249
Identity
Trouble and Opportunity in Women's Narratives of Residence
SAGE Publications, Inc.200510.1191/0967550705ab029oa
StephanieTaylor
The Open University, UK, s.j.a.taylor@open.ac.uk
Address
for correspondence: Stephanie Taylor, Psychology, The Open University, Walton
Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK; Email: s.j.a.taylor@open.ac.uk
This article employs a narrative
and discursive approach to investigate contemporary identities of place and
meanings of place for identity. Transcribed interview extracts are analysed
to illustrate how speakers discursively construct a place of residence and
a new residential identity, and how this identity work in relation to place
conforms to the individualized contemporary identities discussed by Rose,
Walkerdine and others. A construction of a place of residence in terms of
opportunity enables a speaker to take up a residential identity corresponding
to a `choosing self' and also to present her life course in terms of choices
she has made. A claim to a new residential identity can offer an alternative
positioning, for example, for people positioned outside the conventional
born-and-bred narrative. However, this claim to a more individualized and
agentic identity of place is not necessarily unproblematic, and presents
particular issues for women speakers.
INTRODUCTION
Research on place-related identities in contemporary western societies confronts
contradictory commonsense assumptions. One is that a connec- tion exists between
a place and the people who inhabit it. This appears, for example, in generalizations
about people of named places (`London', `Yorkshire') or people who live in
certain kinds of place, such as those defined by urbanization (`suburbs',
`the country'). This assumption is linked to the notion of local or native
identities which are based in long- term personal and family connection to
a place. Such identities imply a distinction between the people who authentically
belong there and others who are newcomers or outsiders. A story is evoked
of successive genera- tions living in the same place, sharing a common `born
and bred' identity derived from blood and tradition. The second, quite different
assumption
250
about
place and identity is that people nowadays are freed from traditional ties
to place. They move house at their convenience, change their place of residence
to follow jobs and opportunities, and live wherever they choose. The places
where they live are no longer important for their identities, or perhaps a
place of residence is important to its residents in a different way, as somewhere
chosen to suit who they are. Finnegan (1998) has suggested that there is a
strong overlap between academic theories and the everyday narratives or stories,
like these ones, that affect our understanding and experience of places such
as cities.1 The born-and-bred story I have outlined has parallels with the
myth of common origin cited by theorists of the nation, such as Connor (1994).
The second assumption accords with theories of identity that suggest that
the contemporary person selectively constructs an individual identity to replace
what was once conferred by the larger society and its structures. Theorists
such as Walkerdine (2003) propose that in contemporary soci- ety, variously
described as `postmodern', `high modern' and `neo-liberal' (see also Giddens,
1991; Rose, 1996; 1999), it is not only the way of life, such as people's
relationship to places, that has changed: the very nature of identity itself
is different. Identities are more fragmented and more individual. They are
not straightforwardly conferred on people, but are chosen and actively constructed.
In this article, I employ a narrative and discursive approach to investi-
gate new residential identities and contemporary meanings of place for identity.
An analysis of interview material suggests that there are new identities in
relation to place of residence which correspond to the indi- vidualized identities
described by Walkerdine and others as a feature of contemporary society. However,
as with the new work identities discussed by Walkerdine, the analysis suggests
that women may have particular dif- ficulties in claiming these new residential
identities. `Trouble' (Wetherell, 1998; Wetherell and Edley, 1998) in speakers'
identity work indicates possible limits to individualization and could be
seen as confirmation of the constraints that, according to Wetherell and Davies
and Harre (Davies and Harre, 1990), larger social meanings set on individual
identity work. NEW IDENTITIES OF PLACE? A place can be understood as a repository
of social meanings and identi- ties, including those given by narratives and
by contrast or connection with other places (Massey, 2004). Theorists seeking
to explain the signif- icance of nation and national places have discussed
the importance of history and tradition, however mythical (e.g., Hobsbawm
and Ranger, 1983). Other named places, such as counties and cities, have their
own historical narratives. There are also narratives around certain kinds
of
251
places.
For example, the contrast between the city and the countryside invokes a `temporal
dimension' (Finnegan, 1998: 15) and a dystopian story in which nature in the
form of the English countryside is `the unspoilt other' (Macnaghten and Urry,
1998: 36) threatened by urbaniza- tion. The meanings attached to places imply
identities for the people of a particular place. For example, an association
of wealth or established suburbs or late-night clubbing extends from the place
to suggest some- thing about the identity of the people who belong there.
And the same association can imply an identity for a person in a different
relation to the place, for example a visitor or a resident who does not fit
in. There are also established narratives which connect people and places.
