Sunteți pe pagina 1din 19

Qualitative Inquiry

Volume XX Number X
Month XXXX xx-xx
© 2008 Sage Publications
The Narrative Construction 10.1177/1077800408314356
http://qix.sagepub.com
of the Self hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com

Selfhood as a Rhizomatic Story


Jasmina Sermijn
Free University Brussels, Belgium
Patrick Devlieger
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
University of Illinois, Chicago
Gerrit Loots
Free University Brussels, Belgium
University of Ghent, Belgium

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.

Keywords: narrative construction; self; rhizome; nontraditional presentation


forms

Researcher: As I already mentioned by e-mail and phone, I’m interested in


the way people who have received a medical–psychiatric diagnosis tell
about themselves. So the idea is that you tell me more about yourself and
your life today. I don’t have any prepared questions, so it’s really the idea
that you tell about what’s important to you. Every once in a while I’ll ask
a question if I haven’t understood something.

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

Charlotte: OK. [laughs] OK, so where can I start. . . .


Researcher: You really can start where you want to, tell about what’s important
to you.
Charlotte: Yeah, . . . let’s see, yeah, that’s hard. [laughs] Yeah, I just say,
that’s tricky, it’s so hard to start from nothing, . . . Yeah, maybe I’ll just
tell what I’m thinking right now. . . . 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. But I ate less and less and then I noticed
that that made me feel good and that I was so strict and imposed these rules
on myself. So I did that for a year and it got worse and worse, eating less,
eating nothing. It got worse and worse and then I really started to think
that I was fat. I think about something else: actually I was already inter-
ested in anorexia earlier. 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 don’t
know. . . . The psychologist says it’s other stuff, that it has to do with
my relationship with my parents . . . but I don’t believe that. I think
that maybe it comes from those books. . . . What would my parents
have to do with it? . . . Yeah, I knew it wasn’t good, but I didn’t want
to admit that something was wrong because I felt perfect, still not good,
but I felt better and better if I ate less and so and when I went to the hos-
pital I had to go to the psychologist every week for an hour and I really
liked that. In the beginning it was so hard there . . . then my eating
schedule was adjusted. I had to eat more, that was really hard, all these
things I never wanted to eat. Now I don’t have problems anymore with
it. Now I’m completely better. . . . I don’t know if I’m really completely
better but I feel completely better, but I don’t know if I’m completely
better. I feel completely better. This period’s kind of in the past. Yeah, it’s
still . . . if I see other girls eating an apple for lunch, then I think, “Uh
oh, they have anorexia.” I don’t want to talk with anyone about it, espe-
cially not with girls, it’s kind of being scared that others can do what I
couldn’t. Now I can just . . . if I went out to eat, “Oh no, then I have to
eat something again, oh no, not a school trip because then I have to eat
again. Oh no,” the whole time with food and now school trips aren’t a
problem and I can go on vacation again with others. There are still some
of those things in my head, there are still some of those things, I want to
eat healthy: no fries, I never want to eat that, no cake, that kind of thing
and still with other girls I notice what they eat. Watch what I eat. I used
to think about it all the time when I came home: “Oh, she ate an apple,
maybe she’ll get skinnier than me.” Now it’s not like that anymore, now
I think “Stupid girl.” I still notice that stuff, for instance yesterday there
was a girl at school who only ate an apple for lunch. Yeah, just an apple!
So now it’s all much easier, life’s a lot easier. Yeah, and otherwise . . .
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 3

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 above story fragment is an excerpt of the first conversation I had


