The continuum of identities in immigrant students’ narratives in Greece

Abstract

Our study draws on the interaction between the micro-level of individual discursive choices and the macro-level of discourses. Having at our disposal narratives by immigrant students in Greece, we highlight the continuum of identities observed. For the investigation of immigrant students’ identity construction in their narratives, we mainly employ an enriched version of Bamberg’s model (1997) on narrative analysis. This model includes the micro-levels of narrative world and narrative interaction in the context of which narrators position themselves towards the discourses of the macro-level – in our data, towards the discourse of Greek national homogenization. We distinguish among three types of identities forming a continuum from legitimization to resistance with in between hybrid stages. Our analysis shows that, despite the catalytic effect of the Greek national homogenizing discourse on the construction of immigrant students’ identities, some students find ways to resist it.