Key research themes
1. How can narrative methods systematically uncover the dynamic processes of identity formation and change?
This research theme explores how narrative methods, especially quantitative and qualitative narrative inquiry, provide frameworks for studying identity as a coherent yet dynamic construction over time. It focuses on methodological aspects such as eliciting narratives, coding thematic and structural features, and identifying 'turning points' that signal identity transformations. This matters because identity is not static but a continuously evolving story shaped by subjective meaning-making and socio-cultural interactions. Developing rigorous tools for narrative analysis enables researchers to capture the complexity of identity development across diverse populations and contexts.
2. What are the multidimensional ways narratives and identity mutually constitute each other across personal, cultural, and digital contexts?
This theme addresses the complex, reciprocal relationship between narratives and identity at individual, social, and collective levels. It focuses on how narratives perform and construct identity in culturally situated and mediated environments—including gendered narratives, spirituality, and digital social media spaces. This line of inquiry is vital for understanding identity beyond static traits by emphasizing the performative, socially constructed characters of identity as both shaped by and shaping narrative structures, metaphors, and discourses. The inclusion of digital contexts highlights contemporary challenges and opportunities for identity negotiation in fragmented and participatory narrative forms.
3. How do narrative identity and embodiment dynamically interact to form a coherent sense of self?
This theme investigates the bidirectional, recursive relationship between narrative identity—the reflective construction of self through stories—and embodiment, or the pre-reflective lived bodily experience. It focuses on theoretical and empirical insights into how embodied experience shapes narrative self-understanding and how narratives can influence bodily self-perception and behavior, emphasizing non-reflective engagement with affordances and ecological contexts. Understanding this interplay is crucial to comprehending identity as both a reflective and embodied phenomenon, with implications for psychological coherence and well-being.