My Story, My Life, My Identity

Abstract

In this article, the author looks at the use of the methods of life stories or biographical interviewing in research on personal and social identity. She presents the rationale behind the use of the method and its basic procedures and then moves on to a discussion of the concept of identity. To demonstrate the relevance of this method for the study of identity construction, she presents examples from three life story interviews with Jewish Israeli young adults, all born in the mid 1970s. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of using life stories for understanding an individual's sense of identity.