The primacy of narrative agency

Re-reading Seyla Benhabib on narrativity

Bibliographic Data

ID4367111
AuthorsSarah Drews Luca (0000-0003-4907-4556, University of Exeter, corresponding author), Sarah Drews Lucas (University of Exeter)
Year2018
Volume19
Issue2
Pages123-143
Publication date2018-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1464700117723591
OpenAlexW2757843013
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited30

The central claim of this article is that narrative agency, which I will define as a subject's capacity to make sense of herself as an 'I' over time and in relation to other 'I's, is a precondition for identity formation. I engage with two critiques of this claim: first, that narrative agency is limited by, rather than primary to, subordinating gender norms and, second, that a view of narrative agency as primary is committed to too ambitious a conception of the communicability of narratives. I argue that the narrative model survives these two criticisms by emphasising its irreducibility, its inherent relationality and its generative potential. I then suggest some of the ways in which a concept of narrative agency might help feminist critical theory to posit mutual recognition and respect as productive criteria for progressive self and social transformation

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy) · Epistemology · Identity (music) · Linguistics · Metanarrative · Narrative · Narrative identity · Narrativity · Reading (process) · Sociology · Subjectivity · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Philosophy

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