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Nested Narratives: Biographical Accounts of Unlived Experience Across Three Narrative Orders

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  • Susie Scott

    (University of Sussex, UK)

  • Nina Lockwood

    (University of Sussex, UK)

Abstract

Studies of narrative identity have focused on positive formation: stories of ‘becoming’ who we are because of events that happened, people we met, and things that we said, did, or had. However, identities can also be negatively defined by things that we miss, lose, choose against, or events that never happened. Drawing on the sociology of nothing, this paper explores some ways in which biographical subjects may story their unlived lives and paths to unbecoming. We demonstrate this by analysing the same extract of data through three interpretive lenses, revealing different narrative orders: the intrapersonal, intertextual, and performative. Respectively, these refer to how nothing is narrated: self-reflexively by the experiencing subject, regarding a particular instance; as a sequence of thematically connected episodes, contextually emplotted within a general life story; and as a communicative act of telling, directed towards an imagined audience. Authors can move between these narrative orders, taking different temporal perspectives and producing ‘nested’ stories of alternative non-selves.

Suggested Citation

  • Susie Scott & Nina Lockwood, 2024. "Nested Narratives: Biographical Accounts of Unlived Experience Across Three Narrative Orders," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 29(2), pages 472-488, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:29:y:2024:i:2:p:472-488
    DOI: 10.1177/13607804231184353
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tim Markham & Nick Couldry, 2007. "Tracking the reflexivity of the (dis)engaged citizen: some methodological reflections," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 52408, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
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