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Authenticity and Masquerade in Late-Life
Identity Development
My
colleague sent a 10-year old article that captured several issues I've been grappling with in my research and in my life.
(One of the great advantages of a career in gerontology is that the two converge as we grow older!) The article is quite dense,
with fabulous theoretical twists and turns, so the bit that resonnated for me might not even be the central thesis from the
author's (or your) perspective. Still, here's what I got. Masquerade is essential and constant throughout the adult life-course,
and particularly in later life (?) . Partly we're forced into it by the ageism that surrounds us as, for instance, when we
disguise our sexuality to conform with normative expectations or when we dress or behave in ways considered "age-appropriate."
And partly it permits a bit of experimentation - a playful trying-on, as it were, of diverse options or "masks."
But to the extent that a social (or physical?) environment requires disguise it impairs the development (? or at least the
expression) of authentic identities. This is no surprise, really. But I think it's interesting to ask ourselves as we navigate
our social environments to what extent each setting permits congruent expression of both our surface and our deep selves.
We must also consider the cost of incongruity. When we crossed our eyes at the teacher she used to stay, "Stop that or
they'll get stuck that way!" Might the same thing apply? Even as we are consciously playing made-up roles might we get
stuck that way? A good part of my life has been the search for settings and relationships that permit me to be authentically
myself. Sometimes I think it's not about the setting, but my own cowardice.If only I were stronger, braver,smarter, more sure,
I would just BE MYSELF. So for me, this article brought a key insight - it's not all about me. The social environment, or
at least some settings and relationships, demand duplicity in exchange for security, acceptance, acclaim. Maybe one gift of
old age will be the opportunity to transform or exit these settings.
Biggs, S. (1999). The "blurring" of the life-course: Narrative, memory and the question
of authenticity. Journal of Aging and Identity,4(4), 209-221.
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Step-by-Step Approach to
Narrative Analysis
I like
Douglas Ezzy's clearcut approach:
- Compile the story
- Analyze the content and context of each story, focusing on insights and understandings
- Compare and contrast stories for similarities and differences in content and interpretation
- Examine the effects of background variables (ie:gender, age)
- Identify stories or content that illustrate themes, insights, and understandings.
Searching for the Narrative Thread
How do researchers and others identify the narrative themes in a life history? A 1998 article by the Marilyns Nouri
and Helterline has me interested in the concept of Narrative Accrual. Jerome Bruner may have coined the term in his 1991 article,
“The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Bruner argued that out of life’s chaos the mind constructs reality
using (learned) cultural devices, one of which is narrative. He describes narrative as having ten characteristics, among them
“accrual,” the idea that a narrative is cumulative – that new stories build on older ones. This strikes
me as a particularly rational, linear understanding of reality, akin to popular theories of human development. The story advances.
The human develops. Society improves. Not consistent with the complex, twisting world I live in. Not
consistent, either, with the beloved fantastical writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabelle Allende, among others.
Nouri and Helterline were seeking to understand how elders “construct meaning about the life course.”
So they conducted life history interviews (sometimes in several sittings) with 30 people in New York who had been born before
1920. The authors identified a central narrative theme “the will and the cosmos,” around which five life stories
revolved. These were: the “American dream,” “life is struggle,” “life is simple,” “God
determines,” and “life is shared.” Some fairly predictable gender differences emerged, as when only women
told their stories as “life is shared.” As the authors explained, “Men construct male identities as individual
heroes or as individuals in struggle against the cosmos. Women construct narratives in which they exist in relation to God
or to others.” (p. 53). I wonder whether they noticed that while men were constructing identities women were constructing
narratives. Narrative accrual describes the process people use to make sense of the changes and continuities of their lives.
Agency and self-efficacy were important themes, reflecting cultural demands as much as personal imperatives.
These authors constructed a framework from the 30 life histories they collected. Yet they told us nothing about the
very instruments they used to make sense of the interviews: themselves. They were also sparing in describing the method used.
How, I wonder, did they come up with the central narrative theme of individual will vs the cosmos? Their interpretations make
sense, I’m skeptical. Looking at five life stories I see bits of myself throughout. How did they so tidily assign each
person to one and only one category? I’d love to talk to them, but google produced no contact information that worked.
Perhaps the construction of a life narrative is more an exercise in “creative non-fiction,”
than in truth. Perhaps, as Bruner suggests, the narrative method is more about verisimilitude than verifiability.
Sources:
Bruner, J.S. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry.
18: 1-12.
Nouri,
M. & Helterline, M. (1998). Narrative accrual and the life course. Research on Aging, 20(1), 36-64.
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Autoethnography: Studies at the Boundary Between Self and Society
Standing before
the full-length mirror in my bedroom I am confused. This morning when I posed in my underwear I thought, “Not bad for
53. You go girl!” This evening it’s “How did you get so stocky so quickly? Cover that thing up now!”
How can the same mirror present such contrasting images in the space of a single day? Isn't anything true for more than
12 hours? This, I think, is the source of my mistrust of authobiography - my never-ending quest for eternal truths. When I
let go of that, life becomes more interesting. I redefine what I mean by truth - I'm thinking it's personal (it grabs ms),
it's relevant (to someone else) and it's fluid (changing). Letting go of eternal truths enables me to ask what my judgmental
response says about older women in our culture. It brings me to interface between personal and political, where feminist theory
once resided. And this is what I like about autoethnography.
Auto-ethnography is quite seductive. It’s the
ultimate post-modern research approach and you don’t even need Ethics (IRB) approval! Examine your life then use your
knowledge of social theory, history, philosophy, and/or anthropology to reflect on what this means for you and others.
