Accounting for Constraints

Abstract

This chapter analyses the student interviews through a discursive lens of constraint, showing that references to frustrated actions or intentions are a particularly common conversational resource for managing the students’ sense of culpability around loneliness experiences. The chapter adapts the constraint framework developed by Sealey (Critical Discourse Studies 9(3):195–210, 2012) and applies it to the loneliness disclosures discussed in the previous chapter. It is shown that students talk about a wide variety of constraints on their opportunities, or ability to be, sociable. These are regularly offered up as tacit justifications for experiences of loneliness and may be typologized as personal constraints (e.g. an introverted disposition), structural constraints (e.g. geographical separation from existing social networks) and cultural constraints (e.g. prevalent norms around student life and socializing at university). The chapter discusses each of these in turn, whilst also highlighting interesting variations on each theme. The chapter concludes by arguing for the notion of constraint to be considered an important interactional resource in managing sensitive emotional topics, such as loneliness.