Narrative Theory and Stories that Speak to Us - by Cynthia L. Selfe and the DALN Consortium
Individual contributors to the DALN, for instance, often describe themselves as members of multiple, related, social groups, which they perceive as sharing some common values or goals, a situation termed adequation by Bucholtz and Hall (2006). Through adequation, individuals might position themselves as both a mother and a student (Hanane Buchenafa’s “Moroccan Girl”), an active part of Deaf culture, a member of gay communities (see Jacqueline Rhodes “Romantic and Practical: Cowboy Sam, Queers, and Learning to Read in Montana”), a faculty member who shares experiences in a racialized educational system with other Black citizens (see Jacqueline Jones Royster’s and Ruth Peterson’s “Narratives of Two Professors”), a son who inherits his mother’s love of reading (see John Levine’s “My Mom’s Gift”), a graduate with a GED degree who identifies other committed learners (see Mounia Mouharrav’s “Yes, I Can”) or a transsexual (see Joyce Carter’s “My Blog Transforms Lives”). Individuals also use stories to distinguish the differences between their own stances and those of other characters within their stories, a narrative move which depends not on adequation, but distinction.
Both cases of adequation and distinction, as Davies and Harre (1990) observe, represent a kind of discursive micropolitical action related to individual identity. Individuals’ descriptions of their social positioning reveals not only an emotional commitment to membership in—or opposition to—groups, but also “the development of a moral system organized around the belonging” (p. 47) or the opposition.
The term adequation emphasizes the fact that in order for groups or individuals “to be positioned as alike, they need not–and in any case cannot–be identical, but must merely be understood as sufficiently similar for current interactional purposes. Thus, differences irrelevant or damaging to ongoing efforts to adequate two people or groups will be downplayed, and similarities viewed as salient to and supportive of the immediate project of identity work will be foregrounded."
(Bucholtz and Hall, 2006, p. 599)