La constitución narrativa de la identidad y la experiencia del tiempo

Abstract

This article begins with the idea that identity is linked to the experience of time. Recent social changes have altered the temporal experience of many groups, whose previous narratives were no longer possible to organize their complicated temporal experiences. This article explores the idea that identities are the result of a connection between the different temporal aspects of the experience and that this connection constitutes the "identity work", which mainly consists in the shaping a narrative. Consequently, the identity depends on how each narrative combine multiple temporal aspects of the different social areas which integrate the life of each person (consistency) and how to establish a connection between past, present and future (continuity). Inspired by the contributions of White (1992) and Gergen (1996), this paper concludes by distinguishing four types of narratives (romance, comedy, tragedy, satire), which combine the different temporal aspects of several events.