AbellandStokoe2001

AbellandStokoe2001
BibType	ARTICLE
Key	AbellandStokoe2001
Author(s)	Jackie Abell, Elizabeth H. Stokoe
Title	Broadcasting the royal role: Constructing culturally situated identities in the Princess Diana Panorama interview
Editor(s)
Tag(s)	Discursive Psychology
Publisher
Year	2001
Language
City
Month
Journal	British Journal of Social Psychology
Volume	40
Number
Pages	417–435
URL	Link
DOI	10.1348/014466601164902
ISBN
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Series
Howpublished
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Abstract

We examine critically the two traditions of work that have informed discursive approaches to identity: social constructionism and conversation analysis. Within both strands, identity is theorized as a flexible phenomenon that is situated in conversations. But although constructionists locate identity within the social, such work remains at a theoretical and rather abstract level and often fails to interrogate the discursive practices through which identity is constituted. Conversely, this attention to the occasioning of identity in everyday talk is precisely the focus of the second, conversation analytic strand of work. Whereas constructionists attend to the wider cultural positioning of identities, conversation analysts resist commenting upon the social significance of what is constructed in interaction. Conversation analysis is therefore limited by its restricted notion of culture in the study of the situated social self. Despite the apparent conflict between these approaches, we suggest that a synthesis of the two provides a comprehensive framework for analysing identity. Drawing upon the BBC Panorama interview between Martin Bashir and Princess Diana, we explore how culturally situated identities are located in this conversational context. We conclude that analysts must not only attend to the micro-level organization of identities but also engage in a wider understanding of the cultural framework within which they are located.

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