Life Histories: The Negotiation of Self

Abstract

This paper is about life histories and their significance for understanding how experience is interpreted, incorporated and integrated into our identities. Using three autobiographies and one autobiographical novel, I argue that there is an equivalence relation between 'I' and 'me', conscious and unconscious, and present and past. The life history genre as considered as an anthropological methodology is shown to also have non-anthropological benefits. Life histories are hermeneutical devices for the individuals who create them, and for those who read them. It is suggested that the benefits realized for individuals may be generalized to communities.