with Charlotte1—the very first participant whom I met in the context of a
research project about the way narrative selfhood is constructed.2 When
I asked her to tell about herself and her life experiences, I noticed that the
manner in which she was telling was different from what I implicitly had
expected. I expected a coherent story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
This implicit expectation originates from the (Western) dominant traditional
discourse of how a self-story should look. The traditional notion considers
a story as “a linear and complete whole which is characterized by a plot, a
unity which is—just like an embroidered quilt—spatially and temporally
structured” (e.g., Bruner, 1986, 2002; Connelly & Clandinin, 1986, 1990;
Polkinghorne, 1995; Ricoeur, 1983, 1985, 1990).3 From this viewpoint, the
narrative self of a person can be seen as a traditional story which, although
it is temporally variable, is characterized by the presence of a plot that turns
the story (and the self) into a linear, structured whole.4 However, the story
fragment that Charlotte told me (just like the rest of her tellings) about
herself is neither completely coherent nor completely linearly structured
around one plot. On the contrary, Charlotte rather told an amalgam of
separate—sometimes contradictory—fragments of memories, feelings, events,
and ideas. Although some parts of her story do share some traditional story
properties, there are just as many contradictory and discontinuous story
elements present as well.
This experience formed the starting point for us to search for an alterna-
tive story notion, an alternative view on narrative selfhood that can offer
researchers a supporting framework when listening to, interpreting, and
presenting the stories that research participants tell about themselves.

Untamed Stories: Selfhood as a Postmodern Story

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:

• No synthesis of heterogeneity (the story elements are not synthesized


around a plot)
• No hierarchy but rather narrative laterality (a story is a compilation of
horizontal story elements)
• Acceptance of the “monster” (of the entirety of elements that do not fit in
a traditional story structure):5
• Monstrous time (nonlinearly organized time; e.g., story elements that
are difficult to date or that conflict with the separation among past–
present–future)
• Monstrous causality (a lack of clear, linear cause and effect relationships)
• Monstrous space (space that is constantly in motion and that lacks a fixed
central point)

These characteristics clarify that the postmodern notion looks at stories


through a completely different lens than does the traditional notion.
Although the traditional notion emphasizes the necessity of streamlining all
story elements into one complete, organized whole (like the motif of the
embroidered quilt), the postmodern notion emphasizes everything that is
excluded from the traditional story notion. The postmodern notion values
the acceptance of everything that does not fit in a streamlined story, of the
story elements that do not find a place in a traditional story structure. Just
like the motif of a patchwork quilt,6 a postmodern story is characterized not
by an embroidered, continuous pattern but by the juxtaposition of more or
less disjunctive elements. Consequently, postmodern stories are also referred
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 5

to as “untamed stories” or “les savages narratives” (Herman & Vervaeck,


2005, p. 114).
Adopting the postmodern story notion, we could view the self as an
untamed story, a story that consists of a heterogeneous collection of hori-
zontal and sometimes “monstrous” story elements that persons tell about
themselves and that are not synthesized into one coherent story from which
they derive their selfhood. This vision—the narrative self as a postmodern
story—is related to the postmodern idea that the self has no stable core but
is multiple, multivoiced, discontinuous, and fragmented (e.g., Davies &
Harré, 1990; Derrida, 1976; Gergen, 1989, 1991; Lyotard, 1979). From this
viewpoint, the self is not something that is inherently given, is fixed, or has
one core. On the contrary, the self can be compared with “a buzzing beehive
so agile and inconsistent, we can barely keep track of it” (Rosseel, 2001,
p. 127). In this “buzzing beehive” there aren’t fixed coherent and united
stories but rather variable, temporary, interacting components.
When we look back at Charlotte’s story fragment, we see that the post-
modern story notion clearly fits better with daily narrative practice than the
traditional story notion. The story that Charlotte tells about herself is not a
traditional story but rather a heterogeneous collection of sometimes stream-
lined, sometimes untamed story elements. Considering both story notions,
for the time being we can conclude that the postmodern notion creates
space for alternative story structures that connect better with the daily narra-
tive practices we come in contact with as researchers.
Despite the above-mentioned characteristics, the postmodern notion of a
self-story remains vague and offers little dread to narrative researchers in
their labyrinth of research practices. In the rest of this article, we therefore
elaborate a metaphor of the self-as-a-story, that of the narrative self as a
rhizome (Deleuze & Guattari, 1976). A metaphor is “a literary device that
figuratively specifies that X (a target) is Y (a source), thus providing a map
of one concept to another” (Schuh & Cunningham, 2004, p. 325). But
metaphors are “more than simple literary devices, they are a foundation for
human thought processes” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, quoted in Schuh &
Cunningham, 2004, p. 326) and “guide our views of the world and our
inquiry into its characteristics” (Schuh & Cunningham, 2004, p. 325). By
comparing the narrative self with a rhizomatic story, we create a vision that
can help researchers to reflect on the abstract concept of narrative selfhood,
on the way selfhood is narratively constructed, and on their own positions
in this construction work. When we use the word reflect here, we refer to the
fact that “the researcher understand that she/he is also caught up in processes
of subjectification and sees simultaneously the object/subject of her/his
6 Qualitative Inquiry

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.