These narratives can ascribe or confer identities, albeit within a range of
possibilities and variations. For example, native and local identities are
based in a born-and-bred story of continuity of residence and a long-term
personal and family connection with a place. This overlaps with a narra- tive
of successive generations and the gender and sexual identities associ- ated
with family, for example, positioning women as wives, mothers and homemakers
(cf. Stasiulis and Yuval-Davis, 1995). There have always been people whose
life trajectories do not conform to the born-and-bred story. However, in contemporary
western societies, changing life circumstances present a more general challenge
to this narrative, as the second commonsense assumption suggests. Continuity
of residence is disrupted by moves to new houses and jobs. New family structures
create different roles. Both changes potentially weaken the former social
ties of local networks and communities. There are more people whose lives
do not fit into the conventional relationship to place of residence. One consequence
might be that the connection between place and identity is severed, so that
where people live no longer seems relevant to who they are. Alternatively,
places of residence may become significant in a different way, giving rise
to new identities of place. Some theorists argue that the nature of identity
itself has changed in contemporary western societies. They suggest that the
identities given or conferred by larger social structures have generally become
less important than more individualized identities which people construct
and claim for themselves. For example, Giddens (1991) claims that in the environment
of an advanced capitalist society, which he calls `high modernity', the reflexive
project of the self is greater than in any other socio-historic situation.
Rose (1996; 1999) and Walkerdine (2003) similarly argue that within contemporary
western societies, the onus is on the individual to `render her or his life
meaningful as if it were the outcome of individual choices' (Rose 1999, quoted
by Walkerdine, 2003: 240), shaping the story through the telling and, in doing
so, taking up what Rose (1996: 17) describes as the identity of a `choosing
self'. These theorists approach
252
life
stories as individual constructions and emphasize the importance of intention
and choice in people's identity work. These theorists are not suggesting that
the claim to an identity as a free and agentic individual eradicates obligations
or constraints. Giddens argues that for the person in high modernity there
is an absence of tradition and existing structures, but this absence creates
an inescapable obligation to construct and present an individual identity.
Rose, somewhat differently, associates the focus on constructing an identity
as a `choosing' individual with the internalization of previously social constraints
rather than their disappearance. Walkerdine (2003) offers an example which
suggests that limitations are reinterpreted rather than removed. Her inter-
est is in how `new workers' reject class identities for an identity given
by a discourse of `upward mobility'. As an example of a self-realizing life
project with relation to work, she cites a secretary who describes the experience
of a series of over-demanding jobs in terms of a individual nar- rative of
achievement and career trajectory and also a personal `psycho- logical' narrative
of not feeling good enough. In claiming a new identity as upwardly mobile,
this woman must still contend with difficulties that arise from her relationships
with other people, even if she interprets these difficulties in individualized
terms. The change described by Walkerdine, from a `given' social identity,
of class, to an `achieved' personal identity, of career success or failure,
has possible parallels in identities of place. The kind of born-and-bred iden-
tity that I have already described may be supplanted by a more individu- alized
connection to a chosen place of residence. Writers on narrative and discourse,
particularly those working in the field of social psychology, offer a theoretical
and also an analytic approach for the investigation of contemporary identity
work in relation to place of residence. A NARRATIVE AND DISCURSIVE APPROACH
TO IDENTITY Narrative and discursive theorists approach shared stories and
social meanings as resources which pre-exist and shape particular instances
of talk. Bruner (1991) uses the term `canonical narratives' for a culture's
sto- ries of the accepted or normal. He suggests that the more contingent
nar- ratives in ordinary talk are used by a speaker to explain deviations
or exceptions from the canonical or normal narratives of the culture. Similarly,
Mishler (1999) suggests that in telling their life stories, speak- ers `appropriate
and resist' what he calls the cultural `master' narratives. Discursive psychologists
(e.g., Edley, 2001; Potter and Wetherell, 1987) analyse the shared meanings
and established logics of talk, including the words and images which speakers
use. The term `interpretative repertoire' has been proposed to describe a
`relatively coherent way ... of talking
253
about
objects and events in the world' (Edley, 2001: 198) and `a culturally familiar
and habitual link of argument comprised of recognizable themes, commonplaces
and tropes' (Wetherell, 1998: 400). It is a more specific and analytically
focused concept than the Foucauldian notion of a dis- course (cf. Carabine,
2001: 268). An analysis of repertoires looks for pat- terns across a body
of talk which indicate different speakers' use of shared resources. The commonality
of resources is the basis for generalization. These meanings and stories are
also resources for the identity work which is carried out in talk. This is
not to say that identities are `just talk' but that talk is understood as
part of a continuum of meaningful life prac- tices. Sclater (2003: 319) ascribes
to narrative psychology a `critical view', which sees `language, not as reflecting
