2000 AERC Proceedings

M. Carolyn Clark
Texas A&M University, USA

Abstract: This study examines how one group of marginalized women, the incarcerated, construct their sense of self. Using the notion of nonunitary subjectivity to analyze life history narratives, I demonstrate how multiple positionings within available discourses serve to disadvantage these women.

 

The notion of development usually implies fundamental change (e.g., cognitive, moral, epistemic) that occurs in human beings over time and that is theorized in linear ways and according to unquestioned social norms. Alternative approaches have been offered more recently by feminists working from postmodern and poststructural perspectives who focus on the notion of subjectivity and seek to understand how it is constructed within the complexities of social interaction and discourse. This approach is particularly salient for the study of identity. Weedon (1997, p. 32) defines subjectivity as "the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world." Also implicit in this concept is the belief that the self is nonunitary, that it is "dynamic and multiple, always positioned in relation to particular discourses and practices and produced by these" (Henriques, et al., p. 3). While distinctions can, and usually should, be drawn between the terms subjectivity and self, for the purposes of this discussion I follow Griffiths (1995) and use them interchangeably and connect them to the concept of identity.

Riessman (1993), among many others, argues that subjectivity is best understood through the analysis of narrative, and Bloom (1998) has been particularly successful in using the concept of nonunitary subjectivity as an analytic tool, demonstrating how narrative makes visible the complexities and contradictions of the self. In this study I follow a similar approach. My purpose is to understand how women at the margins of society, in this case incarcerated women, construct their subjectivity or sense of self. I conducted extensive and unstructured life history interviews with 24 women inmates, then analyzed their narratives using a modification of the holistic-content approach outlined by Lieblich et al. (1998). For each woman I identified the overarching themes in her life narrative, then examined closely one or more portions of the narrative in which she appeared to be in dialogue with herself, usually within the context of one of the major themes. I then used that segment as a lens through which to view the theme more closely, paying particular attention to how her multiple subjectivities were made visible in this process and how she positioned herself within the various social discourses available to her. In this paper I demonstrate this approach in some detail with the story of one of the women, and then suggest how the complex subjectivity of these particular marginalized women can be conceptualized.

When I first met Sabine she told me that her life was about "hurt and pain." She wasn’t wrong. A black woman in her early forties, she had served four years of her 20-year sentence for the death of a child in her care. She was adamant in her claim that she was not responsible for the child’s death, and I believed her. She and her siblings grew up in a dysfunctional family, with an alcoholic father and an emotionally distant mother, in conditions of poverty that presented a significant burden for her. Her unhappy childhood moved quickly into a hurtful adulthood, with the horror of a gang rape at a friend’s house when she was 16, a serious suicide attempt after that, a series of disappointing and sometimes abusive relationships with men, and a continuous struggle with poverty. While she earned the distrust of those around her by a few minor acts of thievery, she had only spent a brief time in jail on a theft charge before her current conviction and imprisonment. Unlike all the other women I interviewed, she always seemed out of place in prison, and she clearly struggled to make sense of this experience. Her family had retained a lawyer who continued to plead her case, and several months after we met, her conviction was overturned and she was released.

Several overarching themes mark Sabine’s life narrative, the largest of which is her identity as victim. She has been actively hurt by others (being molested by her uncle, the rape,

the abuse and infidelity by men with whom she’s been in relationship), and she been hurt by circumstances (ongoing poverty, the absence of adequate emotional support and approval by her mother, her current conviction). And as we will see shortly, she is also hurt in significant ways by her own actions. The second major theme is the breaking of trust. She has been consistently disappointed by those she trusted and in her narrative she often gives voice to her own mistrust of herself. Perhaps even more hurtful to her is being distrusted by others, a dimension of this theme that appears again and again. Finally there is the theme of isolation. This gets expressed in terms of critical secrecy–she hides the story of the rape, and she tells no one in prison the nature of her charge (for their own protection, women who responsible for the death of a child are counseled to make up another crime). Her unfulfilled longing for love and acceptance from significant others isolates her emotionally, and she actively blocks painful memories and feelings, thus creating isolation within. When I asked her to give me an image of herself, she spoke of being wrapped in a hard shell, alone but protected from harm. I thought it was a particularly apt image.

It was in my initial attempts to analyze Sabine’s narrative that I saw the possibilities inherent in examining moments when the self seemed to be in dialogue with itself. About two-thirds of the way into the first interview, Sabine tells me three stories on top of one another, essentially unprompted by me. It was unusual for her to volunteer stories; initially she asked me to ask her questions about her life because she couldn’t freely talk about it, and I often had to ask for specific instances of certain things, like the impact of poverty on her as a child. But here she narrates freely. What I believe she is doing in these stories is trying to make sense of her identity as a criminal. Just before this section she was telling me about when she moved in with her older sister after she recovered from her suicide attempt. When she said they started not getting along anymore, I asked what led to that, and she told me the story of meeting her first husband and being jealous of her sister because she was flirting with him. She goes on to tell me that after she married this man, she discovered that he was a drug addict and that he was conducting a longstanding affair with another woman. She tries to hurt him by taking up with another man, only to be hurt herself when her husband finds out because from then on he was bitter towards her. On the heels of that, she tells the following three stories:

This passage is made up of three stories, the first of which centers around her mother-in-law. Wanting this woman’s approval–and not getting it–parallels her experience with her own mother, so this is a shadow story of that relationship. While she can’t explain to herself why her mother doesn’t give her the approval she craves, she can locate the rejection by her mother-in-law in her own behavior. Interestingly, though, the reasons why she stole the money from her are somewhat unclear to her–to pay the bills or perhaps to hurt her mother-in-law–which suggests that she remains somewhat of a mystery to herself here. Of even greater significance is the way she takes on the perspective of the disapproving mother-in-law and passes that harsh judgment on an objectified self: "If somebody comes and takes something that belongs to me...I probably would dislike you, too." In effect she’s saying that the woman is right to dislike her and that she dislikes herself. This is one of several places where she defines herself as unlovable. This is an underlying thread in the victim story she constructs–it’s as if she’s saying "I deserve to be a victim!" We don’t get a sense of the impact this act had on the mother-in-law, but we do hear Sabine’s pain very clearly. Things backfire on her–she is both the criminal and the victim.

