Identity: Nominalisation, Authenticity and Incoherence

Abstract

In this chapter I start where it all begins — with understandings of identity at a micro level. I consider digital stories as sites of active social and political negotiation that enact personal identity. Drawing on textual analysis of stories, interviews with storytellers and observations of identity negotiations in flux, I consider identity from the point of view of individuals actively engaged in asking ‘who am I?’ and ‘how will I represent myself?’. While discussing these generalised processes I consider pertinent theories of identity put forth in popular psychology, post-structuralist philosophy, postmodernism, narrative theory and queer theory.