On Not Owning a Story

This project centres on questions of how people with non-normative identities, who do not - in various ways and for different reasons - ‘own a story’ about their origins or their identity, deal with this situation. It is, in that sense, about the experience of the ‘I’ in the social. It engages with the issue, aptly expressed by Susan Hekman, of ‘how our social practices disclose the reality that defines our social existence.’ (2010: 128) Its starting point is the notion of giving an account of oneself, of being called upon by an other, explicitly or implicitly, to produce an explanation of self, as indeed we commonly are every day. The question is, what happens if you cannot give an account of yourself because your narrative does not fit the ‘expected’ or dominant one? Drawing on a range of sources including online blogs, autobiographical accounts, interviews etc and on theories of identity, gender, and self, the project explores the accounts of those with challenging and challenged accounts of self.

Contact: Gabriele Griffin