Following the thread: Female identity and spirituality.

摘要

This study explored the ways that young women negotiated relationships between personal identity and spirituality in their lives through Organic Inquiry. Sixteen young women in "emerging adulthood" (Arnett, 2006), between the ages of 18 and 22, were interviewed using a semi-structured format about spirituality and life experiences. Methods of narrative life-story, performative writing and the Brown and Gilligan (1992) Listening Guide were used to create fictionalized accounts of the young women's stories. These stories were then explored using the metaphor of weaving strands of identity.;The young women discussed spirituality in the context of a variety of life experiences. Some participants position the strand of spirituality as a strong thread closely tied to their personal identity, while others struggled with weaving a tapestry of identity and spirituality. Two of the participants described themselves as "not spiritual" while four others had difficulty talking about their spiritual experiences at all. These stories are also examined. In the experience of adversity or crisis, the role of liminality in identity weaving is explored. Relationship, adversity, and the way negotiation of spirituality and identity changes over time were major themes.