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© 2008 Sage Publications
The Narrative Construction 10.1177/1077800408314356
http://qix.sagepub.com
of the Self hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
In this article, the authors use the metaphor of the rhizome of the French philoso-
phers Deleuze and Guattari as an experimental methodological concept to
study the narrative construction of the self. By considering the self as a
rhizomatic story, the authors create a story structure that not only offers a
useful view on the way in which people narratively construct their selfhood but
also stimulates an experiment with alternative, nontraditional presentation
forms. The researcher is no longer listening from a distance to the stories of
the participant and subsequently represents these stories. She or he becomes
a part of the rhizome. The authors illustrate this rhizomatic approach and its
research possibilities by presenting story fragments from their research.
Authors’ Note: We thank Charlotte for sharing her story with us. We also thank Norman K.
Denzin and the reviewers of Qualitative Inquiry for their usefull comments.
1
2 Qualitative Inquiry
I have a lot of hobbies, especially sports, tennis and hockey, I really enjoy
that and I want to do it well, just like at school. I’m in my last year and
get good grades, I expect a lot from myself. . . . Wait a minute, look,
this is a photo of my dog who ran away a while ago. When I was six he
showed up and my dad wanted a dog and me and the others, my mom
and my sisters liked the idea too.
The gap that we experienced between the traditional story notion and
the manner in which Charlotte told us about herself automatically raised the
following question: Are the narrative characteristics—as described in the
traditional story notion—actually typical for human nature? The postmodern
4 Qualitative Inquiry
perspective that everything is a story (Currie, 1998) stems from the idea that
traditional story characteristics are not inherent in stories, nor in people, but
rather must be viewed as sociocultural constructs (see Butler, 1990; Linde,
1993; Maan, 1999). Numerous inter- and intracultural research projects
(e.g., Carrithers, Collins, & Lukes, 1985; Foucault, 1975, 1976, 1988; Geertz,
1973; Schneebaum, 1969; Shorter, 1977) have shown that the way people
view themselves and tell about themselves is not universal and that the tradi-
tional story characteristics and also the traditional story itself are no more
than effects of discourse, creations that are used within certain subcultures.
Postmodern narratologists hence assume that as narrative characteristics are
not inherent in human nature, a universal definition of the essence of a story
is impossible. Although the vagueness and lack of boundaries that are typical
for the postmodern story notion make it impossible to clearly define what a
story is or is not, we do find several characteristics in postmodern narrative
theory (see Currie, 1998; Gibson, 2004; Herman & Vervaeck, 2005) that are
considered as “typical” for postmodern stories:
gaze and the means by which the object/subject is being constituted” (the
co-constructed character of the self-story and the position of the researcher
herein; Davies et al., 2004, p. 361). Furthermore, we argue that the metaphor
of the self as a rhizomatic story contributes to dealing with the tensions in
the ambivalent practices of reflexivity that risk to slip inadvertently into
constituting the very real self that transcends the constitutive power of
discourse (Davies et al., 2004).
Before describing the metaphor of the rhizome, its characteristics, and
its usefulness to reflect on narrative selfhood, we would like to emphasize
that applying this metaphor does not necessarily mean that we will remain
entirely consistent with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Adopting
the words of Deleuze and Guattari (1976), “Thinking is experimenting!”
and our application of rhizomatic thinking to narrative selfhood must be
viewed as a thought experiment and not as a closed methodological or theo-
retical vision. This is in line with Deleuze and Guattari’s resistance to every
form of totalitarian thinking and to primarily try to stimulate new forms of
thinking. We are therefore looking not for the answer, the methodology, or
the theory to explore narrative selfhood but rather for a new and possible
perspective that can be a supporting framework in the labyrinth of narrative
research practices.
Multiple Entryways
When we view selfhood as a rhizomatic story, we assume that there is
no single correct point of entry that can lead the researcher to “the truth”
about the selfhood of the participant. We completely let go of the illusion
of “the so-called objective all-seeing eye/I” (Davies et al., 2004, p. 363) that
can capture the reality, the real narrative self of someone. In contrast to the
traditional story, which has only one entry and exit point (the beginning and
the end), selfhood as a rhizomatic story has many possible entryways, and
each entryway will lead to a temporary rendering of selfhood. This implies
that there is no such thing as a fixed authentic, prediscursive self that exists
independent of the speaking. To use Barthes’s words, “We give birth to our-
selves in our writing” and speaking (in Davies et al., 2004, p. 365). This
means that the birth of selves is coincidental with the speaking and that we
speak ourselves as multiple in the multiple stories we create of ourselves.