experience, but as constitu- tive of both experience and subjectivity'. Similarly,
discursive psycho- logists (e.g., Edley, 2001; Wetherell, 1998) approach talk
not just as the expression or outward manifestation of identity but the site
in which identities are constructed and taken up and performed. Davies and
Harre (1990) suggest that in the course of talk, speakers position themselves
and are positioned, including by other speakers. A position can be defined
as a temporarily occupied coherent identity with its own `vantage point' or
perspective. A person's overall identity, so far as one exists, is not single
or fixed but an ongoing construction from the aggregate of previous positionings
in various situations and interactions, including the narratives through which
the speaker has positioned herself: Davies and Harre call these the `cumulative
fragments of a lived autobiography' (1990: 49). Identity work is an ongoing
and open-ended reflexive project for the speaker. The narrative of a life
is therefore understood as a work in progress, shaped both by the purposes
of the current telling (a commu- nicative focus) and by previous tellings
which simultaneously serve as resources for the speaker and a constraint on
too much variation. The shared or social nature of talk and its resources
also set limits on the identity work that is possible. Davies and Harre (1990)
suggest that subject positions are constituted through the larger discourses
of society, although people can make choices about taking them up. Similarly,
Wetherell (1998) suggests that discourses make available multiple subject
positions which speakers negotiate. These writers emphasize the con- straints
or limits on speakers' identity work. Wetherell is interested in those constraints
which derive from the successive turns of talk which are the focus of conversation
analysis. Davies and Harre discuss how people are positioned by others in
the unfolding conversation, and also by the requirement to conform to `the
storylines which are embedded in frag- ments of the participants' autobiographies'
(1990: 48). This is not to say that speakers construct a `linear non-contradictory
autobiography' (p. 49) through their talk, but nonetheless they are already
positioned by their
254
previous
histories and talk. Identity is therefore understood as in part chosen by
an active speaker but in part socially determined or conferred. How do these
restrictions or limits operate on identity work in practice? Wetherell (1998)
suggests this can be seen in an analysis of talk data. Limits or constraints
appear to the analyst as `trouble' (Wetherell, 1998; Wetherell and Edley,
1998). This term is used with two slightly different meanings. The first is
of a troubled identity as one which is negatively valued or `not creditable'
(Wetherell, 1998: 398), for example, when a young man talking about his sexual
adventures is positioned by another speaker as `on the moral low ground'.
The second, which I take up in my analysis, is of a troubled identity as one
which is potentially `hearable' and challengeable by others as implausible
or inconsistent with other identities that are claimed. As Wetherell and Edley
(1998: 161) put it, `... departures from “what everybody knows to be
appropriate” require explanation and create “trouble” in
the interaction which will need repair'. Similarly, Gubrium and Holstein (2001:
9) suggest: `Our identities must resonate with our community's understandings
of who and what individuals might possibly be, or else we have some explaining
to do.' There are also similar- ities with Bauman's notion of `ambivalence',
cited by Walkerdine (2003) and characterized by her as `the problem of contradiction
between posi- tions, possible identities, identifications and the shaky move
between them' (2003: 247). However, Wetherell and Edley's discursive psycholog-
ical approach is more concerned with the transient formulations and sub- ject
positions of talk `on the ground, in this very conversation' (1998: 395).
As I have already outlined, part of a speaker's reflexive identity work is
to construct coherence, however temporarily, out of multiplicity and fluidity.
In a study of place and identity, a narrative and discursive analysis of talk
data can reveal the discursive resources associated with particular places
of residence and also the general relationship of residence. The analysis
can be employed to investigate speakers' identity work in relation to current
and former places of residence, for example, through the ways that these places
are constructed in talk and speakers' positionings in relation to place. It
can explore the extent to which they take up new residential identities that
correspond to the individualized new identities described by Walkerdine and
others. In addition, a narrative and discursive analysis can investigate the
constraints on speaker's identity work which appear as `trouble' in their
talk. THE INTERVIEW PROJECT The data I analyse are taken from a project on
`Place and Identity', con- ducted between August 1998 and June 2000. The participants
had responded to a invitation in a university newspaper to talk about place
and identity,
255
including
their `experiences, ideas and feelings' about where they lived. Nineteen women
were interviewed about their current and former places of residence, the features
of these which they valued or found problematic, other places they considered
important in their lives, and their expectations about where they would live
in the future. The interviews were informal with a list of questions used
as prompts where required. Interview questions were phrased to allow participants
to interpret `place' as they wished. Each participant was interviewed once,
for approximately an hour. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed
as a single body of data. All the women were resident at the time of interview
in London or another area of the south of England accessible to the university
where the research was based.2 All were in part-time or full-time paid employment.