The Rhizome as a Metaphor for the Narrative


Construction of Selfhood

A rhizome is an underground root system, a dynamic, open, decentralized


network that branches out to all sides unpredictably and horizontally. A view
of the whole is therefore impossible. A rhizome can take the most diverse
forms: from splitting and spreading in all directions on the surface to the
form of bulbs and tubers. The most important characteristic of a rhizome is
that it has multiple entryways. From whichever side one enters, as soon as
one is in, one is connected. There is no main entryway or starting point
that leads to “the truth.” “The truth” or “the reality” does not exist within
rhizomatic thinking. There are always many possible truths and realities that
can all be viewed as social constructs. The existence of multiple entryways
automatically implies multiplicity. With the principle of multiplicity, Deleuze
and Guattari refer to the existence of a multiplicity that does not get reduced
to a whole on subject or object level but rather only consists of definitions
or dimensions. The notion of unity only appears when a particular dimension
(e.g., a particular discourse) takes over. But such a takeover can only be
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 7

viewed as an artificial unity in the multiplicity. Within the multiplicity, there


is no clear hierarchy, structure, or order. This implies that each point of a
rhizome can be connected with any other point in the rhizome (the principle
of connection), and at whatever point a rhizome is ruptured or destroyed, it
will always grow further according to different lines or connections (the
principle of asignifying rupture). Deleuze and Guattari compare the rhizome
with a map (the principle of cartography) and not with a blueprint or a tracing.
Just like a map, a rhizome is open, receptive to include changes constantly.
Here, we encounter the characteristic of multiple entryways: A map always
has multiple entryways, all of which are equally good or equally important.
With a map, one can start where one wants; no single entryway is privileged.
The only thing that changes as one chooses a different entryway is the map
of the rhizome itself (Deleuze & Guattari, 1976).
How can this metaphor of the rhizome help researchers to reflect on the
narrative construction of selfhood and their own positions in this process of
construction? To explore this question, we take each of the characteristics or
principles of the rhizome and apply them to narrative selfhood. We illustrate
these principles using story fragments of Charlotte.

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,

Where can I start? . . . It’s so hard to start from nothing.

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)

Or to use the words of Davies et al. (2004),

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.

Now I’m completely better


I don’t know if I’m really completely better
I feel completely better
It’s the past for me, that period
There’s still things some of those things in my head . . .

How could we reduce such shifting and contradictory elements to a whole?


And imagine that one as a researcher would one way or another forcefully
create a coherent whole (by imposing an hypothetical linear causality, for
instance), wouldn’t this be a disservice to what Charlotte tells about herself?
The fact that rhizome thinking views ‘unity’ as an illusion, doesn’t mean
that Charlotte experiences the ‘unity’ and ‘coherence’ which she tries to create
between certain story elements as artificial. When she tells, for instance, that
she thinks that the reason or cause for ‘her anorexia’ stems from the fact that
she read many books about anorexia when she was young,

