Narrative inquiry as cultural psychology

Abstract

In this article, I re-examine Jerome Bruner’s vision of narrative psychology that he laid out over two decades ago. In particular, I argue that narrative inquiry must focus on identities located in sociocultural contexts of transnational movement and migration. The contact of self with multiple forms of otherness — both subtle and violent — play a significant role in identity formation. I discuss two examples from the Somalian and Indian diaspora to show how the study of these fractured, shifting, and hybridized identities provide a very valuable site from which narrative psychology has an opportunity to remake itself as a field that continues to be relevant in a world that is rapidly becoming transnational, diverse, and global.