Narratives of Identity and Place

Changes of residence are common in contemporary Western societies. Traditional connections to birthplaces, home towns and countries are broken as people relocate and migrate, yet where they live remains significant to people's identity and stories of who they are. This book investigates the continuing importance of place for women's identities, employing a theoretical and empirical approach based on previous work in narrative and discursive psychology. Through an analysis of women's talk, the book examines how commonsense meanings shape and limit people's identity-work to establish a connection to place. It argues that talk about place, and especially place of residence, enables a complex positioning of self and others in which identities of gender, class and national identity intersect. It shows how a speaker's multiple interpretations of where she lives remain central to her life narrative, and to her fragile and idealized definition of 'home' as the place in which she may position herself positively. Narratives of Identity and Place presents a unique and valuable integration of the popular methods of narrative and discourse analysis, compellingly demonstrating the value of these approaches for research on identity.

Stephanie Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Social Sciences at the Open University. In addition to her published work on identity, including creative identities and identities of place, she has written on qualitative research methods, including discourse analysis, ethnography and narrative analysis.

1. The Meanings of Place for Identity. 2. Narrative in a Contemporary Identity Project. 3. Place, Gender and Identity. 4. Places I Remember: Memory and Continuity in a Life Narrative. 5. A Place for the Future? Trouble in Identity Work. 6. New Identities of Place? Opportunity, Choice and Personalisation. 7. Places of my Own: Residence and Nationality in One Woman's Identity. 8. Conclusion.