Billig (2008) argues "some of the ideas in today's critical psychology have a longer history than is often supposed " (p. 195). We begin with that premise by excavating the theoretical history of psychological mapping methods in social psychology (including, but not limited to, place/space mapping). We have found deep theoretical linkages between our uses of mapping and the development of social psychological theory over the last 50 years and also see mapping as holding great promise for interrogating the terrain between individual experience and social reality. We highlight three specific studies in which we have used mapping to discuss these theoretical connections, and we explore the possibilities and dilemmas inherent in such a visual and creative method. We conclude by suggesting ways to improve the method in the future. Then, we call on social-personality psychology to consider the increasing importance of methods that are able to resist the hegemony of the written word and draw on the complexities of our interconnected life spaces in a time when individualism is inordinately prioritized amongst psychological theories and methods.
Taking seriously the call for methodological and analytic pluralism, we advance three key assumptions of theory and method: 1) young people develop "hyphenated selves" in shifting social and political contexts and in everyday circumstances; 2) pluralistic methods and research designs have the potential to capture identity movement across time and space; and 3) a pluralistic approach to analysis, specifically using a dialogical framework, allows hyphenated selves to be heard and interpreted in a way that neither pathologizes contradiction nor privileges coherence but presents a skillfully woven narrative about the self. To take up these questions, we draw upon the visual and textual narratives produced by three adolescents participating in a longitudinal, multimethod study designed to document social and academic engagement among urban youth.Critical youth researchers have documented the psychological imprint of oppression on youth identities and the resultant embodiment of contradiction, complexity and multiplicity as narrated by marginalized youth under siege, including immigrants, undocumented students, Muslim or Arab adolescents, youth of color, children in poverty, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) or otherwise marginalized young people (Abu El-Haj bodies lived in conflict often speak through multiplicity, conflict, and splitting -what W.E.B. Du Bois called double consciousness (1903). These narratives, if social scientists are willing to hear their complexity, can teach us much about the dynamic multiplicity by which young people embody and reflect upon the multifaceted development of their lives. With this article we explore a palette of methods that invite narratives of multiplicity -what we have called hyphenated selves -in times of trauma and the everyday . That is, we explore methodological pluralism as a strategy of data collection and analysis to document how change and discontinuity, braided with a desire for narrative coherence and consistency, shape the stories young people tell about themselves, over time and space.
Young women's narratives of their sexual experiences occur amid conflicting cultural discourses of risk, abstinence, and moral panic. Yet young women, as social actors, find ways to make meaning of their experiences through narrative. In this study, we focused on adolescent girls' (N=98, age 12-17 years) narratives of their first experiences with oral sex. We document our unexpected findings of persistent discourses of performance which echo newly emergent academic achievement discourses. Burns and Torre (Feminism & Psychology 15 (1): [21][22][23][24][25][26] 2005) argue that an extreme and high stakes focus on individual academic achievement in schools impoverishes young minds through the "hollowing" of their sexualities. We present evidence that such influence also works in the opposite direction, with an achievement orientation invading girls' discourses of sexuality, "crowding out" possible narratives of pleasure, choice, and mutuality with narratives of competence and skill usually associated with achievement and schooling. We conclude with policy implications for the future development of "positive" sexuality narratives.
This article explores collective identity as a useful theoretical framework for understanding social and developmental processes that occur in youth programs. Through narrative analysis of past participant interviews (n = 21) from an after-school theater program, known as The SOURCE, it was found that participants very clearly describe a collective "member" identity. Aspects of the collective identity become psychological assets that participants are able to recall at later points in their lives-in their future roles as college roommates, parents, teachers, nurses, and so on. Findings suggest that collaboratively and purposefully crafting a collective identity provides youth programs with a useful way to cultivate meaningful results of participation for current members as well as provide an underlying identity framework that past participants can build on in new social arenas as emerging adults.
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