Their other life circumstances varied. Most were owner-occupiers of flats
and houses but some were tenants, one was boarding with relatives and one
lived in a residence connected to her workplace. Their ages ranged between
late twenties and early fifties. Some lived alone, some with a child or children,
some with a partner or a partner and children. The lives of the project's
participants, as they described them to me, echoed the mobility and instability
of residence which I have discussed as a possible feature of contemporary
society. Of the 19 women interviewed, only two still lived in or near the
place where they had been born and grown up, and both of them had left and
then returned. Nine had lived in more than one country for extended periods,
not including moves between England, Scotland and Wales. Two still lived away
from their country of birth. Of course, these numbers, while interesting,
are too small to be significant or representative and I was not conducting
a quantitative analy- sis.3 My interest was in the consequences of commonly
held meanings and understandings for speakers' identity work in relation to
place of resi- dence. In analysing the body of interview data, I looked first
for patterns across interviews as indicative of a shared discursive resource,
such as an interpretative repertoire (cf. Taylor, 2003). I then examined the
implica- tions of this resource for the identity work of particular speakers,
includ- ing the identities it made available and trouble around those identities.
The interview extracts presented below are illustrative of larger patterns
which occurred across the data, although the other occurrences were not necessarily
equally succinct or easily quotable. CHOSEN RESIDENTIAL IDENTITIES The extracts
I analyse are from interviews with three participants who were resident in
the Greater London area. In Extract One the first speaker, indicated as P1,
talks about the town in the North of England where she and her husband had
both grown up.
256
Extract
One4 1 P: I don't feel I don't have any sort of (.) 2 um I don't have any
dealings with that particular town any more that is 3 it seems to it for me
it's been a closed book (INT: Right) I don't have 4 any family who live there
any more (.) 5 not immediate family so to me it was just a place where I lived
at the 6 time and ah I have more I feel (.) 7 more part of a London community
than I do part of that um and in terms 8 of my (.) 9 what moved me away from
that was going away to university and then 10 sort of moving down to London
for work after that so that's been the 11 pattern and (.) 12 finding that
this area in terms of its opportunities for work and schools 13 has really
been why we've stayed here ah (.) 14 And we have considered as in that from
a perspective of moving back 15 up North but then you think of it (.) 16 we
had this both my husband and I had this idea of it would be like 17 when we
left (.) 18 (INT: Mm mm mm) but in fact when we went to have a look and explore
19 it wasn't (.) 20 anything like [LAUGHTER] what we'd imagined and the people
that 21 we you know we had as friends were no longer there (INT: Yes) so
it 22 would have effectively it would have been setting up a whole new home
23 and a whole new set of friends and everything and in the end we just
24 decided no we would actually (.) 25 stay put (.) In this extract, the speaker
claims a feeling of community (line 7) in her current place of residence.
This reference, and the description of her former place of residence as being
`just' somewhere she lived (line 5), can be heard as countering a possible
expectation that feelings of belong- ing and community are associated with
a birthplace and home town. Billig (1987) refers to this kind of talk against
established meanings as rhetori- cal. In this case, the speaker's positioning
with relation to place challenges the commonsense born-and-bred narrative
because she rejects the kind of connection conventionally associated with
a place of birth and upbringing and claims a stronger connection with a chosen
place, elsewhere. Rose (1999) argues that `each individual must render her
or his life meaningful as if it were the outcome of individual choices made
in furtherance of a biographical project of self-realization' (quoted by Walkerdine,
2003: 240). Speaker P1's construction of her move away from the former place
of residence accords with this. It was a move first to university and then
to other opportunities (`work and schools').
257
The
positive direction is also emphasized in a kind of inversion of expec- tations:
a move `back up North' would not have been a return home but would involve
`setting up a whole new home and a whole new set friends and everything' (lines
22–23). The changes of residence construct a progressive narrative
from the past to the present. The current, chosen place of residence, in London,
is described more fully in the next extract. Extract Two 1 INT: Right (.)
2 So what do you value most then about where you live now? 3 4 P1: (.) Living
here now (.) 5 Um safe I mean safety is actually (.) 6 is important um (.)
