformative stories of displacement, migration, exile, and sometimes return. Ultimately, the book re-establishes the connections between theory and practice, intellectual work and activism, and personal and private space.

The Right to Dream: Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Naoise Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Class Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Aristocratic Culture ◽  
Modern Form

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.

“Are You Religious or are You Saved?”

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Stephen Pihlaja
Keyword(s):  
Multimodal Approach ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Evangelical Christian ◽  
Video Images ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Longitudinal Observation

Using membership categorization analysis, this article investigates membership categories in a YouTube video made by an Evangelical Christian in which he differentiates between “saved” and “religious” users. Analysis will take a discourse-centred, multimodal approach grounded in longitudinal observation, using analysis of video discourse to instruct analysis of video images and user comments. Findings will show that categorization is accomplished by using recognized categories with ambiguous descriptions of category-bound activities that include metaphors, such as “being hungry for God” and not “hanging out with atheists.” These categories are recognized by commenters on the video, but the category bound activities applied to the category members are disputed. Findings will also show that scriptural reference plays an important role in categorization in the video, drawing on direct Bible quotes as well as paraphrases of key passages.

Reflections on Death by Spiritually Mature Elders

1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Eugene Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Fear Of Death ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Spatial Terms ◽  
Present Life

Beliefs and feelings about death are excerpted from interviews conducted with elderly English men and women, who were viewed as spiritually mature by those in their community. Respondents reported a wide range of beliefs about death, reflecting their personal experience, but none reported fear of death. Subtle sex differences were noted: men tended to picture death in spatial terms, of moving into a new dimension, while women tended to describe death in terms of relationships. Overall the respondents indicated that they placed a positive value on death, viewing it as a continuation of, and source of meaning for their present life.

Undoing the Legal Capacities of a Military Object: A Case Study on the (In)Visibility of Civilians

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 377-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Kolanoski
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Sequential Approach ◽  
Object A ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Civil Proceeding ◽  
The Military

International law dictates that actors in armed conflicts must distinguish between combatants and civilians. But how do legal actors assess the legality of a military operation after the fact? I analyze a civil proceeding for compensation by victims of a German-led airstrike in Afghanistan. The court treated military video as key evidence. I show how lawyers, judges, and expert witnesses categorized those involved by asking what a “military viewer” would make of the pictures. During the hearing, they avoided the categories of combatants/civilians; the military object resisted legal coding. I examine the decision in its procedural context, using ethnographic field notes and legal documents. I combine two ethnomethodological analytics: a trans-sequential approach and membership categorization analysis. I show the value of this combination for the sociological analysis of legal practice. I also propose that legal practitioners should use this approach to assess military viewing as a concerted, situated activity.

scholarly journals A critical review of qualitative research into the experiences of young adults leaving foster care services

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Parry ◽  
Stephen Weatherhead
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Young Person ◽  
Aging Out ◽  
Therapeutic Approaches ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Client Group ◽  
Personal Experiences

Purpose – Due to the emergence of rich personal narratives within recent research, the purpose of this paper is to review and to explore the experience of transition from care and consider how these accounts can inform care services. Design/methodology/approach – This meta-synthesis follows from several quantitative and mixed method reviews examining how young people experience aging out of the care system. Findings – Three themes emerged from an inductive analysis: navigation and resilience – an interrelated process; the psychological impact of survival; and complex relationship. Research limitations/implications – The findings of a meta-synthesis should not be over generalised and are at least partially influenced by the author's epistemological assumptions (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). However, a synthesis of this topic has the potential to provide greater insight into how transition can be experienced through the reconceptualising of the personal experiences across the studies reviewed (Erwin et al., 2011). Practical implications – This synthesis discusses the themes; their relationship to existing research and policies, and suggestions for further exploration. The experience of transition is considered critically in terms of its often traumatic nature for the young person aging out of care but also the ways in which the experience itself can build essential resiliencies. Social implications – Reflections for clinical practice are discussed with importance placed upon systemic working, accommodating likely challenges and considering appropriate therapeutic approaches for the client group and their systems. Originality/value – No review thus far has qualitatively examined the narratives told by the young people emerging from care and how these narratives have been interpreted by the researchers who sought them (Hyde and Kammerer, 2009).

Memberschip Categorization Analysis. Een frame-analyse van open interviews met jonge kinderen op een etnisch gemengde school

KWALON ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ineke Graumans ◽  
Harry van den Berg
Keyword(s):  
Kwalitatief Onderzoek ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Harvey Sacks

Harvey Sacks, die vooral bekend is als grondlegger van de conversatie-analyse, heeft daarnaast in de jaren zeventig van de vorige eeuw ook de basis gelegd voor een veelbelovende theoretisch-methodische benadering van sociale categorisering: Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) (Sacks 1979, 1992). Die benadering heeft lange tijd weinig aandacht gekregen, maar staat sinds de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw opnieuw in de belangstelling. Een belangrijk doel van kwalitatief onderzoek is het reconstrueren van de belevingswereld van mensen en groepen. MCA is een methode die daar bij uitstek geschikt voor is (Lepper, 2000). De belangrijkste redenen daarvoor zijn dat MCA gebaseerd is op een strikt participantgerichte (emic) benadering van alledaagse gesprekken en dat het een zeer systematische werkwijze presenteert.

Fallen Heroes? All about Men

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Weeks
Keyword(s):  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Masculinity And Femininity ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Crisis Discourse ◽  
Intimate Life

The question of what men are and what they want has become central to public debates and private concerns but we cannot understand what is happening if we see it as a problem for men alone. It needs to be considered as part of a long process in which masculinity and femininity, sexual normality and abnormality, and the nature of intimate life are being profoundly shaken. The emergence of a crisis discourse around masculinity has served to obscure the different conditions under which men live their lives, and to exaggerate in turn the radical dichotomy of men and women. Binary divisions along gender and sexual lines can be seen as an historical fiction which conceals a much more confused mixture of fears, anxieties and desires about what being a man means. The dramatic social and cultural changes that we are now witnessing provide conditions for reinventing the relations of gender and sexuality.

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