COUPLES’ NARRATIVES:

CONSTRUCTED AND EMBODIED

Marnie Rogers, BA (Hons)

Alan Parry, PhD

Educational Studies in Psychology

University of Calgary

Overview

Embodied Empathy Co-constructing Stories,

Meanings, and Identities Co-developing “We-ness” Cohabitation Interviewing Couples Analyzing Storytelling Implications and Future

PossibilitiesRobert Duvall

Embodied empathy

Co-constructing stories

Stories serve as the primary means through which we create and express meaning in our lives (Bruner, 1991)

Stories do not just exist, but are actively constructed

Storytelling is an interactional and situated practice (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009)

Co-constructing meanings and identities

We create and re-create meanings and identities through storytelling

Identity is co-constructedCreated and negotiated through

dialogue

How are meaning and identity “done” in storytelling?

Co-action or joint action

“…the process of collaborative action from which all meaning is generated” (Gergen, 2009, p. xxvii)

“…these brief interactive moments between people, in which speakers and listeners must continually react to each other spontaneously and practically, with an active, responsive understanding…” (Shotter, 1997, p. 9)

Narrating the “self” Representing and enacting identity (Wortham, 2001)

The I and the Me (Bamberg, 2004)

Making and defending identity claims

ArielP

Co-constructing “we-ness”

Sense of being together in relationship

Shared relational identity

Yours, mine, or ours?Belongs to neither

partner, but is co-constructed between them

Couples’ stories as resources

Cohabitation is becoming more common and socially acceptable among couples of all ages

While once generally viewed as improper and immoral, there are now a variety of ways to understand cohabitation and its role in relationships

Cohabitation

A way to save money

Cohabitation is…

“Living in sin”Spending more time together and building intimacy

A step toward marriage

An alternative to marriage

Convenient…

A way to prevent divorce

A legal partnership

A test of compatibility

How do cohabitating couples talk and tell stories about their relationship, particularly about how they have constructed a sense of mutuality or

“we-ness” over their time together?

Research question

Participants7 heterosexual cohabitating couplesRecruited through the University of Calgary

MethodsStory-writing activity

○ One-page story about the history of their relationship

Semi-structured interview○ 60-90 minutes

Research methods

“Tell me about a moment or experience that has occurred since you moved in together that seemed to strengthen your sense of being a couple.”

“When did you first start to experience this sense of ‘we’ in your relationship?”

“How have others in your life noticed this ‘we-ness’ in your relationship? What is it that they might be noticing?”

“Have you heard anything new, different, or surprising in what you or your partner have said today?”

Examples of interview questions

Focus on storytelling as a social action

Attending to the “external” aspects of storytelling, including audience, purposes, functions, consequences, and shared plotlines (including common stories about relationships and cohabitation)

Analyzing stories as well as the practice of storytelling

Analyzing narrative reality

Gubrium & Holstein, 2009

Narrative WorkThe Hows of Storytelling

Analyzing narrative reality

Narrative EnvironmentThe Whats of Storytelling

Abbie: Umm I think it seemed like, the next...step in our relationship.

Tommy: I wanted to come home to her every day.

Charles: It was just a realization of, this is where we are in life.

Tyler: I was sleeping at your place all the time anyway. So it was more just a formality, I guess, to say okay, I’m actually living with you.

Talking about cohabitation

Cohabitation & marriage

M: So, I'd like to just kind of start off and see what it was that made you guys interested in participating in a study about this topic?

Dana: Oh, sure. So, we, well, we've been together over eight years, so we always get....like, for the last five years, we get questions about when are you going to get married? Why aren't you married?

Inviting responses about "we-ness"

M: Okay. Um, so have other people in your life noticed this we-ness or closeness in your relationship?

Bob: This wouldn't work if they didn't think, agree with what I was doing or think that we were both…happy and…had that we-ness.

Dana: The photographer, the race photographer, took a photo at like the perfect time and it’s like this awesome photo of us running together.

Bobby: Yeah.

Dana: And like holding hands across the finish line or whatever. But those have been very, like, ah…

Bobby: We moments

Dana: Strengthening we moments

Inviting responses about we-ness

M: Um so, and when did you first start to experience this sense of we in your relationship?

