Self, Time and Narrative

Re-thinking the Contribution of G. H. Mead

Bibliographic Data

ID7100697
AuthorsStevi Jackson (corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume7
Issue2
Pages123-136
Publication date2010-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLife Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1448-4528 • E-ISSN: 1751-2964
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14484520903445255
OpenAlexW2075876271
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited21

The idea of the self has re-emerged in recent sociological writing through the idea of the late modern project of the self and through Foucault's conceptualisation of technologies of self. Here, however I advocate a return to an older tradition of theorising on the self, deriving from the pragmatist thought of George Herbert Mead. In reading Mead's theorisation of the self in conjunction with his work on time I highlight the temporality, reflexivity and sociality of the self. Mead's approach, I argue, has a number of advantages for analysing the self and narrative constructions of self. It allows for human agency while insisting on the sociality of the self; it bridges the conceptual divide between the self as self-consciously fashioned and narrated and subjectivity as precarious and unstable; it eschews any notion of a fixed or core self while avoiding an overly fragmented and decentred view of the self; and, while conceptualising narratives of self as symbolic constructions, it acknowledges the actuality of past events and experience. Finally I suggest that this perspective could be particularly fruitful for feminist analyses of gendered and sexual selves. Keywords: G. H. Meadselftimegender Notes 1. For simplicity I am using the terms ‘story’ and ‘narrative’ interchangeably to denote the product of narration, but ‘narrative’ also refers to a process or form in which events are linked consequentially and episodically. 2. Others included W. I. Thomas Thomas, W. I. 1907. Sex and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar] (see Stanley Stanley, Liz. 1996. ‘Rejecting the legend, rereading Beauvoir, reinventing existentialism: The case for ontological ethics.’. European Journal of Women's Studies, 3.1: 461–493. [Google Scholar], this volume). 3. Mead moved with John Dewey from the University of Michigan when the latter was appointed to a professor in the new department of philosophy at Chicago. 4. The pragmatists’ emphasis on practical knowledge in the world, on human actors as creators of reality, resonated with Chicago sociology's focus on detailed ethnographic research on everyday life. Both also shared an interest in social reform. 5. The republication of The Philosophy of the Present in 2002 may also reflect—or produce—a revisiting of this work. 6. It is true that Mead often does refer to the self as a structure as well as a process—but it is a very fluid structure, constantly in motion and comprises a multiplicity of selves. 7. For a critique of postmodernism's failure adequately to address agency, see McNay McNay, Lois. 2000. Gender and Agency, Cambridge: Polity. [Google Scholar]. 8. Mead actually uses the words ‘reflexive’ and ‘reflexiveness’ only occasionally, but ‘the turning back of the experience of the individual upon himself (sic)’ (Mind 134), along with the idea that the self is both subject and object to itself is fundamental to his conception of mind, self and society. 9. In this respect the alternative, Foucauldian, version of contemporary pre-occupations with self-fashioning gives more weight to the social. The rise of a confessional culture (Foucault The History), the influence of the ‘psy’ professions (Rose Rose, Nikolas. 1989. Governing the Soul, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) and the development of new technologies of self (Foucault ‘Technologies’) are seen as offering culturally prescribed (rather than individual) modes of self-knowledge and self managements with which to analyse our inner selves, seek self-knowledge and pursue self-improvement. 10. W. I. Thomas, however, did have much to say about gender in his Sex and Society and, more significantly in The Unadjusted Girl, the most cited source of his ‘definition of the situation’. 11. As Stanley (‘Rejecting’), argues, this idea of self in relation to others can also be found in Simone de Beauvoir's philosophical writings—so here is another possible connection betwwen Mead's ideas and our feminist heritage. 12. Whisman Whisman, Vera. 1996. Queer by Choice, New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar] sees these as ‘conventionalised’ stories, which underplays the agency and reflexivity such narratives entail. Even where we draw on conventional narratives in constructing our own story, each of us actively constructs our own account of becoming and by no means all elements in it will be merely conventional. Available conventional narratives should not be thought of as determining the stories each person tells, but as cultural resources that are drawn on reinterpreted and re-shaped

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Determinism · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Reflexivity · Self · Social science · Sociality · Sociology · Subjectivity · Symbolic interactionism · Temporality · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender Studies · Philosophy

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