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Article In: Narrative Inquiry: Online-First Articles

“I don’t follow their whims!”

Narrative evaluation and blaming culture in personal stories of immigrant caregivers from post-Soviet states

ORCiD logo with link | Northeastern University
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Abstract
The capacity of narratives to reflect broader ideologies has been well documented (e.g., (2008). “We’ve never been close, we’re very different” Three narrative types in sister discourse. Narrative Inquiry, 18(2), 206–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), but the role of narrative evaluation (Labov, W. (1972). The transformation of experience in narrative syntax. In W. Labov (Ed.) Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English Vernacular (pp. 354–396). University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) in this process has received less attention. This study showcases how narrative evaluation can serve as a central arena for ideological work. I examined personal stories about the issue of native language maintenance in the next generation offered by three multilingual caregivers from former Soviet states residing in the United States. This examination illustrates how the caregiver-narrators effectively employed all three narrative evaluation types (internal, embedded, and external) to surface a range of beliefs about the issue and to favor belief in parental agency as the key to maintaining a native language in the next generation. This favoring, in turn, reflects a broader blaming culture, according to which mothers must be agentive to meet unrealistic expectations of idealized motherhood with the goal of avoiding societal blame.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical background
    • Narrative evaluation
    • Mothers and blaming culture
  • Methodology
    • Project description
    • Study participants
    • Individual research interviews
    • Data analysis procedure
  • Analysis
    • Internal evaluation and social expectation of parental agency
    • Embedded and external evaluations and belief in parental agency
      • Failing to implement belief in parental agency
      • Succeeding in implementing belief in parental agency
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Author queries
  • References
References (38)
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