The Contradictory Self

Abstract

Within sociological writing on the self, Craib (1998) argues, we are given ‘a choice of being either a “plurality” or “assembly” of parts or a “more or less unitary” self’ (Craib 1998:5). Missing he argues is what ‘goes on “inside” the bearer of identity or identities, and the process of internal negotiation which this involves’ (Craib 1998:4). The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a turn to the self and a ‘frantic search for identity’ (Bauman 2001:152) but the identities we construct do not indicate a stable, core self, unchanging through each individual’s progress through life (Hall 1996). The self of late modernity is a process, continually under (re)construction rather than something we have. It can be seen as a project to be worked on (Giddens 1991), and improved, to be continually reconstructed in light of new experiences, challenges and understandings. Yet, paradoxically, at the same time as we are being urged to work on this self, we are urged to embark on a journey of discovery, to uncover our true, or core self. This is the contradictory self of the self-help and the CSA recovery literature (Woodiwiss 2005). In this chapter I look at these contradictory formulations and explore women experiences of finding, constructing and putting back together their own selves, both core and makeable, static and becoming.

Personhood... is not a matter of simply choosing a role that one somehow becomes aware of

(Grodin and Lindlof 1996:5)

I am pleased and happy to be the person I’m becoming.

(Sarah)