Bob: Um...it, well, always kind of it- it was definitely started happening before we were living together but, I think, since we were living together it’s accelerated...exponentially...

Inviting stories about we-ness

Inviting stories about we-ness

Sally: Yeah. I- I don't know. That's the weird thing about it is its not like one day you don't have it and then you wake up the next morning and then all of a sudden its there. Like it creeps up on you and you're totally not conscious of it until it…completely and utterly present and, and you just sort of notice oh, my life is utterly intertwined into yours.

Sally: Yeah, I know and it, it’s everyone has a different way that they sort of build their relationship together, its just for us it’s…I think a huge part of it is time together

Tommy: Mmhmm.

Inviting stories about we-ness

Bobby: But, that question about marriage and stuff like that, Dana got that a lot from her mom.

Dana: No I didn’t.

Bobby: Didn’t you?

Dana: No never.

Bobby: I thought you did?

Dana: No.

Bobby: Well she’d like subtly say stuff…

Dana: For like…no, like…she was…not…she was very quietly not happy with the fact that we moved in together…initially

Bobby: That’s true. Yeah, that’s true.

Co-narrating & Co-editing

Marnie: Mmhmm. And so was there a particular moment that helped establish your being a couple?

Charles: Ahm…I think it was before…our first fight. We…

Layla: Kick-boxing fight!

Charles: Yeah, kick-boxing fight!

(All laughing)

Co-narrating & Co-editing

Developing we-ness through our conversations

Charles: I think this in and of itself is…would build sense of we. Right? Like this…

Layla: Yeah, because you have to think about everything that's happened till now and…

Charles: Yeah, it’s, let’s do this together and we would be a good fit for this and then it does invoke this kind of conversation.

Developing we-ness through our conversations

M: Yeah, very good. And just to conclude, what has it been like talking about this topic with me?

Dana: Oh it’s good, I love…Bobby: I feel like another we moment

Dana: Yeah. I've had a lot of fun doing this. And, its like I know that we're gonna keep talking about this. You know what I mean? Like, this is…next Chiazzo, next time we're at Chiazzo for a coffee like we're probably like, you know what I mean?

Bobby: Yeah.

Dana: Yeah.

What do our responses to couples invite and how do these responses fit their

stories of “we-ness”?

Our reflexive questions and responses – what do they invite?

How are couples co-editing their stories of we-ness in response to our questions/responses?

Storied resources (+/-)

Future Possibilities

“Co-action is far more than words alone. Speaking and writing are bodily actions, and in this sense equivalent to all other actions taking place when we converse – smiling, laughing, gazing into each other’s eyes, shuffling the feet. All that has been said about co-action includes the entire coordination of bodies” (Gergen, 2009, p. 34)

Attending to couples’ bodily responses

as they talk and tell stories about their relationship

Marnie: And so it sounds like that sort of shared sense of where you’re going really contributes to your relationship in the present.

Tyler: Yeah, it keeps us centered…depending, like whatever the situation, we can always just like shrug it off. We’re like yeah, we have each other, we’ll have each other tomorrow, we’ll have each other the day after tomorrow. We’ll just keep going.

Going forward together

ReferencesBamberg, M. (2004). Narrative discourse and identities. In J.C. Meister, T. Kindt, W. Schernus, &

M. Stein (Eds.), Narratology beyond literary criticism (pp. 213-237). Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Bamberg, M. (2011). Narrative practice and identity navigation. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Varieties of narrative analysis (pp. 99-124). London, UK: Sage

Bamberg, M., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Talk & Text, 28, 377-396. doi:10.1515/TEXT.2008.018

Frank, A. W. (2010). Letting stories breathe: A socio-narratology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Gallese, V. (2003). The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity. Psychopathology, 36, 171-180. doi:10.1159/000072786

Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (2009). Analyzing narrative reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Shotter, J. (1997). The social construction of our inner selves. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 10, 7-24. doi:10.1080/10720539708404609

Shotter, J. (2011). Getting it: Withness-thinking and the dialogical…in practice. London, UK: Hampton Press.

Wortham, S. (2001). Narratives in action: A strategy for research and analysis. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press.

Contact us!

Marnie Rogers, BA (Hons)University of Calgary

marnierogers01@gmail.com

Alan Parry, PhDUniversity of Calgaryparrytouche@shaw.ca