"A human being is not a suit or a shoe!": the construction and performance of identity in personal narrative

Abstract

Much of social science research and interpretation is undertaken with the aim of objectivity in order to posit hypotheses and make predictions about human behavior. In contrast, this thesis provides an in-depth, contextualized study of one individual, a Lebanese inunigrant, by a researcher who, as his daughter, can provide vastly different, and yet just as valuable, interpretational information about the human condition. In order to uncover such in-depth, diachronic information, this thesis includes the use of various techniques, including the interview, the recording of a performer-controlled life story, and the documentation of personal experience narratives. The narrative of the performer's life story, a predominately non-directed performance, is compared to an extended passage from a directed interview which concentrated on traditional Lebanese medicine and beliefs about health. This comparison will uncover the differences of the two methods as well as reveal the dynamics of tradition within the family as the performer/narrator teaches the author, his daughter, the specifics of customary Lebanese beliefs and behavior. In addition, the comparison of these two methodologies will also address the philosophical issues of an "insider" doing subjective research. These two genres of oral narrative, the life story and the interview, will also provide complementary contextual information for a fuller understanding of what it means to the narrator to be an immigrant to America, a Lebanese father, an older man, and a human being with a sense of worth and dignity.