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Volume 34, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1387-6740
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9935
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Abstract

Abstract

Applying Bamberg’s (2012) practice-oriented analytical framework for narrative identity as produced through specific linguistic behaviours, this research focuses on the context-specific construction of multiple identities in the accounts of Chinese leftover women (). It also seeks to investigate how they negotiate selves and handle struggles in both the storyworld and the storytelling-world by examining the trinity of form, content and context narrated in seven semi-structured interviews. This research reveals that these unmarried Chinese women attempt to narrate a positive positioning of self. They deconstruct the socially ascribed leftover identity but renegotiate a gendered self as either invisible or visible women integrated within an agentic ‘excellent’ () self, albeit somehow disrupted within the diverse embedding of patriarchal cultural accounts.

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2022-11-18
2024-10-08

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“By whom was I left behind?”
Narrative Inquiry 34, 53 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.21095.yan
/content/journals/10.1075/ni.21095.yan
/content/journals/10.1075/ni.21095.yan
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Chinese leftover women (sheng nü); identity struggles; linguistic constructions; narrative identity; narrative inquiry; self-positioning

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