7 although we're living in London we're quite here in particular we're 8 very
close to the river we've got lots of parks (INT: Mm) um (.) 9 it is built
up but it's (.) 10 but it's quite but there's quite a bit of space around
I think from that 11 point of view of living in (.) 12 [placename] area we're
very fortunate to have lots of royal parks and 13 we're very close to the
to the river as well It's close to central London 14 so that should we want
to use museums and (.) 15 the theatres etcetera we can we can do that In this
second extract the speaker presents a positive construction of her current
place of residence which does rhetorical work against possible negative images
attached to London and city life. The river and parks (line 8) offer natural
places not usually associated with cities, and there is `quite a bit of space'
(line 10) even though the area is built up. The description does identity
work for the speaker. The kinds of things which are valued are associated
with nature and culture (cf. Macnaghten and Urry, 1998) and position her as
a certain type of person. There is a positive reciprocal relationship between
the resident and the place of residence. There is an emphasis on choice, as
in Rose's `choosing self', and also an emphasis on opportunity, exemplifying
a pattern which occurs across the whole body of interview material. Speakers
talk about what living in a certain place enables you to do, or prevents you
from doing, putting a positive value on a place of residence in terms of the
opportunities it offers, the things you can do there, the other places you
can get to easily. Speaker P1 refers in Extract One to moving in order to
obtain `opportuni- ties for work and schools' (line 12). In Extract Two, by
characterizing her place of residence in terms of amenities (the river and
parks, and also
258
central
London, line 13, which is defined in terms of museums and theatres to `use'),
speaker P1 invokes opportunity through these refer- ences to being able to
go to certain places and, implicitly, do certain things. It is not clear,
from the extracts or elsewhere in the interview, how frequently she avails
herself of the opportunities, or whether doing these things is actually part
of her routine. Her emphasis is on choice and options. It is not that she
necessarily intends to do everything, go to these places or whatever; the
positive point is that she can, if she chooses. This emphasis on opportunity
can be understood as part of an inter- pretative repertoire and also a prevailing
contemporary discourse of consumerism and choice (cf. Skeggs, 2004). Skeggs
argues that such a discourse establishes the subject position of a `modern'
individual or self whose `inner authentic individuality' (2004: 56) is expressed
through the choices she makes. A further way to interpret this pattern can
be derived from Bruner's notion of `subjunctivizing' (Bruner, 1986). He develops
the concept to explain how `great narrative' (in literary works) `creates
not only a story but also a sense of its contingent and uncertain variants'
(1986: 174). His larger point is that the attraction of narrative or stories
is precisely in their connection to `human possibilities' rather than `settled
certainties' (1986: 26). Kirkman (2003: 257) suggests that subjunctivising
`encompasses the multiple prospective plots which are possible when one is
still living one's story'. References by speaker P1 to the opportunities offered
by her place of residence construct prospective plots and possible forward
narratives as part of her larger life narrative. In talking about her place
of residence, speaker P1 therefore does identity work which positions her
positively, emphasizes individual choice rather than the relationship to place
given by birth and upbringing, and constructs a progressive life narrative
through past into future. Her identity work in relation to place conforms
to the kind of individualized new identity described by Rose (1996; 1999)
and Walkerdine (2003). The third extract is from a second speaker, indicated
as P2. She is describing a former place of residence, a flat she bought in
the Docklands area of London in the 1980s. Her talk presents a more negative
position- ing in relation to a place of residence. Extract Three 1 P2: a lot
of the properties around me were empty (INT: Mm hm) (.) 2 and (.) 3 what it
th- there was no infrastructure there that wasn't in place (.) 4 there the
the the local (.) 5 none of the new type traders had moved in so the pubs
were um still 6 very much the old sort of docklands pubs if you went in for
a drink with 7 a friend there would be utter silence they'd be all men and
they'd stare
259
8 at
you (INT: Mm mm) you know what on earth were you doing in there 9 um the
(.) 10 shops were very very (.) 11 um grubby and they hardly carried any lines
(INT: Mm) there wasn't a 12 local Tesco's or Sainsbury's um (.) 13 I even
tried to buy an avocado pear once and the woman didn't know 14 what it was
and I just thought I just felt as if I was (.) In this extract, there is emphasis
on the absence of choice and opportunity. In this place of residence, as the
speaker describes it, she could not go where she wanted, to the pub, or buy
the kind of food she wanted (an avocado pear, line 13). The reference to the
named, missing shops (line 12) emphasizes the absence further. For this speaker,
therefore, an identity as a resident, or would-be resident, cannot be reconciled
with an identity as a choosing self. By these criteria, the Docklands flat
was not a good place to live and in fact the speaker concluded her description
of it by saying P2: all in all it it it wasn't a good move and I pretty much
put it straight back on the market Following Wetherell and Edley (1998), I
have suggested that identity work which is potentially inconsistent or implausible
