Gendered Autobiographical Memory: Feminist Approaches to Theory and Method

Abstract

Sense of self and autobiographical memory are inextricably intertwined. In this chapter, we use a feminist lens to review the literature on autobiographical memory focusing on gender as conceptualized and assessed in three simultaneously embedded contexts, the local context, the developmental context, and the cultural context. A personal narrative that is produced within a specific social interaction is influenced by that local context, as well as the developmental history of the individual as embedded within a sociocultural context that frames the structure and interpretation of individual lives. Importantly, in discussing the local context, we underscore the research interaction itself as a context and provide a critical analysis of methods used to study autobiographical memory. After explicating the local, developmental, and cultural contexts, we present three data sets that illustrate how any given autobiographical narrative is simultaneously influenced by the local, developmental, and cultural context in which it is expressed. We end the chapter with a final note about how our approach provides a new way to understand both stability and change in autobiography and narrative identity over time.