It's About Time: Narrative and the Divided Self

Abstract

When I learned that my father had died while I was attending a national communication conference, two worlds within me—the academic and the personal—collided, and I was forced to confront the large gulf that divided them. In this article, I weave the story of that experience into the wider fabric of disconnections that promotes isolation and inhibits risk taking and change within universities and academic disciplines. In the process, I question whether the structures of power constitutive of academic socialization are not as difficult to resist as those of one's family, and the consequences as constraining. I use personal narrative to show how storytelling works to build a continuous life of experience, linking the past to the future from the standpoint of the present; to proble matize the process of assigning meanings to memories via language; to draw attention to the significance of institutional depression m universities; and to blur the line between theory and story.

Illness as Teacher: Learning from Illness

“…This doctor paralleled the process of letting patients unleash their innermost concerns to the act of opening up Pandora's Box, implying how the listener is required to witness the chaos that unfolds. Bochner (1997), however, presents an alternative view by asserting that we must listen deeply and "live with the lid off" to address the significant questions bubbling underneath the surface about the lessons learnt through physical illness. In the case of teaching, teachers who are able to honour and witness their students' stories can meaningfully contribute to their lives.…”

Intercultural Manifestations of Racial, Language, and Class Privilege in Schooling: An Autoethnographic Tale

“…We are multidimensional human beings who are influenced by and influencing the world around us, just like everyone else. Bochner (1997) argues that it makes no sense to divide the theoretical from the personal. Scholars, he writes, "learn to hide our personal self behind a veneer of academic and theoretical detachment, fostering the misconception that it has no influence, no place, no significance in our work " (p. 433).…”

Becoming a Narrative Researcher: A Story of Moments, Realisations and Turnarounds

“…Lorena has made that leap across the self-other divide that is still evident in so much social science. It seems she is no longer, to use Bochner's (1997) term, a divided self… This realisation was a key turning point for me: Science, and the scientific method, can be challenged by my own life experiences! After having completed three undergraduate degrees and a Master's, this was the first time I felt the academic knowledge I had been taught did not sit well with my own life.…”