Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 25:2 (2015) ► pp.283–300
Incoherence matters
Life-stories after fundamental regime-change
Published online: 30 June 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.25.2.05gal
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.25.2.05gal
Life-stories are usually seen as showing considerable coherence even where they include turning points. More recent work has in contrast noted that “living” or “small narratives” do not follow this rule but contrastingly enable the pondering of unresolved life-events helping to develop understanding. This potential is particularly valuable in contexts of fundamental regime-change where changes of the value-system, such as after transition from state socialism to democracy, pose considerable challenges to narrative coherence. The article suggests reconsidering the question of coherence in life-stories and draws on two examples of individuals who experienced life in East Germany and German unification to argue that struggles for coherence in the life-story can be indicative of the lack of wider shared frameworks for the understandings of national events and historical problems.
Keywords: turning points, living narrative, life-story, meaning-making, coherence, regime-change
References (20)
Albright, D. (1994). Literary and psychological models of the self. In U. Neisser & R. Fivush (Eds.), The remembering self (pp. 19–40). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bach, J.P.G. (2002). ‘The taste remains’: Consumption, (n)ostalgia, and the production of East Germany. Public Culture, 141, 545–556.
Bamberg, M. (2006). Stories: Big or small: Why do we care? Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 139–147.
Boyer, D. (2005). Spirit and system: Media, intellectuals, and the dialectic in modern German culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bruner, J. (1994). The ‘remembered’ self. In U. Neisser & R. Fivush (Eds.), The remembering self (pp. 41–54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Collins, P. (1998). Negotiating lives: Reflections on ‘unstructured interviewing’. Sociological Research Online, 3(3). [URL].
Fulbrook, M. (2005). The people’s state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker. Yale University Press: New Haven.
Gallinat, A. (in print). Writing the socialist past in the democratic present. New York: Berghahn.
. (2011). Making narratives: Writing the East German past in the democratic present. In J. McLaughlin, D. Richardson & P. Phillimore (Eds.), Contesting recognition (pp. 187–205). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Halverson, E. (2008). From one woman to everyman: Reportability and credibility in publicly performed narratives. Narrative Inquiry, 18(1), 29–52.
Labov, W., & Waletzky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helms (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (2001). Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
. (1997). Narrative authenticity. Journal of Narrative and Life-History, 7(1-4), 83–89.
Oliveira, M. (1999). The function of self-aggrandizement in storytelling. Narrative Inquiry, 9(1), 25–47.
Rosenthal, G. (2004). Biographical research. In C. Seale, G. Gobo & D Silvermann (Eds.), Qualitative research practice (pp. 48–64). London: Sage.
Saunders, A., & Pinfold, D. (2013). Remembering and rethinking the GDR: Multiple perspectives and plural authenticities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Wieslander, Malin & Håkan Löfgren
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.