The self as a noun (stable and relatively fixed) is moved to the self as a verb,
always in process, taking its shape in and through the speaking (Davies
et al., 2004). Each time we speak, at the same time a new self is born, embod-
ied in the story constructions—able to be spoken and read in multiple ways
(Davies et al., 2004). So each time the researcher asks a participant to tell
about herself or himself, only one or a few possible and temporal entryways
8 Qualitative Inquiry
into the rhizomatic network are taken. Which entries are taken can depend
on many factors, but will, among other things, be codetermined by the audience
to whom the participant is speaking (in the first place, to the researcher), the
context within which the speaking takes place (the social and cultural dis-
course context, the research context), the research question (the way the
researcher presents the research and asks questions), the positions of partici-
pant and researcher (e.g., age, gender, objectives, ideas and ideologies, etc.),
and the “gaze”—both the reflecting or critical gaze of the other (in the first
place, the researcher) and the controlling self-disciplining gaze (Davies
et al., 2004) of the speaking participant herself or himself. Along with this,
the researcher becomes part of the rhizome: “As soon as you’re in, you’re
connected.” As researchers, we cannot possibly remain outside the rhizomatic
story as “objective observers”: We are within the rhizomatic story as a part
of the dynamic construction process.
Suppose we view the narrative selfhood of Charlotte as a rhizomatic story
with multiple entries. What exactly does this mean?
To begin with, the principle of multiple entries implies that we assume
that something like the right entry, the right question to discover Charlotte’s
selfhood doesn’t exist. What would the right entryway be anyway? When
something like a “true core self” doesn’t exist and when the selves of Charlotte
are born and reborn each time she speaks, there cannot be only one correct
entryway to selfhood.
Just as the other research participants, Charlotte indicates that she doesn’t
know where to start her story,
After a while she simply says that she’ll tell what she’s thinking at that
moment, after which she enters her story with the period when she first
started to eat less:
So last year, or was it two years ago in the summer, I wasn’t happy with
myself. I didn’t feel fat, but I didn’t feel good about myself and I started to
eat less and less, I didn’t think I was pretty, but I still ate.
Why does she—or is it we?—take(s) this entry? Would she take the same
entry if, in another context, she would tell someone else about herself?
A bit later in the conversation, I asked her this question:
Researcher: When I told you in the beginning of our conversation that you
could tell about yourself, that you could tell about what’s important to
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 9
you, you said that you found it difficult to know where you should start.
Then you started to tell about the period when you started to eat less.
Would you start your story there if you would tell it to someone else, for
instance someone new who you meet and who asks you to tell about
yourself?
Charlotte: No, I would never tell that part, never that part of myself which
I now told to you. No . . . I even think that I wouldn’t ever tell it to
someone new who I met . . . for me it’s part of the past. I told you
because I know you’re interested in it, for your research and stuff.
Charlotte’s reply clearly shows that the entry someone uses must be placed
in the context within which the telling takes place. Charlotte starts her story
with telling about that part of herself that she thinks is important for me, for
my research. The discourse context implicitly determines the possibilities of
the speaking subject. Because Charlotte knows that I’m interested in the way
people who have received a diagnosis tell about themselves, she tries to
constitute herself as a “good” participant, that is, a person who tells about her
or his experiences of getting a psychiatric diagnosis. In other contexts, to
other persons, she would probably take very different entries, construct very
different stories about herself. However, this does not mean that the story
Charlotte tells about herself cannot be considered as “real” or “true.” To use
the words of Saukko (2000), the individual stories of persons are
real and rich accounts of how they have used and been used by diverse dis-
courses in a particular local situation. Even if the individual stories are true
per se, they are only a part of a larger discursive panorama. (p. 303)
The self both is and is not a fiction, is unified and transcendent and frag-
mented and always in the process of being constituted, can be spoken of in
realist ways and it cannot, and its voice can be claimed as authentic and there
is no guarantee of authenticity. (p. 384)
Every speaking, every voice, and thus every manifestation of the self is
embedded in a specific discourse context, a context that on one hand makes
the speaking possible but on the other hand shapes and limits what can be
said in a particular situation. Consequently, it is important that one as a
researcher is aware and reflexive of the fact that the discourse context and
“the gaze” (also the one of the researcher herself or himself) have an influence
on the narrative construction process of selfhood.
