People's Accounts Count: The Sociology of Accounts

Orbuch, Terri L.

doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.23.1.455

Cited by 401 publications

(258 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…The human tendency to make sense of events through telling stories is universal and is evident in almost all interview data (Mishler 1986, Riessman 1989, Orbuch 1997, Bury 2001. The informants in this study were no exception.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tales of biographical disintegration: how parents make sense of their sons’ suicides

Owens

Lambert

Lloyd

et al. 2007

Sociology Health & Illness

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Suicide research relies heavily on accounts provided by bereaved relatives, using a method known as the psychological autopsy. Psychological autopsy studies are invariably quantitative in design and their findings reinforce the medical model of suicide, emphasising the role of mental illness. They largely ignore the meanings that narrators attach to events, the nature of the sense-making task and the influences bearing upon it. This study drew on psychological autopsy data but used qualitative analytic methods. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with the parents of young men aged 18-30 who had taken their own lives form the basis for this paper. Some parents represent their sons as victims who were cruelly destroyed by external forces, while others portray them as agents of their own destruction. Either way, their narratives are dominated by moral rather than medical categories and by questions of personal accountability. We show how the parents use the interview to perform a complex reconstructive task, striving to piece together both their son's and their own shattered biographies and repair damage to their moral identities. We argue that their stories represent survival tools, enabling them not only to make sense of the past but also to face their own future.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tales of biographical disintegration: how parents make sense of their sons’ suicides

Owens

Lambert

Lloyd

et al. 2007

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…A veces realizamos actos contrarios a nuestros valores declarados y no elaboramos ninguna justificación. Se dan razones cuando alguien las pide: cuando el acto es observado y desafía expectativas compartidas, altera los planes de otras personas o se considera desviante, inmoral o inapropiado (Orbuch 1997;Scott y Lyman 1968). Ello nos permite explicar una de las principales críticas recibidas por la teoría de la disonancia cognitiva: a menudo las personas realizan actos que contradicen sus creencias declaradas y no buscan reducir la disonancia (Deutscher, Pestello y Pestello 1993: 144;Swidler 1986).…”

Section: Disonancias Excusas Y Justificacionesunclassified

“…Ensayamos en las conversaciones relatos sobre nosotros y nuestros actos; cuando son aceptados y alentados, se eleva nuestra autoestima -ganamos "energía emocional"-y los convertimos en nuestras verdaderas razones en esa conversación internalizada que es el pensamiento (Collins 2004: 179-184;Condor y Antaki, 2000). Los relatos socialmente aceptados nos sirven para conferir sentido a hechos traumáticos o dolorosos, para superar heridas o desengaños, para persistir en comportamientos potencialmente cuestionables (Orbuch 1997).…”

Section: Disonancias Excusas Y Justificacionesunclassified

Mentiras, inconsistencias y ambivalencias. Teoría de la acción y análisis de discurso

Criado¹

2014

Rev. int. sociol.

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rEsuMEnMuchas prácticas de análisis de discurso parten de dos supuestos: a) la conducta está más determinada por la cultura interiorizada que por la situación; b) el discurso expresa los elementos culturales -actitudes, valores, etc.-que guían la acción. Frente a ello, se defiende que estamos sometidos a múltiples constricciones, a menudo contradictorias, que determinan nuestra acción independientemente de nuestras creencias. Ello provoca que no seamos coherentes, que hagamos y digamos cosas distintas en diferentes situaciones y que adaptemos nuestros discursos y creencias a nuestras prácticas para justificarlas, manipulando estratégicamente la reserva de recursos culturales disponibles. Tener esto en cuenta lleva a centrar el análisis de discurso en el componente estratégico de los discursos y en sus incoherencias y contradicciones. Palabras ClavEAmbivalencia sociológica; Carrera moral; Disonancia cognitiva; Estrategia discursiva; Legitimidad. abstraCtMany practices of discourse analysis take for granted two assumptions: a) behaviour is more determined by interiorized culture than by situation; b) discourse expresses the cultural elements -attitudes, values, etc.-that are the principles of action. In contrast to these assumptions, the article defends that we are subject to numerous and often contradictory constrictions, which determine our action whatever our beliefs. As a consequence, we usually are not coherent; we do and we say different things in different situations and arrange our discourses and beliefs in order to justify our behaviour, handling strategically the stock of available cultural resources. Taking this into account leads us to focus discourse analysis on the strategic component of discourses, as well as on their incoherencies and contradictions.

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“…Meeting other NIAs in these focus groups would go some way to helping that be realised. Second, literature suggests that there is an inherent desire in human beings to make meaning from their own and others' experience (Orbuch, 1997). Hearing others' stories of similar and shared experiences can be affirming and potentially help reduce some of the anxiety related to feelings of isolation.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New International Academics’ Narratives of Cross-Cultural Transition

Thomas

Malau‐Aduli

2013

IJHE

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Increasing numbers of academics world-wide are migrating as higher education institutions internationalise. Yet academics' experiences of cross-cultural transition remain under-explored, especially in comparison with students. This small-scale narrative study, employing focus group interviews, aimed to explore the cross-cultural transition experiences of international academics at one multi-campus university in regional Australia. This research was not institutionally-driven. Rather, it was instigated by the researchers out of concern for the welfare of new international academics at their institution. The findings are compelling, some of which underscore existing research findings of other migrating groups -for example, the complex, challenging, highly individualised nature of cross-cultural transition experiences. Some findings, however, are unique to this group of academics -for example, the 'culture of silence' that permeated most aspects of their professional lives as well as the challenges inherent in developing a professional identity in a small, isolated, parochial community. These latter findings are disquieting as they highlight a gap between policy and practice within the university. More disturbingly, they are resonant of the neoliberalist ideology currently dominating higher education where hyperindividualism and survival-of-the-fittest mentalities erode collegiality. There are salutary messages for the myriad groups who work in higher education institutions about the 'cost' associated with an absence of comprehensive, systematic institutional transition support for international academics. Recommendations specifically aimed at new international academics include: a revision of workload models; general and pedagogically-specific induction workshops; professional learning (cross-cultural transition) workshops for support staff and senior management; and the establishment of support groups for the academics and their families.

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People's Accounts Count: The Sociology of Accounts

Cited by 401 publications

References 69 publications

Tales of biographical disintegration: how parents make sense of their sons’ suicides

Tales of biographical disintegration: how parents make sense of their sons’ suicides

Mentiras, inconsistencias y ambivalencias. Teoría de la acción y análisis de discurso

New International Academics’ Narratives of Cross-Cultural Transition

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