Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Investigating the Role of Meta-Narratives in Personal and Collective Identity

博士论文改进补助金：调查元叙事在个人和集体身份中的作用

• 批准号: 0751857
• 负责人: Robert Kemper
• 金额: $ 1.48万
• 依托单位: Southern Methodist University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-04-01 至 2009-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0751857&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Investigating

Graduate student Michael R Fisher, supervised by Dr. Robert V. Kemper, will undertake research on how people's ideas about themselves are affected by dominant public narratives, or meta-narratives. He will use Tibetans as a case example. This will be accomplished through a comparison of two sites, Xining, China, and Dharmasala, India, where Tibetans are portrayed quite differently. The Chinese portray Tibetans as backwards and in need of development, while the refugee Tibetans in Dharmasala are portrayed as essentially peaceful and religious. The overarching research question is how are these differences felt and internalized at the level of the individual.At each site, the researcher will carry out six months of research. He will document the meta-narratives produced by the Chinese and Tibetan governments by attending public events and reading and watching public media. Then the researcher will test the power of meta-narratives in shaping personal memories and personal narratives by conducting life-history interviews with a quota sample of 90 Tibetans in Xining and 90 Tibetans in Dharmasala, and by collecting personal written narratives from asking a sub-sample of 20 at each site, as well. These materials will be analyzed using discourse analysis techniques as well as content coding to reveal patterns that can be analyzed statistically.This research will help social scientists to understand the dynamic nature of narratives in the lives of individuals and collectives. It will uncover how personal and subjective experiences are made public and objective for society-level purposes, and shed light on the importance of global media and the control of images in political struggles and international marketing. By supporting graduate doctoral research, the award also contributes to science education.

研究生Michael R Fisher在Robert V. Kemper博士的指导下，将研究人们对自己的看法是如何受到主流公共叙事或元叙事的影响的。最重要的研究问题是，这些差异是如何在个人层面上被感知和内化的。在每个地点，研究人员将进行六个月的研究。这些材料将使用语篇分析技术和内容编码来分析，以揭示可以进行统计分析的模式。这项研究将帮助社会科学家了解个人和集体生活中叙事的动态本质。它将揭示个人和主观的经验是如何公开和客观的社会层面的目的，并阐明全球媒体的重要性和控制的形象在政治斗争和国际营销。通过支持研究生博士研究，该奖项也有助于科学教育。