Setting Aside the Identity Furor: Staying Her Story-Course of Same-ness

Abstract

In qualitative research, considerable emphasis has been placed on the representation of identity, but this discussion has occurred largely within the context of the Self-Other dichotomy. Here, an alternative perspective on identity is presented. It is emphasized that exploring a participant’s “same-ness” is a critically important aperture to human experience that may be neglected in the furor over whose voice is being presented in text. In this article, narratives of the researcher’s experience during a descriptive phenomenological study of older widows’ experience of home care are interspersed with excerpts from interviews with one older widow. There is evidence that the participant and researcher share the goal of revealing the participant’s same-ness. This shared aim can supercede the focus on interpersonal differences that is at the heart of the Self-Other identity furor.

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