Non-identity accounts: Personal myths, cultural scripts and narrative alignment

Abstract

This article explores narrative practices of reverse biographical identity work: how people compose and present accounts of non-identity formation. When asked to reflect upon a lost, unlived experience, participants drew upon shared discursive resources: in particular cultural scripts. They performed aligning actions to position their individual tale in relation to dominant, preferred versions of these wider social narratives, making moral status claims to being normative or transgressive. These techniques manifested in three aspects of the stories: personal myths and central themes, sequential ordering and teleological reasoning, and counterfactual emotion tones supporting motive talk. Just like stories of actualised identity, therefore, non-identity accounts forge meaningful connections between self and society, reflecting and enacting modes of narrative power.