Structured preconditions do not, of course, explain personal psychology. The delicate chemistry between the individual and his or her social context can never be reduced simply to that social context. At the same time, however, individual psychology is a profoundly historical phenomenon, the product of multiple determinations which in the final analysis shape the forms and meanings of experience’ (Shula Marks 1987: 24).
In Roxana Waterson's introduction to her biography of a prominent
Indonesian man from Toraja (2001: 5-6) she observes that
We all tell stories about our lives, if only to ourselves—and
indeed, our mental health depends on our ability to do so, so that our lives
may have coherence (Ross and Conway, 1986; Rappaport, 1990; Linde, 1993).
Without some coherent memory of the past, there is no basis on which to act
today. The forms which such stories can take, however, are so varied that we
should do better to think of multiple genres arranged in a continuum, of which
the life histories elicited by ethnographers are just one, rather peculiar,
kind. At the least formal end of this continuum may be found what psychological
researchers have termed ‘life stories’—fragments of oral
discourse or personal storytelling, told in different ways for different
audiences, and sometimes purely for the purpose of entertaining (see e.g.
Miller, 1994). At the most formal end lie published biography and
autobiography.
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Autobiography, as a particular mode of telling about the self, is
itself a distinctive genre with a relatively short history in European
cultures.
As a medium of (self-) representation, more generally, life-histories bespeak a notion of the human career as an ordered progression of acts and events; of biography as history personified, history as biography aggregated; of the "biographical illusion," Bourdieu (1987) calls it, a modernist fantasy about society and selfhood according to which everyone is, potentially, in control of his or her destiny in a world made by the action of autonomous "agents". It is this fantasy that leads historians to seek social causes in individual action and social action in individual causes; to find order in events by putting events in order (Comaroff and Comaroff. 1992: 26).
“Bey, we’ve already talked about how people still remember
some of their childhood experiences, no matter how old they are. You agreed
and said that was true for yourself. Won’t you tell me about the things
you still remember?”
“Yes, I certainly remember things from my childhood. I am old
and have experienced much. You ask me about something and I’ll tell you
about it.”
“Why don’t you tell me about anything that comes into
your mind about your childhood, something that has stayed with you over the
years.”
“Are you saying that people don’t remember their
childhoods? They do. Ask me and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me about the things your mother and father
did.”
“Fine. They brought me up, gave me food, and I grew and grew
and then I was an adult. That’s what they did.”
“Do you remember any specific time, maybe when they did
something wonderful or perhaps, something you didn’t like?”
“You are asking me well. Parents sometimes help children and
sometimes scold them.”
“Did your parents ever scold you?”
“Are you saying that a parent doesn’t scold a child?
Children do senseless things and their parents scold them.”
“What did you do that was senseless?”
“I ruined things, just like my granddaughter. Why this very
morning she ruined some things in the hut and my daughter-in-law hit her. Do
you think a parent doesn’t scold a child? No, a parent scolds a child,
then the child learns sense.”
“Bey, we are talking very well together; I know you are old
and have experienced many things ...”
“Many things, ehey, mother ...”
“... but I want to talk only about you, not about anyone else.
I want to know about things you experienced, things your mother did when you
were small, and what you did as you grew up, married, and had children. So far
we have been talking about things in a general way, in a way that everyone
would agree with. That’s good. But now, let’s talk more
specifically about things that happened to you, about any time in your
life.”
“Yes, we are talking very well. You keep asking me and
I’ll keep telling you. I am old and know many things.”
“I am asking you. But I cannot tell you what memories to
speak about. Only you know what you’ve experienced. Try to tell me about
something your parents or siblings did; or what happened when you menstruated,
when you married or had children; or, about your family, your co-wife, your
husband ... anything you’d like. Only it has to be about you.”
“Yes ... we have already talked about my mother and my father
and how I ruined things. Now ask me about other things and I will tell you. I
am old and know. Those other women are children and still haven’t taught
themselves. I have seen a lot. I really know. You ask me and I’ll tell
you ...” Marjorie Shostak 1990: 37-8