Interpreting Experience : The Narrative Study of Lives

by Ruthellen Josselson

• ISBN13: 9780803971073
• ISBN10: 0803971079
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-03-21
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc

Summary

The focus of this book is on the role of narrative analysis in the social sciences and in increasing our understanding of human lives and experiences. Contributors address such questions as: Should in-depth interviews become occasions in which to ask for life stories so as to enhance a study of social phenomena? Can a richer approach to psychological understanding be reached by studying how experience, conscious and unconscious, is organized, interpreted and reshaped throughout the life cycle? How can biographical work be used to shed light on the social construction of individual lives?In addition, the book covers the use of narrative analysis in career biography, in examining turning points in people's lives, in the effects of language on women at work, and in discovering common themes between people in similar careers and with shared experiences.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Susan E Chase

Taking Narrative Seriously

Consequences for Methods and Theory in Interview Studies - Ruthellen Josselson

Imagining the Real

Empathy, Narrative and the Architectonics of the Self - Jaber F Gubrium and James A Holstein

Biographical Work and New Ethnography - Steven Weiland

Life History and Academic Work

The Career of Professor G - Ada Zohar

Developmental Patterns of Mathematically Gifted Individuals as Viewed through Their Narratives - Hadas Wiseman

The Quest for Connectedness

Loneliness as Process in Narratives of Lonely University Students - Adital Tirosh-Ben-Ari

It's the Telling that Makes the Difference - Sarah Mkhonza

Life Histories as Social Texts of Personal Experience in Sociolinguistic Studies

A Look at the Lives of Domestic Workers in Swaziland - Ardra L Cole and J Gary Knowles

Extending Boundaries

Narrative on Exchange