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

Connection and Asignifying Rupture


The principle of connection refers to the fact that the stories which people
co-construct about themselves are not always structured according to logical,
linear connections. The traditional ‘embroidered quilt’ (linear, ‘cause—
effect’) thinking lapses and is replaced by a ‘patchwork thinking’: a thinking
in terms of infinite possible connections (every line has the potential to be
connected with every other line), some of which (depending on the entryways
which one takes) are linked during the speaking, while many others remain
unlinked. Here too we can see the ambiguity between the multiple/always
shifting I and the I that seeks for coherence. However, the speaking I is always
in motion; it tries to make those necessarily situated connections (temporary
stitches in the quilt) that can help her or him to survive (Braidotti, 1994).
When Charlotte makes the causal connection between “her anorexia” and the
reading of books about girls who thought they were fat or the way her parents
treat her, she makes a situated connection that can help her—however
temporary—to grasp the origin of “her anorexia.”
However, this creation of “coherent” connections is not always possible.
When, for instance, we look back at the contradictory voices that emerge in
Charlotte’s story (“now I’m completely better,” “I don’t know if I’m really
completely better,” “I feel completely better,” etc.), we notice that at the
moment when she speaks these voices, she is not able to connect them with
logical–linear principles. The voices she struggles with at that moment
cannot be integrated into a coherent statement.
The principle of the asignifying rupture implies that the connections
between the story elements can be “shattered” at any moment and replaced
by new connections. In a rhizome, a rupture is never fatal, as new connections
that create new paths always arise.
We can see an example of such a rupture when we look at the following
fragment, which Charlotte told 2 weeks later:
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 13

. . . In the meantime I’ve also spoken with my psychologist about the


possible reasons, the causes for my anorexia. Do you still remember . . .
last time I said that I thought I got it because I started reading books about it
when I was young. But in the meantime I have another idea about it. . . .
I was thinking and I now I know that it didn’t come from that. Those books,
that was already the beginning, already a first symptom. Now I know that it
has to do with my parents, with the way they treat me. You know, I always
have to do all sorts of things for them, they know everything about me, they
want to control everything about me. And the anorexia, they couldn’t control
that. . . . It was my way to resist them . . . something that was only mine.

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

Rhizomatic Stories: Consequences for Presentation

The way we “look” at self-stories automatically has consequences for the


way we present these stories. The search for a possible presentation form is
something that every narrative researcher is confronted with. One way or
another, ultimately every narrative researcher must present the stories that
she or he has co-created with the participant to the reading public. The form
this takes varies depending on the researcher’s story vision. A traditional
researcher will be inclined to put all the participant’s narratives in a tradi-
tional story that is coherent around one plot with a beginning, middle, and
end. She or he will present the story from a distance (the all seeing eye/I that
sees and speaks about the “truth” of the other) as if she or he herself or him-
self is “outside the situation being described, hidden—an unobtrusive
camera—reporting, even on self activities” (Denzin, 1997, p. 224). This
presentation form creates for the reader the illusion that the presented story
forms a mirror of the “true” self/personality or life of the other, a mirror in
which the researcher remains absent. But what about the rhizome thinker?
How can she or he present the self stories and the way in which these stories
are co-constructed without lapsing into realist/traditional story writing?
A presentation of a rhizome on paper is impossible as such. How could
one grasp a rhizome (and consequently selfhood as a rhizomatic story) on
paper when one takes into account the principles of infinite entrances, multi-
plicity, infinite connections, resistance against ruptures, and cartography? A
rhizome is never tangible as it is infinite and always changing. The moment
one tries to put rhizomatic selfhood into text or book form, one automatically
goes against the most important principle, that is, the principle of multiple
entryways. In contrast with everything someone co-constructs about herself
or himself during her or his life, a paper text or book necessarily only has
one or a limited number of entryways and exits. Besides, every paper text
fixes—less or more—that which is written in it; its mobility and openness
are always limited.
What does this mean for narrative researchers? First of all, this means
that narrative researchers have to let go the idea that they can present the
“complete” rhizomatic selfhood of their participants (this is impossible
because a rhizome is always dynamic and never finished). Just as they can
only follow one or a few possible paths in the rhizomatic story, they can
only present these paths, knowing that this is merely a needle in a haystack.
When one views selfhood as a rhizomatic story, as a researcher one knows
that one is not presenting the participant’s true self but merely one of the
many possible context-bound, co-constructed presentations of the self. The
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 15

