Using life story data: Storylines, Scripts and Social Context

“Everything that I’ve Done Has Always Been Multiethnic”: Biographical Work among Leaders of Multiracial Churches

Sociology of Religion ◽

10.1093/socrel/sry058 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 80 (4) ◽

pp. 478-495 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Oneya Fennell Okuwobi

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Life Events ◽

Life Story ◽

Religious Leadership ◽

Racial Injustice ◽

Over Time

AbstractBiographical work is the process of shaping a cohesive life story by selectively giving meaning to past events. The resulting biographies are not simple recitations of life events but narratives that illuminate what is valued in a person’s social context and how the person makes sense of life events and experiences over time. Drawing on 121 interviews from the Religious Leadership and Diversity Project (RLDP), this article investigates biographical work among head clergy of multiracial churches. I find that pastors of multiracial churches pattern their biographies after two predominant formula stories, laying claim to being people who are experienced with diversity and/or experienced with racial injustice. These formula stories reveal institutionalized understandings of biographies acceptable for pastors of multiracial churches that cut across denominational lines. The biographies of these leaders also reveal a shift toward diversity and away from recognition of racial injustice that has implications for the racial structure.

Download Full-text

The Creative Process, Memoir, And Redemption

Contemporary Issues in Education Research (CIER) ◽

10.19030/cier.v11i1.10132 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 25-40

Author(s):

Lawrence Karn ◽

Takahiko Hattori

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Identity Construction ◽

Social Relationships ◽

Creative Process ◽

Life Stories ◽

Life Story ◽

Narrative Structure ◽

Challenging Problem ◽

Power Differentials ◽

The Relationship

Stories live to be told to others, Dan McAdams (2008) writes: Life stories therefore are continually made and remade in social relationships and in the overall social context provided by culture. As psychosocial constructions, life stories reflect the values, norms, and power differentials inherent in societies, wherein they have their constitutive meanings. The construction of coherent life stories is an especially challenging problem for adults living in contemporary modern (and postmodern) societies, wherein selves are viewed as reflexive projects imbued with complexity and depth, ever changing yet demanding a coherent framing. This paper considers the memoir as a kind of life story, to be explored through selected memoirists, researchers, and scholars by focusing on the relationship between identity construction, memory, history, and imagination. Narrative structure, as well as the compelling experiences and ideas detailed in memoirs, will be analyzed to arrive at a better understanding of issues related to the creative process.

Download Full-text

“Let me tell you my life in a song” On Autobiography and Begging in Broadside Ballads of the Blind

European Journal of Life Writing ◽

10.5463/ejlw.7.248 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 34-52

Author(s):

Karin Strand

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Major Part ◽

Life Story ◽

Real Life ◽

Source Material ◽

Personal History ◽

Front Page ◽

Common People ◽

Broadside Ballads ◽

Vernacular Literacy

What can street ballads tell us about the lives and realities of “common people”, of experiences “from below”? This article discusses the functional aesthetics and social context of one particular genre that has circulated in ephemeral song prints (skillingtryck) in Sweden: beggar verses of the blind. For centuries, such songs were sold in the streets and at market places as a means for the blind to earn a living, and a major part of them tell the life story, the sad fate, of their protagonists. Many prints declare the genre of autobiography on their very front page, quite literally selling the story of the protagonist’s life and addressing the audience’s compassion. How, then, do these narratives relate to real life? How is individuality and authenticity expressed within a genre that to a large extent relies upon conventions and formulas? As is argued, songs of this kind are a suggestive source material of vernacular literacy, as well as of social and personal history from below. Simultaneously, the discourse is marked by and shaped in a dialogue with the sighted world’s view of the blind.

Download Full-text