Article published In:
Narrative InquiryVol. 24:1 (2014) ► pp.1–27
Agency in illness narratives
A pluralistic analysis
In this essay, I argue that structural approaches to narrative articulate identity and agency as internal constructs. As such, these analyses neglect the roles of institutional and social factors. A pluralistic analysis of these illness narratives, such as the one offered in this essay, can help narrative scholars better understand how these forces interact with the individual experiences of people living with illness in supporting and constraining agency.
Keywords: empowerment, oral histories, illness narratives, narrative analysis
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