Showing papers by "Brett Smith published in 2008"

Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: an invitation to

Abstract: In recent years, qualitative researchers have in varied ways conceptualized selves and identities as narratively constructed. In this article, we offer a typology for viewing, the various conceptualizations of narrative identities and selves. Five perspectives are presented for discussion. These are, the psychosocial, the inter-subjective, the storied resource, the dialogic and the performative perspectives. Insights into contrasts between them are also generated by exploring the emphasis given by each perspective to both the social and individual in creating selves and identities. These contrasts are organized along a continuum, with perspectives that adopt a 'thick individual' and 'thin social relational' view to the self and identity at one end, and those that adopt a 'thin individual' and 'thick social relational' view at the other. We close by suggesting that each perspective is worthy of consideration in its own right and that coexistence is possible despite their differences.

Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: an invitation to dialogue

Abstract: In recent years, qualitative researchers have in varied ways conceptualized selves and identities as narratively constructed. In this article, we offer a typology for viewing, the various conceptualizations of narrative identities and selves. Five perspectives are presented for discussion. These are, the psychosocial, the inter-subjective, the storied resource, the dialogic and the performative perspectives. Insights into contrasts between them are also generated by exploring the emphasis given by each perspective to both the social and individual in creating selves and identities. These contrasts are organized along a continuum, with perspectives that adopt a `thick individual' and `thin social relational' view to the self and identity at one end, and those that adopt a `thin individual' and `thick social relational' view at the other. We close by suggesting that each perspective is worthy of consideration in its own right and that coexistence is possible despite their differences.

Narrative and its potential contribution to disability studies

Abstract: This article seeks to expand our understanding of narrative and the analysis of stories researchers invite and collect in the domain of disability studies. What narrative inquiry is and various reasons why researchers might opt to choose to turn to narratives are highlighted. Painting with broad strokes, narrative analysis is then considered before a typology of different ways in which stories can be analysed is offered. Illuminated by the typology are two contrasting standpoints on narrative analysis (storyteller and story analyst) and three specific methods (structural, performative, and autoethnographic creative analytic practices) that each standpoint might use to analyse the whats and hows of stories. The article closes by suggesting that researchers might consider using a variety of analyses in order to assist us to understand the complexities of the social world in diverse ways.

Changing bodies, changing narratives and the consequences of tellability: a case study of becoming disabled through sport.

Abstract: This article explores the life story of a young man who experienced a spinal cord injury (SCI) and became disabled though playing the sport of rugby union football. His experiences post SCI illuminate the ways in which movement from one form of embodiment to another connects him to a dominant cultural narrative regarding recovery from SCI that is both tellable and acceptable in terms of plot and structure to those around him. Over time, the obdurate facts of his impaired and disabled body lead him to reject this dominant narrative and move into a story line that is located on Norrick's (2005) upper-bounding side of tellability. This makes it transgressive, frightening, difficult to hear, and invokes the twin processes of deprivation of opportunity and infiltrated consciousness as described by Nelson (2001). These, and the effects of impairment, are seen to have direct consequences for the tellability of embodied experiences along with identity construction and narrative repair over time. Finally, some reflections are offered on how the conditions that negate the telling of his story might be challenged.

Men, spinal cord injury, memories and the narrative performance of pain

Abstract: This article draws upon data generated from life history interviews with a small group of men who had experienced spinal cord injury (SCI) through playing sport and defined themselves as disabled. By focusing on the initial acute phase of rehabilitation following SCI their autobiographical memories of pain are explored in relation to the narratives constructed by the participants some years after the event had taken place. Attention is given to the themes of unspeakable pain, naming pain, welcomed pain, hidden pain and locked in pain. The analysis highlights the contextual nature of this phenomenon and the narrative resources that are drawn upon by individuals to give meaning to pain over time.

Imagining being disabled through playing sport: The body and alterity as limits to imagining others' lives

Abstract: Qualitative research methods in sport often advocate that to understand others, obtain significant knowledge and do ethically admirable research we should empathise with our participants by imagining being them. In philosophy, it is likewise often assumed that we can overcome differences between people through moral imagination: putting ourselves in the place of others, we can share their points of view, merge with them, and enter into their embodied worlds. Drawing partly on the view that imagination is embodied and the philosophy of Bakhtin and Levinas, along with research on people's experiences of becoming disabled through playing sport, this paper problematises the assumption that we can imagine ourselves differently situated or being another person. It argues that our imagination and ability to put ourselves in the place of others is constrained partly by embodied experience and otherness. Some reflections on what this might mean for disability and sport research are then offered.

Disabled bodies and storied selves: an example of qualitative research and narrative inquiry

Abstract: Based on life history data, this qualitative article explores the self-perceptions of a small group of men who, due to a spinal cord injury (SCI) through playing rugby union football, have made a transition from the world of the able-bodied into the world of disability where they remain to this day. The most common kinds of perceptions of self used by the men through telling their stories as they live post-SCI is focused upon in detail. The narrative analyses reveal that three types of narratives help structure and shape the ways in which these men storied their embodied perceptions of self. For the majority of the participants, the restitution narrative was drawn on, and this helped structure a restored self and entrenched self, and was linked to a disciplined body. In contrast, two people told quest narratives that constitute a perception of a self that is developing and affirmative, and a body that is communicative. For one person, the chaos narrative was foregrounded that resulted in a fragmented self-perception and a chaotic body in action. The implications of all this for disabled people's body-self relationships are critically considered.