is a source of trou- ble which may require repair. In this extract, the speaker
cannot reconcile the identity she brings to the place, specifically as the
kind of woman who values certain foods and social activities, with a positioning
of herself as a resident. The incomprehension of the woman in the shop (line
13) and the stares of the men in the pub (`What on earth were you doing in
there?', line 8) mark her behaviour as unusual; she is not as plausibly of
the place as they are. There is a possible gender element to this problematic
posi- tioning. In the pub `they'd be all men' (line 7). Whether her friend
is male (so she is the lone woman) or female (so they are different together),
she is out of place there as a woman. However, the trouble around the speaker's
positioning as a resident of this place is also resolved or repaired through
her telling of the story. First, by rejecting the identity attached to the
place of residence, this speaker positions herself positively in contrast,
as different to the people of that place, wanting more than the limited opportunities
offered, and so on. Secondly, like speaker P1 in Extract One, she constructs
a progressive nar- rative through the move away from this place. In this way,
the description of the past place of residence does present identity work
for the speaker in the interview context. Like speaker P1 in the earlier extracts,
this speaker positions herself as a person who values opportunities and constructs
progression in her life
260
narrative
through (as she describes it) her individual choices. Their identity work
constructs a `new residential identity' for these speakers corresponding to
the individualized new identities described by Walkerdine (2003) and Rose
(1996; 1999). The final two extracts are from an interview with a third speaker,
indicated as P3, and show trouble in identity work around a current place
of residence. Extract Four 1 INT: So what do you value most about where you're
living now can you 2 say that 3 4 P3: Um (.) 5 it's a variety (.) 6 (INT:
Mm) of things that are available in that environment it's just 7 everything
is so easy to get to from there (INT: Right) um (.) 8 and any kind of resources
that I might (.) 9 need to have are very easily obtainable there either from
going to shops 10 or getting places to bring stuff to us or finding information
as well it's 11 very very good for finding information to be centrally placed
rather than 12 further out um 13 14 INT: Could you just say a bit more about
that what kind of information 15 are you thinking of you sound as if you
have something specific in mind 16 17 P3: What sort of information well academic
information is one thing um (.) 18 books I'm I'm interested in more kind of
alternative culture things as 19 well (INT: Mm hm) and there's a lot of that
and [placename] is a is a 20 whole huge market area with kind of fashion
and art and theatre and 21 there's so much there (INT: Mm) you know that's
interesting that you 22 can just kind of have a look round It kind of feels
as if you're in touch 23 with with what's going on (INT: Mm hm) there whereas
other other 24 places I've lived 've felt a bit kind of samey um High Street
stuff and 25 nothing (INT: Yeah) kind of um I don't know (.) 26 not the same
kind of individuality and also there's um (.) 27 it's kind of less judgmental
about I I can go out wearing virtually 28 anything and it doesn't matter
(INT: Yeah) um in [placename] whereas 29 it would be different in other parts
of London (.) 30 yeah so This extract provides a further example of a speaker
positioning herself in relation to a place of residence which is chosen rather
than given by her birth or family history. Her construction of the place makes
certain
261
positionings
available to her as resident there, and she simultaneously takes up those
positions, as a person who `is in touch with what's going on' (line 22) and
has `individuality' (line 26), whose interests evidence her breadth and cultural
awareness, a person who requires the stimulus of new things and ideas (the
references to `resources', line 8 and information, lines 10 and 14) and who
rejects convention (the references to `alternative culture' line 18 and, negatively,
to `samey High Street stuff', line 24). Although the detail of this identity
is different to that claimed by the speaker in Extract Two, there is a similar
emphasis on opportunity and choice, on what you can get by living in this
place (goods from shops, information), what you can do (you can get to other
places easily, look around, wear what you like), again offering multiple forward
narratives of prospective activity. This talk therefore provides a further
example of sub- junctivizing and of the new residential identity I have described.
However, in the final extract the same speaker is discussing the same place
of residence in answer to the question: Do you expect to move from there under
any circumstances? Her answer is that she does expect to move, at an unspecified
point in the future, because (for reasons not detailed here) she anticipates
that she will not be able to continue living with her current partner and
co-resident. Extract Five 1 P3: And living where I'm now will be difficult
for a single woman (.) 2 3 INT: Right um why 4 5 P3: Ah well it's quite a
dangerous area (.) 6 (INT: Right) Um (.) 7 quite a lot of muggings go on and
(.) 8 people soon (.) 9 you know notice if you're on your own (INT: Right
right) You know 10 there's this quite a lot of awareness of who's living where
and (.) 11 there's places are sussed um (.) 12 we have all sorts of um security
on the house we've got gates and (.) 13 bars up at the windows and a double
door and but ah (.) 14 it wouldn't be (.) 15 all that secure (INT: Yeah) (.)
