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The Political Psychology of Personal Narrative: The Case of Barack Obama
Author(s) -
Hammack Phillip L.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2010.01207.x
Subject(s) - narrative , identity (music) , narrative identity , politics , personal identity , theme (computing) , sociology , personal narrative , gender studies , political science , aesthetics , psychology , social psychology , self , literature , law , philosophy , art , computer science , operating system
Guided by theories of narrative identity, racial identity development, andFreire's (1970)notion of conscientização, this paper presents an interpretive analysis of Barack Obama's personal narrative. Obama's narrative represents a progressive story of self‐discovery in which he seeks to develop a configuration of identity (Erikson, 1959; Schachter, 2004 ) that reconciles his disparate contexts of development and the inherited legacy of racism and colonialism. A major theme of his story centers on his quest to discover an anchor for his identity in some community of shared practice. Ultimately, he settles on a distinctly cosmopolitan identity in which he can foster conversation across axes of difference both within himself and among diverse communities. I discuss the extent to which election of a candidate with this personal narrative of cosmopolitan identity reflects a shifting master narrative of identity politics within the United States, as well as implications for Obama's policy platform and governance style .