temporary constellation between researcher and participant creates a time-


limited possibility for the self to be understood and communicated, but what
results is never a pure or a true self; it is a self that uses and is used by the
broader discourse context wherein it is embedded (Saukko, 2000). When
we speak about “presentation” or “presenting,” one has to consider that
presenting itself is a performance (Denzin, 1997), a new construction, a way
of “framing reality” (Denzin, 1997, pp. 224-225) and not a pure represen-
tation of an outside reality. In any act of writing, the discursive constitutive
work is at play, the “gaze” is always present (Davies et al., 2004). This
implies also that we—as writerly researchers—are always present in our
texts. Just like in the speaking, in the writing we give birth to our selves and
the selves of others (also those of our participants!).
The idea that one as a researcher cannot present the “complete” rhizomatic
selfhood of one’s participant stimulates the researcher to experiment with
new forms of writing. She or he has to search for writing forms that do not
create the illusion of direct representability (and the absence of the
researcher therein) nor of the existence of a traditional self but rather evoke
the rhizomatic thinking to the reader. To evoke the rhizomatic thinking to the
reader entails that one as a writerly researcher tries to bring the rhizomatic
thinking with all its principles as much as possible in the written text and
that she or he herself or himself becomes “a part of the writing project”
(Denzin, 1997, p. 224).
For example, by explicitly pointing out to the reader that the text one
presents (possibly together with the participant) is but one of the many pos-
sible presentations (or entrances), one can avoid the illusory idea of the
existence of a true core self that can be “objectively” captured into written
words. In addition, one can also (although always to a limited extent) address
the other rhizomatic principles by allowing the multitude, the nonlinear
connections, the contradictions, the ruptures and new linkages (in sum, the
monster!) that occur in the stories to exist as much as possible and also to
explicitly present these on paper. One can do this by using poststructuralist
writing techniques such as writing from different “I” voices, writing in
columns, writing multiple storylines, introducing multiple entrances and
exits, and so on. Also, the idea that the researcher forms a part of the con-
struction and presentation work can be manifested in the text. The researcher
is not an “objective” narrator who stands outside or above the written text,
she or he is present in the writing. By visibly reflecting on her or his own
positions in the writing, as a researcher she or he dismantles the illusion of
direct representation and of the “detached” researcher with her or his “all
seeing eye/I.”
16 Qualitative Inquiry

An example of such reflexive, rhizomatic writing we can recognize is


what Denzin (1997, following Marcus, 1994) calls “messy texts.” Messy texts
are reflexive texts that try to break with the representational technologies
that are typical for the traditional, realist writing forms. They are reflexive
because they “are aware of their own narrative apparatuses, they are sensitive
to how reality is socially constructed, and they understand that writing is a
way of ‘framing’ reality” (Denzin, 1997, p. 224). A messy text “announces its
politics and ceaselessly interrogates the realities it invokes while folding the
teller’s story into the multivoiced history that is written” (p. 225). Just like a
rhizome, messy texts are “many sited, intertextual, always open ended, and
resistant to theoretical holism” (p. 224). They refuse “to impose meaning on
the reader” (p. 224), they “make readers work while resisting the temptation
to think in terms of simplistic dichotomies; difference, not conflict is fore
grounded” (p. 225). In contrast to traditional texts in which the writer remains
hidden as “an unobtrusive camera,” a messy text makes “the writer a part of
the writing project” (p. 224). But as Denzin points out, messy texts are more
than “subjective accounts of experiences” because they “attempt to reflexively
map the multiple discourses that occur in a given social space and hence they
are always multivoiced” (p. 225).

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

At last, rhizomatic thinking and writing seem to contribute to the problem


of subjectivity in reflexive research and writing. As Davies et al. (2004)
stated, by turning our gaze on the researching gaze from which we investi-
gate a phenomenon, we risk incorporating ourselves into our research as the
very real selves that transcendent the constitutive power of discourse. On the
other hand, it is not acceptable to write as if the author were not present at
each stage of the discursive constitutive work of research, when we reject the
objective I/eye of positivist research. By considering selfhood as a rhizomatic
story, researchers and participants are conceived as discursive processes,
taking continuously their shapes in and through speaking and writing narra-
tives about the narratives they have just told or written, always from the
continuously changing perspective of narrating after the just told. In rhi-
zomatic thinking and writing, a fixed or meta-linguistic subject is absent. The
subject—whether participant or researcher—is continuously (re)born in the
perspective of the narrating after the just narrated, always turning language
back on itself in a horizontally moving way, that is characterized by multiple
entryways, multiple connections and asignifying ruptures.