16 It was burgled (.) 17 six times before he moved in there he's since he's
been moved in he only 18 got burgled once um (.) 19 but then he can look
quite intimidating but I'm not so sure I no
262
20
(LAUGHTER) I might get a big dog! (LAUGHTER) yeah And I just I 21 wouldn't
like it on my own there not at night either it's a bit kind of hair 22 raising
mm (.) In this final extract, there is no longer an emphasis on opportunity
but on negative possibilities set up by the construction of the place of residence.
The extract is from the same interview as Extract Four and the speaker's life
circumstances have not changed. However here she anticipates a future identity
as a single woman, for reasons connected to her partner's health (which she
explains elsewhere in the interview). The new residen- tial identity she took
up in Extract Four is now troubled because the positive identity of someone
who values the opportunities offered by this place of residence is difficult
to reconcile with a different positioning, as a woman vulnerable to attack
because she is alone (`people soon you know notice if you're on your own').
This vulnerable positioning is part of another pattern or interpretative repertoire
in the interview data, of references to danger and fear of attack in connection
with places of residence. It can be seen in the brief mention of safety in
Extract Two (line 5), and perhaps also in the way that speaker P2 in Extract
Three was positioned by the men in the pub. Chasteen (1994) conducted an interview
study of 25 American women and reported that they were highly aware of the
safety of their environment and felt they were less vulnerable `with a man
around', although `this lesser fear stemmed not from men's perceived ability
to defend the women, but from their symbolic value; a woman with a man was
described as “looking” less “out of place” to others'
(1994: 321). In my discussion of the born-and- bred narrative, I suggested
that women are conventionally positioned in relation to place through their
roles within a family centred on a hetero- sexual couple/parent relationship.
Following this, a woman alone may be positioned negatively by others, as Chasteen's
participants realized, whether the negative positioning has associations of
violence or some- thing less extreme (as in Extract Three). Wetherell (1998),
and Davies and Harre (1990) suggested that the identity work of individual
speakers is constrained by larger social meanings. The analysis shows how
for speaker P3 the more conventional meanings around an identity as a woman
alone constrain her individual and individualized work to take up a new residential
identity. CONCLUSION The analysis I have presented shows a connection between
place and identity that can be claimed even on the basis of a relatively short
period of residence, in contrast to the kind of `native' or `local' identity
conferred by
263
birth
and long-term family connection. Places are rich in meanings and associations.
Speakers can characterize a chosen place of residence in certain ways and
position themselves in relation to it in order to do identity work for themselves.
These positionings around place correspond to the kind of individualized new
identities that theorists have suggested are a feature of contemporary societies.
A construction of a place of residence in terms of opportunity makes available
a positioning corresponding to a `choosing self'. The place where someone
lives is claimed as appropriate to its resident, not because it made her but
because it matches who she wants to be. This is an alternative to a conventional
identity of place and is available to people positioned outside a born-and-bred
narrative. References to opportunity also indicate prospective narratives.
The speaker can con- struct a biography with a progressive life course shaped
by the choices she has made, so a move away from a birth place and hometown
becomes part of a success story. This is identity work for a mobile, con-
sumption-oriented society. However, a claim to the more individualized and
agentic identity, which I have called a new residential identity, is not necessarily
unproblematic. Wetherell (1998) and Davies and Harre (1990) suggest that the
identity work of individual speakers is constrained by larger social meanings.
This can be seen in Walkerdine's example of a woman office worker who positioned
herself as able to succeed through her own effort, but could not reconcile
this with how she was positioned by others, as a subordinate who could be
exploited through overwork. Discursive work to construct and take up `new'
identities does not erase old meanings but must, inevitably, contend with
them, particularly in the ways that speakers are positioned by others. In
my analysis the women speakers' work of `self- realization', in Rose and Walkerdine's
term, is constrained by more conventional positionings of women in relation
to place, especially women alone. This constraint appears in the talk as `trouble'
around reconciling different identities and positionings. In other words,
a new identity as someone who chooses and controls her life circumstances
and the trajectory of her life narrative does not in itself necessarily create
control or confer agency. For women in particular, the new residential identities
I have described may be difficult to sustain. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks to
Mary Horton-Salway, Rebecca Jones, Jane Montague, Jill Reynolds and Sarah
Seymour-Smith from the Discourse Group at the Open University and also to
two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
264
NOTES
1 Discourse theorists would
understand the everyday stories as part of the larger discourses of ethnicity,
race and nation. See, for example, Stasiulis, D. and Yuval-Davis, N. (1995).
