Arciero, G. & Bondolfi, G. (2009).

Emotioning, in Selfhood, Identity and Personality

Styles. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In line with the work of Ricoeur, we have come to envisage narrative as the act by means of which
personal identity takes shape while events interweave to form a plot. It is through the various
forms of narrative that the person acquires his historical identity, which we term narrative
identity.

If narrative is what enables the individual to recognize his own experiences as personal
experiences, and hence to identify himself, narrative variances can be seen to reflect different
ways of experiencing one.s own life. Every human being integrates the events he experiences to
combine the present with sedimented experience, and with the horizons of his expectations, all at
the same time.

The special relationship between these different components is realized in the continual reshaping
of the narrative of oneself (in its various forms, including those of the fragmentation of the story).
The narrative recomposition of the experience of living reconfigures the variety of ones own
experience into a signifying totality, while concurrently delineating the person to whom those
actions and emotions refer. After Ricoeur, we turn to narrative identity to indicate this dynamic
modality of composing personal identity.

While sameness and ipseity mark the boundaries within which a persons identity over time is
composed, the interminable dialectical relationship is built up through the construction of a
narrative plot, thereby creating Narrative Identity. After Ricoeur, it has become common to speak
of Narrative Identity to refer to the mediation operated by the story enabling the composition and
recomposition of the dialectics between the two modes of permanence in time. It this type of
mediation that enables the person to transform a purely temporal succession of events into the
cohesive whole which constitutes their life story. In this way, the persons identity, understood as
the character of the story, is moulded contemporaneously with the plot. And indeed, on the one
hand, the temporal unity of the story corresponds to the singularity of the person or, we might
say, the character of the narrative, while on the other hand, temporal unity is constantly being
challenged by unforeseen events, by ongoing situations. As is stressed by Ricoeur (1995: 231) The
real nature of narrative identity is revealed, I contend, only in the dialectical relationship between
ipseity and sameness.

Traduccin propia para tesis.

En lnea con el trabajo de Ricoeur, hemos llegado a considerar la narrativa como el acto mediante
el cual la identidad personal toma forma mientras los eventos se entrelazan para formar una
trama. Es a travs de las diversas formas de narrativa que la persona adquiere su identidad
histrica, que denominamos "identidad narrativa".
Si la narrativa es lo que permite al individuo reconocer sus propias experiencias como experiencias
personales y, por lo tanto, identificarse, las variaciones narrativas pueden verse reflejando
diferentes maneras de experimentar la propia vida de uno. Cada ser humano integra los
acontecimientos que experimenta para combinar el presente con la experiencia sedimentada, y
con los horizontes de sus expectativas, todo al mismo tiempo.

La relacin especial entre estos diferentes componentes se realiza en la remodelacin continua de

la narrativa de uno mismo (en sus diversas formas, incluyendo las de la fragmentacin de la
historia). La recomposicin narrativa de la vivencia reconfigura la variedad de la propia experiencia
en una totalidad significante, mientras que simultneamente delimita la persona a la que se
refieren esas acciones y emociones. Despus de Ricoeur, recurrimos a la identidad narrativa para
indicar esta modalidad dinmica de componer la identidad personal.

Mientras que la similitud y la ipseidad marcan los lmites dentro de los cuales se forma la identidad
de una persona a travs del tiempo, la interminable relacin dialctica se construye a travs de la
construccin de una trama narrativa, creando as la Identidad Narrativa. Despus de Ricoeur, se ha
vuelto comn hablar de Identidad Narrativa para referirse a la mediacin operada por la historia
que permite la composicin y recomposicin de la dialctica entre los dos modos de permanencia
en el tiempo. Es este tipo de mediacin que permite a la persona transformar una sucesin
puramente temporal de acontecimientos en el todo cohesivo que constituye su historia de vida.
De esta manera, la identidad de la persona, entendida como el carcter de la historia, se moldea
contemporneamente con la trama. Y, por un lado, la unidad temporal de la historia corresponde
a la singularidad de la persona o, por decirlo as, al carcter de la narracin, mientras que, por
otra parte, la unidad temporal es constantemente cuestionada por acontecimientos imprevistos ,
Por situaciones en curso. Como lo subraya Ricoeur (1995: 231) La verdadera naturaleza de la
identidad narrativa se revela slo en la relacin dialctica entre ipseidad y mismidad.

Personal identity dynamically takes shape through the narrative act: through language, it reflects
different emotional inclinations which, when configured into a story, allow the person to perceive
himself as stably situated over time.

In line with the work of Ricoeur, we have come to envisage narrative as the act by means of which
personal identity takes shape while events interweave to form a plot. It is through the various
forms of narrative that the person acquires his historical identity, which we term narrative
identity .

Another reason why caution must be exercised is that narration concerning the construction of
personal identity is based on, and brings to language, ones own experience of being in the world.
The way people narrate themselves differs; not all stories exhibit continuity and go through the
stages of beginning, development and end. Some stories consist of variations on a single theme,
others consist of a variety of themes, while others still consist simply of variations without a theme
(Arciero, 2006). Why?