The Life Story Interview as a Mutually Equitable Relationship

The Life Story Interview as a Mutually Equitable Relationship

We are the storytelling species. Storytelling is in our blood. Telling the stories of our lives is so basic to our nature that we are largely unaware of its profound implications. The stories we tell of our own lives bring us into deep relationship with one another; they connect us on many levels, as few other things could. Hidden within our life stories are myriad themes, all expressions of timeless and universal motifs and archetypes, reminding us every day that we are in relationship, linked with each other through the stories we share.

We think in story form, speak in story form, and bring meaning to our lives through story. Stories connect us to our roots. In traditional communities of the past, stories played a central role in the lives of the people. Stories told from generation to generation carried enduring values as well as lessons about life lived deeply. Traditional stories followed a timeless and universal pattern that can be represented as separation, transition, incorporation (Van Gennep, 1960); birth, death, rebirth (Eliade, 1954); or departure, initiation, return (Campbell, 1968). This pattern is like a blueprint, or an original form, within which the story communicates a balance between opposing forces. The pattern actually forms the basis for the plot of a story and aids the storyteller in remembering the story's key elements while keeping it on the course it was meant to follow.

The stories we tell of our own lives today are still guided by the same pattern and enduring elements. Our life stories connect us to our roots, give us direction, validate our own experience, and restore value to our lives. Life stories can fulfill important functions for us, and as we recognize now more than ever, everyone has a story to tell about his or her life, and they are indeed important stories (Atkinson, 1995, 1998; Gubrium & Holstein, 1998; Kenyon & Randall, 1997; Randall, 1995).

The life story interview is designed to help the storyteller and the listener, as well as readers and scholars, to understand better how life stories [Page 116]serve to facilitate meaning making. The life story interview provides a practical and holistic methodological approach for the sensitive collection of personal narratives that reveal how a specific human life is constructed and reconstructed in representing that life as a story.

The life story interview, first and foremost, brings forth the voice and spirit of the storyteller within a life-as-a-whole context. This approach is fundamentally built on the deepest respect for individual storytellers, the highest regard for the subjective meaning carried within their stories, and the goal of achieving the most equitable interpersonal exchange possible. The life story offers a way, perhaps more than any other, for another to step inside the personal world of the storyteller and discover larger worlds.

Primarily, there is a very important mutuality to the life story interview. There may well be an undeniable research agenda for the interviewer, but there is just as much a high level of sensitivity required because of the inherent interactional nature of the interview. When it comes to telling and sharing a life story, no other kind of interview could be more personal, more intimate, for the person doing the sharing. Interviewees receive great benefit in being listened to and guided through the telling of their life story, even though they may not be aware of it until they've had time to reflect on the experience. The interviewer's primary job is to be a sensitive, respectful listener in guiding the life storyteller's narration.

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