2 The project was funded
by the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University in Milton Keynes.
3 Ten Have (2004: 173) defines
a quantitative analysis as examining the variation of a few features across
a large data-set.
4 The transcription conventions
used are listed below. The talk has been transcribed to include the irregularities
of ordinary speech but without the detail employed by some other analysts
such as those working in the conversation analytic tradition. The following
conventions are used:
(.) indicates a short
pause;
(LAUGHTER) indicates
laughter from either person present;
(INT: Yes) indicates
a brief comment from the other person present;
[placename] indicates
a reference to a named place. The real name is deleted to protect the participant's
anonymity.
REFERENCES
Billig, M.
1987: Arguing and thinking: a rhetorical approach to
social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bruner, J.
1986: Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA and
London : Harvard University Press.
——— 1991: The narrative construction of reality.
Critical Inquiry 18, 1—21.
Carabine, J.
2001: Unmarried motherhood 1830—1990: a genealogical
analysis . In Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates,
S., editors, Discourse as data: a guide for analysis,
London: Sage, 267—310.
Chasteen, A.
1994: The world around me: the environment and single
women . Sex Roles 31, 309—28.
Connor, W.
1994: A nation is a nation, is a state, is an ethnic
group, is a … . In Smith, A.,
editor, Nationalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1—4.
Davies, B.
and Harre, R.
1990: Positioning: The discursive production of selves . Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20, 43—63.
Edley, N.
2001: Analysing masculinity: interpretative repertoires,
subject positions and ideological dilemmas. In Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S., editors, Discourse as data:
a guide for analysis, London: Sage , 189—228.
Finnegan, R.
1998: Tales of the city: a study of narrative and urban
life . Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Giddens, A.
1991: Modernity and self-identity: society and self in
the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity.
Gubrium, J.
and Holstein, J.
2001: Institutional selves: troubled identities in a
postmodern world. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Have, P.t.
2004: Understanding qualitative research and ethnomethodology . London: Sage.
265
Hobsbawm, E.
and Ranger, T. 1983: The invention of tradition. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
Kirkman, M.
2003: Infertile women and the narrative work of mourning:
barriers to the revision of autobiographical narratives of motherhood.
Narrative Inquiry 13, 243—362.
Macnaghten, P.
and Urry, J. 1998: Contested natures. London: Sage .
Massey, D.
2004: Geographies of responsibility. Geografiska Annaler 86 B, 5—18.
Mishler, E. 1999: Storylines: craftartists' narratives of identity. Cambridge,
MA and London : Harvard University Press.
Potter, J.
and Wetherell, M. 1987: Discourse and social psychology. London: Sage.
Rose, N. 1996: Inventing our selves: psychology, power and personhood . Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
——— 1999: Governing the soul. London:
Free Association Books.
Sclater, S.
2003: What is the subject? Narrative
Inquiry 13, 317—30.
Skeggs, B. 2004: Class, self, culture. London
and New York: Routledge.
Stasiulis, D.
and Yuval-Davis, N. 1995: Beyond dichotomies: gender,
race, ethnicity and class in settler societies . In Yuval-Davis, N., editor, Unsettling settler societies:
articulations of gender, race, ethnicity and class, London : Sage, 1—38.
Taylor, S.
2003: A place for the future? Residence and continuity
in women's narratives of their lives. Narrative Inquiry 13, 193—215.
Walkerdine, V.
2003: Reclassifying upward mobility: femininity and the
neo-liberal subject. Gender and Education 15, 237—48.
Wetherell, M.
1998: Positioning and interpretative repertoires: conversation
analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse & Society 9, 387—412.
Wetherell, M.
and Edley, N.
1998: Gender practices: steps in the analysis of men
and masculinities . In Phoenix, A.,
editor, Standpoints and differences: essays in the practice of feminist
psychology , London: Sage, 156—73.
NOTE
ON CONTRIBUTOR STEPHANIE TAYLOR is a Lecturer in Psychology in the Faculty
of Social Sciences, The Open University. She is a member of the CIG Research
Centre in Social Sciences and the Inter-Faculty Discourse Group and Feminist
Reading Group. Her research employs narrative and discursive approaches to
data analysis as part of identity research. Her current project investigates
the importance of place-related identities in contem- porary societies in
which it is usual to change residence and break the connections of origin,
family and childhood which have conventionally provided a link between place
and identity.