Positioning Within A Cultural Context: Using Ricoeur's Preunderstandings As A Heuristic For Narrative Data Analysis In Exploring Identity, Structure, And Agency

ASU Author/Contributor (non-ASU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Rachel E. Wilson , Associate Professor (Creator)
Institution
Appalachian State University (ASU )
Web Site: https://library.appstate.edu/

Abstract: I argue that Ricoeur’s preunderstandings can be used as a heuristic to aid researchers who collect narratives as data (1) to identify cultural meanings that become resources for participants’ positioning work, (2) to ground the identified cultural meanings in participants’ experiences, and (3) to understand participants’ interpretations of constraint and agency within that context. I outline how the philosophical hermeneutics of Ricoeur is consistent with a sociocultural perspective on positioning and identity, as well as present data analysis questions developed from Ricoeur’s ideas of narrative configuration to explore common cultural meanings used by participants in interpreting their lived experience. These questions provide a strategy to examine how participants may be referring to common cultural meanings but their individual interpretations of these meanings can have different implications for their feelings of agency.

Additional Information

Publication
Rachel E. Wilson (2015). Positioning within a cultural context: using Ricoeur’s preunderstandings as a heuristic for narrative data analysis in exploring identity, structure, and agency, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28:8, 887-905, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2014.948097. Publisher version of record available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2014.948097
Language: English
Date: 2014
Keywords
hermeneutics, narrative, Ricoeur

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