The second story, shoplifting from Nieman-Marcus as a child, is in marked contrast to the first story; this is a lighthearted account of a childish prank, and we’re both enjoying it. It’s a comedic plot: three poor Black girls in an upscale store doing an inept job of shoplifting that must have amused the store detective ("Next time...at least put the tags on the inside."), enough so that no charges were filed. But then the story goes dark when her mother and aunt appear and the girls have to deal with their anger. The consequences were greater than a whipping; from then on they were marked as untrustworthy, and this hurt Sabine more than anything else could. Once again her actions backfired and she is the one who is hurt. A childish prank results in a permanent scar on her character.

The third story, the theft of the $500 from her husband’s cousin, has more detail but less coherence, which suggests that she doesn’t yet have a meaningful explanation for this experience in her life. This also foreshadows the story of her current conviction–and I think that’s its primary significance. Both stories are filled with ambiguity and present an unclear plot line. Here there’s uncertainty about her guilt. She says she didn’t steal the money, but she says three times "I had to pay it back," suggesting that she took it in the first place. Also, she confronts the cousin after she gets out of jail, then backs down quickly–"I just left it alone because...I paid the 500-some dollars"–so she’s split on this. There is a similar set of contradictions and uncertainties in the story about the death of the child, and in fact it is the absence of a coherent story from her that contributed to her conviction. More important from Sabine’s perspective is the fact that in both instances she pays dearly for something she didn’t do. Once again she is the victim.

The final part of this excerpt is an evaluation of the three stories. Here she concludes that the distrust others have for her stems from the two thefts she actually did do–from her mother-in-law and from Nieman-Marcus (it’s interesting here that she keeps the order of the narrative version rather than the chronological version). It’s as if these actions marked her as untrustworthy more generally and made her vulnerable to charges for things others did. The focus is on understanding her own victimization in life. Characteristically, she blames herself for this, a kind of self-flagellation: "Well...I wouldn’t have never been there...I wouldn’t have never been accused of it...." I believe she’s saying that her earlier misdeeds have now made her a target, and that by placing herself in certain situations she’s vulnerable to victimization. But she blames herself for this, and not those who take advantage of her (they are largely invisible). It’s a significant inversion.

In the thematic analysis of the entire narrative, Sabine’s identity as a victim is clear. The closer analysis of this segment of the interview gives us new insight into the nature of her victimization. We see several splits in her subjectivity, in how she understands herself and her relation to the world. She inverts the usual victim structure–blame of others is reduced (and often is totally absent), and self-blame predominates. Her victimization has two dimensions. First, she actively positions herself within the dominant discourse of judgment, thereby aligning herself with hegemonic power, but does so in order to condemn her objectified self. She does this with her mother-in-law ("If somebody comes and takes something that belongs to me...I probably would dislike you, too.") and later with those who prosecuted her for the child’s death ("I don’t blame them because if somebody would have came to me and was telling me something and then turn around it was two or three stories about it, I would’ve had doubts, too."). This involves a split subjectivity between judge and accused. It’s especially interesting that this positioning of herself within the dominant discourse of judgment gives her a perceived advantage, as Hollway (1984) claims, by uniting her with those who have power, but that very act serves to disadvantage her because through it she shares in the condemnation of herself. It’s a powerful double bind.

The second dimension of her victimization is what I call the backfire effect. Her actions against others end up hurting her more than hurting them, so she becomes her own enemy. We see this in the mother-in-law story, in her infidelity to her first husband, even in the Nieman-Marcus story. Here subjectivity is split between enemy and victim. She is doubly victimized, both from without and from within. This is quite different from the victim stories told by other women in the group who follow the more common pattern of outward blaming.

The contours of Sabine’s story are uniquely her own, as is true for each of the women in this study. However, one element that is identifiable in all the life narratives is a subjectivity that is split in multiple ways, but those always include splits in subjectivity that ultimately serve to disadvantage them. It may in fact be this seemingly inevitable negative positioning within dominant discourses that binds them to their marginal status.

Bloom, L. R. (1998). Under the sign of hope: Feminist methodology and narrative interpretation. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R., and Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative research: Reading, analysis, and interpretation. Applied Social Research Methods Series, vol. 47. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Griffiths, M. (1994). Feminisms and the self: The web of identity. London: Routledge.

Henriques, J., Hollway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C., & Walkerdine, V. (1984). Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity. London: Methuen.

Hollway, W. (1984). Gender difference and the production of subjectivity. In J. Henriques, W. Hollway, C. Urwin, C. Venn, & V. Walkerdine, (Eds.), Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity. (pp. 227-263). London: Methuen.

Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis. Qualitative Research Methods Series No. 30. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. (2^nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

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