10 Qualitative Inquiry
Multiplicity
Working with the principle of multiplicity, we can view narrative self-
hood as a multitude of stories that cannot get reduced to one whole by either
the participant or the researcher of the story. In contrast to those working
within the traditional story notion, who emphasize the need for the creation
of unity within the heterogeneity or multiplicity, here the assumption is that
there is not one all-inclusive, traditional story within which a subject can
place all her or his self-experiences and recognize herself or himself. To the
contrary, there are a multitude of possible stories, each of which, depending
on the entry that is taken, leads to different and new constructions of self-
hood. The “self-as-a-story” can always be told by different “I’s” with the
result that the concepts of a long-term plot or necessary continuity in time
and space are no longer relevant. The stories that participant and researcher
co-construct thus offer no more than a fleeting glimpse of the multitude of
possible stories that could be constructed. At the moment when the partici-
pant speaks about herself or himself, she or he creates a momentary, context-
bounded self. Although the speaking “I” is multivoiced and always shifting,
usually it will—from a human urge for structure—try to create a continuity
and unity in the telling. As a consequence there exists a continual ambiguity
between the multiple/always shifting I that is an effect of speaking and the
I that (proceeding from the dominant traditional discourse of selfhood as an
essential fixed entity that has substance independent of speaking) seeks for
unity and fixity. Rhizome thinking views this unity and fixity as an illusion,
as each telling is always local and temporary. Within the rhizome, “unities”
can be viewed as temporary takeovers by one story construction with the
result that other possible constructions at that moment (for whatever reason)
are excluded. This implies that at a specific moment and in a specific context
a certain construction can dominate and create the illusion for the partici-
pant and/or the researcher that this construction forms a whole and that it is
the only possible, true story. But rhizome thinking always keeps at the back
of the mind that this is merely an illusion because many other stories can
exist alongside this one that don’t get illuminated at that moment.
Viewing selfhood as a multitude does not mean that we lapse into complete
chaos or fragmentation. People sometimes need structure and the idea that
they are individuals who are capable of giving a coherent meaning to their
own and others’ lives. This need gets satisfied by the (co-)construction of
temporal, context-bound self-stories that can create the illusion of “whole-
ness,” “coherency,” and “clarity.” At the same time, thinking in terms of a
multiplicity of story constructions makes it possible for selfhood to not be
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 11
bound within one coherent meta-story and to see itself in all its shifting, con-
tradictory multiplicity and fragility (Davies et al., 2004). Each entry of the
rhizomatic story leads to other, sometimes contradictory, story fragments.
The “self-as-story” need no longer be viewed as an embroidered quilt (a com-
plete, organized whole) but rather as a patchwork of infinite, never-ending
narrative constructions about oneself. Through time, the stitching of the
patchwork quilt takes on a course that connects certain elements, providing
a time-limited embroidered piece that, however, could never account for the
entire self (see also Saukko, 2000). In this stitching, there is always a contin-
ual ambiguity between the multiple or always shifting I and the traditional
I, that seeks for unity and continuity in its telling. The result of that is a
never ending quilt of which certain parts have an embroidered motif, while
other parts are patched without following an organized pattern.
When we link the principle of multiplicity back to the example of
Charlotte, this means first of all that we assume that Charlotte’s narrative
selfhood is composed of a multitude of stories which cannot be reduced to
one whole and of which we—as researchers only get a glimpse of. Even when
we only look at the story fragments we used as an example, we notice that
these do not form one unity but consist of a multitude of story elements, a
multitude of different voices, some of which are coherent and linearly struc-
tured, while others are contradictory.
I remember that I used to read books, novels about girls who thought they
were fat, and once I gave a presentation about it. Maybe that’s the reason,
what made me actually get it. . . . I think that it comes from those books.
12 Qualitative Inquiry
She views this story construction at the moment she tells it as the truth. At
that moment, there is a temporary take-over by this story construction with
the result that other possible constructions are excluded. But the fact that
she says a little bit later that her psychologist thinks that it could be other
things, other possible connections already shows that other entryways and
stories can exist which are not taken at that moment:
The psychologist says it’s other stuff, that it has to do with my relationship
with my parents . . . but I don’t believe that
This fragment from Charlotte’s story nicely shows how a certain connection
can be broken and a new connection can appear to take its place. Charlotte
and her psychologist co-created a new possible entryway in the rhizomatic
story network to look at “her” anorexia. This example shows also the impor-
tance of discourse and the presence of the gaze of the “Other” in the con-
struction process of selfhood. Charlotte constructs and reconstructs her
selfhood in the language that is available to her and in her interactions with
others: psychologists, researchers, friends, parents. The voice that she speaks
is therefore never a “pure” voice; it is always a voice that is shaped by the
available discourses (Saukko, 2000).
