Considering Counter-Narratives: Narrating, resisting, making sense

✍ Scribed by Michael Bamberg (editor), Molly Andrews (editor)

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 392
• Series: Studies in Narrative; 4
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Counter-narratives only make sense in relation to something else, that which they are countering. The very name identifies it as a positional category, in tension with another category. But what is dominant and what is resistant are not, of course, static questions, but rather are forever shifting placements. The discussion of counter-narratives is ultimately a consideration of multiple layers of positioning. The fluidity of these relational categories is what lies at the center of the chapters and commentaries collected in this book. The book comprises six target chapters by leading scholars in the field. Twenty-two commentators discuss these chapters from a number of diverse vantage points, followed by responses from the six original authors. A final chapter by the editor of the book series concludes the book.

✦ Table of Contents

Editorial page
Title page
LCC page
Table of contents
Introduction to the book
Opening to the original contributions
References
Memories of mother
Motherhood and its discontents
Helen: The fight to be free
Ann: Frustrations and radical thinking
Joe: Motherhood and sacrifice
Peter: "She had that gift"
Narrative psychology and social resistance
References
Commentaries
Blame it on psychology!?
References
Accidental cases: Extending the concept of positioning in narrative studies
References
Politicising mothers: Counter-narratives of mothering experience
References
Socially organised use of memories of mother in narrative re-construction of problematic pasts
Positioning
Social organisation of memories
Performing social actons: Reconfiguring the past
Mother-blaming
Conclusion
References
Response
to commentaries on "Memories of Mother: Counter-narratives of early maternal influence"
References
Negotiating "normality" when IVF fails
The IVF storylines
The interviews
Analysis
Negotiating technology
Managing reproductive normativity
Meeting the motherhood criteria
Claiming the childfree life
Conclusion
Notes
References
Commentaries
IVF failure: Reproductive normativity and dealing with disappointment
Discourse analysis and alternative readings
Counter narratives
Negotiating technology
Managing reproductive normativity
Conclusion
References
When IVF fails - the success of science and medicine
References
On identifying counter-narratives of failed IVF
References
Response
to commentaries on "Negotiating Normality: When IVF Fails"
Texts in context
The progressive storyline
Looking at the big picture
Conclusion
References
Photographic visions and narrative inquiry
Preliminary considerations for visual approaches to narrative inquiry
Auto/biographical and narrative uses of visual images
Studying 'everyday' photography: Photographs in people's lives
Fieldwork
What is everyday photography?
Photographs, memory and narratives
Conclusion
Notes
References
Commentaries
Photographs and counter-narratives
Conflicts provoked by valuable photographs
Work with counter-narrative photographs and their possessors
Constructing negative and positive narratives with the help of photo-images
Conclusion
Acknowledgement
Hearing what is shown and seeing what is said
Notes
References
Show is tell
References
Response
to commentaries on "Photographic visions and narrative inquiry"
'Pictures do not verbalize anything'
Topic and resource
Conflict and counter-narratives
Using visual images in narrative inquiry
Conclusion
References
"That's very rude, I shouldn't be telling you that"
The creation of the narratives
A discursive approach to narratives
Dominant cultural storylines and counter-narratives
Identifying counter-narratives within data - emic analysis
Participant's orientations to telling a counter-narrative
Identifying counter-narratives within data - etic analysis
The analyst's identification of counter-narratives
Conclusion
Notes
References
Commentaries
Narratives as drawn-upon and narratives as occasioned: Challenges in reconciling an emic and etic analysis
Two views of narrative
Warranting claims at the "Emic"level of analysis
Excerpt 1 - Liz (and a brief comment on excerpt 3 - Liz)
Excerpt 2 - Lesley
Excerpt 4 - Win
Excerpt 5 - Win
Warranting claims at the "Etic"level of analysis
References
"But what's at stake?" Older women talking about sexuality
Complicating counter narratives
Sticking to the dominant cultural storyline
The production of counter narratives
Notes
References
What discourse analysis reveals about elderly women, sex and the struggle with societal norms
Available roles for elderly women: Asexual, liberal or both?
References
Response
to commentaries on "'That's very rude, I shouldn't be telling you that': Older women talking about sex"
Emic and etic analysis
Theoretical positions
The benefits of microanalysis
Co-construction
What counts as discourse analysis?
Note
References
White trash pride and the exemplary black citizen
A brief history of recent talk on television
Women are trash
White trash pride
Black citizenship
Notes
References
Commentaries
Social identity work in storytelling: Methodological remarks
Main issues
Basic concepts and methodological questions
An ethnomethodological perspective
Talking and acting: Making change and doing development
Language use - and language user - in the "doing of talking"
Talking, acting, talking about acting, and just talking
The closed nature of openness
Semiotic Demand Settings (SDS)
Connectedness and disconnectedness
Conclusion: Looking for a general model
References
The context of race in reading narratives on daytime talk shows
References
Day-time talk shows as a forum for social critique
References
Meta-narratives of cultural experience: Race, class, gender
References
Response
to commentaries on "White trash pride and the exemplary black citizen"
Notes
References
Charting the narrative unconscious
Narrative and counter-narrative
The distant origins of the self
Rethinking autobiography
Autobiography and poiesis
Acknowledgement
References
Commentaries
Discussing nonconscious processes involved in autobiography
Introduction
Constructing self-guiding narratives
Can a constructivist/narrativist utilize a psychollage signified by the term unconscious?
Construing the psychollages used in Freeman's article
Memory processes and off awareness psychological functioning in narrative making
Explaining the assembling of an "uncharacteristic" autobiography
Anticipated outcome
Notes
References
Constructing the narrative unconscious
Can memory be collective?
Who fashions what out of cultural givens?
What is a cultural given and who exactly gives to whom?
Are cultural memories more local or national?
Where do we go from here?
References
Possible lives
References
Working the narrative unconscious: Positioning theory and moral order
Notes
References
Response
to commentaries on "Charting the narrative unconscious: Cultural memory and the challenge of autobiography"
References
Considering counter narratives
Narrative and claiming a sense of self
Narratives and counter claims
Master narratives
Invocations of master narratives
Analyzing counter narratives
Where (and How) do counter narratives emerge?
Positioning
Concluding remarks (to open up)
Index
The series Studies in Narrative