Manuel Luis de la Mata Benítez

Narratives of migration: Emotions and the interweaving of personal and cultural identity through narrative:

In this article we examine the role of narratives of migration as sense-giving devices that interweave cultural and personal dimensions in identity construction. The data shown come from a research project in which we comparatively analysed Andalusian (Southern Spain) internal migrants’ and non-migrants’ arguments about their cultural identity displayed in a focus group task. In that study we found that migrants used mainly personal narratives as rhetoric tools. In this article, we focus on the thematic and structural traits of these migrants’ narratives. The analysis illustrates that narratives of migration share some common features. They start with a canonical state, living in the homeland, visualised as a ‘lost paradise’; that is broken by the migration movement. The whole process is emotionally evaluated with a strong affiliation and commitment with the motherland. We finally conclude that narratives comprise a privileged instrument in making sense of life turning-points such as those faced in migration.

The narrative construction of Lesbian identity: A study using Bruner's self-indicators

Starting from a narrative conception of identity, in this paper, we present a description of the process of construction of lesbian identity by applying Bruners indicators of selfhood. Our main goal is to analyze the personal process of (re)construction of lesbian identity and its connection with socio-cultural context. The autobiographical narratives of eight (8) lesbian women were analyzed and categorized in accordance with a model that describes the construction of homosexual identity in three phases: before Self-definition, Self-definition, and after Self-definition. The analysis conducted allowed us to describe, in an integrated and coherent way, the process that led the participants to a dialogical and personal position in the flow of social discourses about homosexuality they are involved in.