Cartography
The principle of cartography implies that we can compare narrative self-
hood with a dynamic map of narrations (and not with a tracing of reality),
a map that is always open and always changing. The narrations someone
tells about herself or himself are never complete; they form an ongoing
process of co-construction and co-reconstruction. As a researcher, one can
thus never have a view on the complete map of one’s participant, seeing that
this map is co-constructed, multiple, and constantly changing. We can only
explore several temporal regions and paths knowing that we are taking part
in the exploration.
Looking back on my conversations with Charlotte and everything she
told me about herself, I could conclude by saying that Charlotte and I
made a trip together like two adventurous nomads: We passed through
and settled temporarily in certain parts of the map, other parts we only
caught a glimpse of, and still others remain unknown to us. After our joint
trip, our nomadic trails don’t die; they grow further according to other lines
and connections.
14 Qualitative Inquiry
A Temporary Conclusion . . .
The fact that a rhizome as such cannot be presented does not mean,
however, that we cannot extend rhizomatic thinking to thinking about presen-
tation. As we have already emphasized in this article, as researchers we are
automatically confronted with limitations of which we must be aware and
which we must necessarily accept. We can never know the “complete” narra-
tive selfhood of people, the “complete” map of the rhizome. And the same
is true concerning presentation: We can never map the “complete” rhizomatic
story from which a person derives her or his selfhood. We can only present
one of the many possible context-bound, co-constructed presentations of
the self. All of this does not mean however that narrative research is less
interesting. To use the words of Deleuze and Guattari once again: “You can
enter a rhizome wherever you like, no single entryway has the privilege.
The only thing that changes depending on your choice of entryway is the
map of the rhizome.” Although researcher and participant will only travel a
few parts, a few landscapes of the map, these landscapes can contain much
valuable information.
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 17
Notes
1. The I speaking here refers to the voice of Jasmina Sermijn, the first author. Charlotte is
an 18-year-old girl who was diagnosed 2 years ago as anorexic. Since the age of 16, when she
was admitted to a hospital, she has been regularly supervised by doctors and a psychologist.
At the time of the interview, she was in her last year of secondary school and intended to go
to the university the following year.
2. This research addresses the way people who have received a medical or psychiatric diag-
nosis in the course of their life construct their selfhood narratively. During an initial phase in
this research, five people were questioned. With questioning, we refer to multiple, regular
conversations in which the participants told about themselves, their lives in general, and their
experiences with psychiatry. Most of these conversations were tape-recorded and then tran-
scribed. Charlotte was one of the participants with whom we had multiple conversations. At
her request, her name has been changed in this article.
3. We refer here to the “quilt metaphor” used by Deleuze and Guattari (1987, pp. 474-500;
also see Saukko, 2000). An embroidery quilt is a quilt that has a central motif (even if
extremely complex) and that exists out of a continuous pattern that forms a whole.
4. We also find this idea of the narrative self as a traditional story in traditional biographic
research (for an overview, see Angrosino, 1989; Bertaux, 1981; Langness & Frank, 1981;
Plummer, 1983), in which the life or the self of the research participant is presented as a com-
plete, coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end.
5. Term derived from Gibson, following Foucault and Derrida (see Herman & Vervaeck,
2005, p. 114).
6. With the metaphor of the patchwork quilt, Deleuze and Guattari (1987, pp. 474-500;
also see Saukko, 2000) refer to a quilt as a never-ending work of juxtaposition of disjunctive
elements. A patchwork quilt has no center, and the basic motif (the patch) is multifaceted.
18 Qualitative Inquiry
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Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 19
Jasmina Sermijn is a systemic therapist and a doctoral student in the Faculty of Psychology
and Educational Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her research concerns explorative
study of the interaction between psychiatric diagnoses and the construction of selfhood.
Patrick Devlieger, PhD, is senior lecturer in the Department of Social and Cultural
Anthropology of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and visiting lecturer in the Department of
Disability and Human Development of the University of Illinois at Chicago. His fields of
interests are anthropology, disability studies, and ethnographic research.
Gerrit Loots, PhD, is lecturer in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the
Vrije Universiteit Brussel and visiting lecturer at the Department of Special Needs Education
of the Universiteit Gent. His fields of interests are psychotherapy and special needs education.