Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, and: Women Escaping Violence: Empowerment through Narrative (review)

The power of words and the words of power are what Hilde Lindemann Nelson and Elaine J. Lawless write about, albeit in quite different guises. Nelson's book is primarily concerned with the words of power, whereas Lawless focuses on the power of words. Both engage in the meaning of the stories we tell and how these stories define ourselves.

Nelson begins with contingencies, such as our place in society, that affect how freely we can exercise moral agency. Identity markers indicate people as candidates for certain treatments, including what they can do and what they can know. She is interested in damaged identities, those identities tainted by a more powerful social group that views the members of less powerful groups unworthy of full respect, and in consequence, prevents them from occupying valuable social roles. Damaged identities inflict harm she calls deprivation of opportunity. When members of subordinated groups accept the damaged identity, they are harmed by infiltrated consciousness. In essence, Nelson puts new names on previous terms for the same experiences, i.e., discrimination and internalized oppression.

Damage to an identity can be balanced with a counterstory. Counterstories (stories and narrative are used interchangeably) repair the damage inflicted on identities by attempting to replace it with one that commands respect. Counterstories are a form of resistance; they are meant to alter the oppressors' perceptions of members of a group as well as to alter perceptions of self. But they are up against powerful forces in the form of master narratives found in history, fairy tales, court cases, literature, and movies. Nelson illustrates two types of communities: found communities such as family, and communities of choice based on voluntary association (friendships, political organizations, etc.). It is the communities of choice that allow reconstitution and renegotiated identities.

The fundamental narrative act is reading. For instance, novels tell us how human should live, broaden our horizons and allow us to see the complexity of our lives. They also teach us about the lives of those who are situated differently from us, i.e., allowing us to do what the sociologist Max Weber called verstehen, to imagine another person's reality. Nonetheless, Nelson cautions on the need to choose good novels. This means selecting fiction that is worth our time and acquiring narrative competence; that is, developing the ability to read literature with critical judgment.

Identities can change over time, but there must be objective validity for a new identity claim. Challenging received wisdom means that an individual who refuses to be exploited is negatively cast as not being a team player (even though they are not even on the team). Nelson notes that often, when an identity is contested, that very contestation can be used as further indication of a disreputable person.

Nelson provides an interesting discussion of the "arrogant eye" and the "loving eye." The arrogant eye takes its own standpoint as central, "their needs, opinions, desires, and projects as the salient one . . . dismissing and degrading anything about the members of the class that does not bear directly on their value to the dominant group" (173). The loving eye, according to feminist philosopher Marilyn Frye, recognizes that the damaged identity must seek out a community of like people. This community does not accord the master narrative legitimacy and it "does this by endorsing the credibility of the person who develops the counterstory" (176).

Counterstories can go bad. One way for this to happen is to single out a person's counterstory as the exception to the rest of their group. Another is to deny the master narrative of the group you belong to but to substantiate, and thereby reinforce, the master narratives of other groups. A good counterstory frees the entire group and other groups whose identities are damaged by negative master narratives.

The concept of...