Identity, self, narrative

By tradition many narrative researchers interested in questions about identity have focused on interview narratives and especially on their discursive organization in terms of coherence and referentiality. This paper argues that other aspects than coherence are of importance in negotiating identity. Examples are taken from narrative research to show the ways in which persons with dementia illnesses, brain injuries, and related problems actually use and tell stories in order to claim various identities. There is a special focus on the way the storytelling activity and all kinds of expressive resources are used in order to establish and negotiate identity.