On a Theory of the Self in a Case of Social Constructivism:

The Genealogy of Social Construction of the Self from Roles to Narratives

Abstract

As a theory of the self in the era of late modernity or post-modernity, stories of the self or narrative identities are a current issue. Holstein and Gubrium's “The Self We Live by” is a typical account of a case of social constructionism.

Social constructionism is one of the successors to labeling theory and the other descendants of the Chicago School, Symbolic Interactionism, and Erving Goffman. Although they evaluate their contribution to theories of the self in appearance, we cannot find any concept or idea of the preceding arguments in their theories of the self. However, if we examine their arguments, we can quickly understand their significance.

They have missed important points. In particular, they have no idea of the differences between the self (social identity) and (personal) identity. However, in the case of self-narratives, the personal identity that matters is the object of evaluations. Goffman has already identified this different function in the concept of “self” (roles) from “person,” which eventually relates to “life history” or “career” as an element of personal identity.

In contrast, on these points, M. H. Goodwin develops arguments and sophisticated descriptions that are strongly influenced by Goffman's work, namely, the concepts of “evaluation” and “participation.” Thus we will reorganize a theory of narrative identity to take into account not only these preceding studies of the self but also Goodwin's findings.

In story-telling, at least, we need two persons. One is the teller who tells a self-story, the other is the hearer who hears it. If so, the distribution of each turns tends to be asymmetrical in their talk. Yet self-narrative is not like a one-way road from the teller to the hearer (s). The tellers have to try to employ multiple devices to obtain good “evaluations” and good “participation,” which give them chances to change themselves.