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

References
Angrosino, M. V. (1989). Documents of interaction: Biography, autobiography, and life
history in social science perspective. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Bertaux, D. (1981). Biography and society. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Braidotti, R. (1994). Nomadic subjects. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (2002). Making stories. Law, literature, life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York:
Routledge.
Carrithers, M., Collins, S., & Lukes, S. (Eds.). (1985). The category of the person. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1986). On narrative method, personal philosophy and
narrative unities in the story of teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 23(5),
283-310.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry.
Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2-14.
Currie, M. (1998). Postmodern narrative theory. New York: Macmillan.
Davies, B., Browne, J., Gannon, S., Honan, E., Laws, C., Mueller-Rockstroh, B., et al. (2004).
The ambivalent practices of reflexivity. Qualitative Inquiry, 10(3), 360-389.
Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for
the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20, 43-63.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1976). Rhizôme, introduction. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizofrenia.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Denzin, N. K. (1997). Interpretative ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Foucault, M. (1975). Surveillir et punir. Naissance de la prison [Discipline and punish: The
birth of the prison]. Paris: Gallimard.
Foucault, M. (1976). Histoire de la sexualité. I. La volonté de savoir [The history of sexuality.
Vol. I: The will to knowledge]. Paris: Gallimard.
Foucault, M. (1988). The political technology of individuals. In L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, &
P. H. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of the self. A seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 145-163).
London: Tavistock.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York. Basic Books.
Gergen, K. J. (1989). Warranting voice and the elaboration of the self. In J. Shotter & K. J. Gergen
(Eds.), Texts of identity (pp. 70-81). London: Sage.
Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self. Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York:
Basic Books.
Gibson, A. (2004). Towards a postmodern theory of narrative. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh
University Press.
Herman, L., & Vervaeck, B. (2005). Vertelduivels. Handboek verhaalanalyse [Narrative devils.
Handbook of narrative analysis]. Brussels, Belgium: VUBPress/Vantilt.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sermijn et al. / Narrative Construction of the Self 19

Langness, L. L., & Frank, G. (1981). Lives. An anthropological approach to biography.


Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp.
Linde, C. (1993). Life stories. The creation of coherence. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Lyotard, J. F. (1979). La condition postmoderne—Rapport sur le savoir [The postmodern
condition: A report on knowledge]. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
Maan, A. K. (1999). Internarrative identity. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Marcus, G. E. (1994). What comes (just) after “post”? The case of ethnography. In N. K. Denzin &
Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research (pp. 563-574). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Plummer, K. (1983). Documents of life. An introduction to the problems and literature of a
humanistic method. London: Allen & Unwin.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. In J. A. Hatch &
R. Wisniewski (Eds.), Life history and narrative (pp. 5-24). London: Falmer.
Ricoeur, P. (1983). Temps et récit 1. L’intrigue et le récit historique [Time and narrative Vol. I].
Paris: Seuil.
Ricoeur, P. (1985). Temps et récit 3. Le temps raconté [Time and narrative Vol. III]. Paris: Seuil.
Ricoeur, P. (1990). Oospronkelijke uitgave: Soi-même comme un autre [Oneself as another].
Paris: Seuil.
Rosseel, E. (2001). Het onschatbare subject. Aspecten van het postmoderne zelf [The invaluable
subject. Aspects of the postmodern self]. Brussels, Belgium: VUBpress.
Saukko, P. (2000). Between voice and discourse: Quilting interviews on anorexia. Qualitative
Inquiry, 6, 299-317.
Schneebaum, T. (1969). Keep the river on your right. New York: Grove.
Schuh, K. L., & Cunningham, D. J. (2004). Rhizome and the mind: Describing the metaphor.
Semiotica, 149(1-4), 325-342.
Sermijn, J., Loots, G., & Devlieger, P. (2007). Who are we? From a modern Cartesian self to
alternative views on selfhood. Qualitative Research Journal, 7(2), 36-51.
Shorter, E. (1977). The making of the modern family. New York: Basic Books.

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.

S-ar putea să vă placă și