Critical Narrative as Pedagogy by Goodson Ivor; Gill Scherto;

Author:Goodson, Ivor; Gill, Scherto;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

CHAPTER 6

Developing Life Themes

Ivor Goodson

In this chapter, we will review the role of autobiographical memory in ‘composing a self’. We will also point out the considerable ‘reconstructive’ element involved in the ongoing construction of our autobiographical memories. Part of the act of reconstruction, we argued, was that people may develop a ‘theory of context’ about their life narrative. They come to understand how their narrative is positioned and promoted in particular time and space. They begin to explore the link between their narratives of selfhood and wider socially scripted and underwritten narratives.

The cultural and historical context of autobiographical remembering and of narrative construction is a neglected aspect of most social scientific accounts today. In our work on narrative learning and narrative pedagogy, we have over time developed a number of crucial distinctions in developing what we call ‘a theory of context’. In using the phrase ‘theory of context’ here, we refer to the process whereby people come to understand the historical periodization and cultural location of the resources they employ to construct their narrative and the selections of autobiographical remembering which support the narrative. Some of the work on autobiographical remembering has tended towards a mode of individualism which focuses primarily on the internal conversations that people have about their autobiography and self-narrative. In developing a theory of context one of the crucial distinctions in developing that theory is between the issues of what I call ‘internal affairs’, which is the internal monologue that people develop about their lives and their life stories, and what I call ‘external relations’, which is the way they present their life’s narrative to the external world and link it to the wider societal narratives. There is often a distinction between internal affairs and external relations and this needs to be explored in social science research as it does in any pedagogic encounter, particularly within a critical pedagogic frame.

Part of this narrative work involves exploring the relationship between the ‘internal affairs’ of self-narratives and the ‘external relations’ of the social location of those narratives. In this chapter, we explore how linking the internal and external can often lead to the development of ‘life themes’, which provide an important compass for people developing their narrative landscape.

What our work has shown is that many people develop an overarching ‘life theme’ which unifies and provides a spine for their ongoing definition of their life story. Often this theme originates in the desire to overcome a particular social barrier or personal trauma. In confronting this personal dilemma the person is stimulated to develop a narrative theme which offers a route to reconciliation, resolution or reflective compromise. Hence there is a considerable personal and psychic investment in the unifying narrative that is constructed. This act of unifying operates at a number of levels.

In the internal reflexive accounts, the internal conversations that we have as we pursue our narrative work, a unifying theme can integrate the life story that is constructed. So in our internal affairs integration and unification take place.

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