There are measures for assessing the quality of auto-ethnographic reports: resonance,
validity, and narrative truth. Aha! Someone cares about truth! This would suggest that it’s not just navel-gazing. Then
Allan Sparkes (2001)[or was it Carolyn Ellis, 1999?] offered more evocative criteria: “the use of systematic sociological
introspection and emotional recall; the inclusion of the researcher’s vulnerable selves, emotions, body ad spirit; the
production of evocative stories that create the effect of reality; the celebration of concrete experience and intimate detail;
the examination of how human experience is endowed with meaning; a concern with moral, ethical, and political consequences;
an encouragement of empathy; a focus on helping us know how to live and cope; the featuring of multiple voices and the repositioning
of readers and “subjects” as co-participants in dialogue; [and] the search for a fusion between social sciences
and literature…” (p 214)
Auto-ethnography combines personal and societal reflection, teasing forth
the warp and the woof of our social fabric. Shifting our gaze back and forth from internal to external in a way that others
can follow. I stuck my toe in with Love Stories of Later Life, and plan to dive in headfirst in my next book, Parenting
Reflections. It’s a bit scary. Who wants to be accused of self-indulgence? But hey, “you gotta do what you gotta
do.” And where did that come from?
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Sources of interest
Narrative
Methods
Blumenfeld-Jones Donald. “Fidelity as a Criterion for
Practicing and Evaluating Narrative Inquiry.” Life History and Narrative. Eds. J.A. Hatch and R. Wisniewski.
London: Falmer, 1995.
Carter, Duncan and Sherrie Gradin. Writing as Reflective Action.
Clandinin, D.Jean and
F. Michael Connelly. Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research.
Cowling, W.R. (2008). An essay on women, despair, and healing: A personal narrative.
Advances n Nursing Science, 31(3), p. 249-58.
Herman, D. (Ed.) (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Narrative.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hermann,
Marie-Luise (2007). Narrative gerontology: Survey of current literature and research. Psychotherapie und Sozialwissenschaft:
Zeitschrift fur Qualitative Forschung. 9(1), 7-32.
Jones, K. (2008). Narrative Matters: The power of the personal essay in health policy.
Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 19(3), p. 1011.
Jones, R., Latham, J. & Betta, M. (2008). Narrative construction of the social
entrepreneurial identity. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 14(5), p.
330.
Laszlo, J. (2008). The Science
of Stories: An introduction to narrative psychology. Longon: Routledge.
Knudson, R.M., Adame, A.L., Finocan, G.M. (2006). Significant dreams: Repositioning
the self narrative. Dreaming, 16(3), 215-222.
McAdams, D.P., Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (eds.)(2006). Identity and Story: Creating
self in narrative. APA Books. (Part of a series called “The Narrative Study of Lives.”)
Pagnucci,
Gian. Living the Narrative Life: Stories as a Tool for Meaning Making.
Phoenix, C. & Sparkes, A.C. (2008). Athletic bodies and aging in context: The narrative
construction of experienced and anticipated selves in time. Journal of Aging Studies. 22(3), p. 211.
Randall, W.L. & McKim, E. (2008).
Reading our Lives: The poetics of growing old. NY: Oxford University Press.
Runyan, W.M. (1982). Life Histories and Psychobiography: Explorations in Theory
and Method. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wenner, J.A., Burch, M.M., Lynch, J.S., & Bauer, P.J. (2008). Becoming a teller of tales:
Associations between children, fictional narratives, and parent. Journal of Experimental Chid Psychology,
101(1). P. 1.
Westerhaus,
M., Panjabi, R., & Mukherjee, J. (2008). Violence and the role of illness narratives. The Lancet. 372(9640),
p. 699.
Autoethnography
Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic
Autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 373-395.
Berger, (2001). Inside Out: Narrative autoethnography as a path toward rapport. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(4),
504-518.
Chang, Heewon (2008). Autoethnography as method. Walnut
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Clough, P.T. (1997). Autotelecommunication
and autoethnography: A reading of Carolyn Ellis’s Final Negotiations. Sociological Quarterly,
Duncan,
M. (2004). Autoethnography: Critical appreciation of an emerging art. International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
Retrieved 1 July, 2009 from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/4_1/html/muncey.htm.
Ellis, C. (1999). Heartful
Autoethnography. Qualitative Health Research, 9(5), 669-683.
Ellis, C. (1997) Evocative Autoethnography:
Writing Emotionally About Our Lives. In Tierney, W.G. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds). Representation and
Text: Reframing the narrative voice. New York: SUNY Press
Ellis,
C. (1997) Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Emotionally About Our Lives. In Tierney, W.G. & Lincoln, Y.S.
(Eds). Representation and Text: Reframing the narrative voice. New York: SUNY Press.
Ellis C., & Bochner, A.P.(2006). Analyzing analytic autoethnography: An autopsy. Journal
of Contemporary Ethnography, 35, 429-449.
Humphreys, M.
(2005). Getting personal: Reflexivity and autoethnographic vignettes. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(6), 840-860.
Meneley, A. & Young, D.J. (2005)(Eds). Auto-ethnographies: The anthropology
of academic practices. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press.
Muncey,
T. (2005). Doing autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(3), Article 5. Retrieved 1 July,
2009 from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/4_1/html/muncey.htm
Pelias,
R.J. (2003). The academic tourist: An autoethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(3), 369-373.
Reed-Danahay, D.E (1997) (Ed). Euto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social.
Oxford: Berg,
Roth,
W.-M. (2008) (Ed). Auto/Biography and Auto/Ethnography: Praxis of Research Method.
Sparkes, A.C. (2001) Autoethnography: Self-indulgence or something more? In Bochner, A &
Ellis, C. (Eds) Ethnographically Speaking: Autoethnography, Literature, and Aesthetics. Alta Mira Press.
