Victim Narratives and Victim Selves: False Memory Syndrome and the Power of Accounts

Abstract

Scholars of social problems and social movements typically assume incumbents for the victim categories that campaigns and movements define. However, in a social constructionist framework, victimization is an interactional, discursive process rather than simply an objective fact about some persons or groups. Victim category membership must be appropriated interpretively; it cannot be assumed. Further, category membership must have some positive identity implications to explain why putative victims find such appropriation necessary and meaningful. This article explores these positive implications. It is based on a study of published accounts of both parents accused of past sexual abuse by adult children and “retractors,” one-time accusers who now reject their abuse “memories” and have withdrawn the abuse allegations they previously made. I argue that attending to the identity functions and social consequences of personal accounts usefully expands research by opening up neglected dimensions of claims-making activity and exploration of the relationships among victim categories, category membership, and selfhood.