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Questing for meaningfulness through narrative identity work: The helpers, the heroes and the hurt

Weller, Sarah Louise; Brown, Andrew D.; Clarke, Caroline A.

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Authors

Andrew D. Brown

Caroline A. Clarke



Abstract

What identity narratives do those engaged in dangerous volunteering fabricate and how do they help satisfy their quest for meaningful lives? Based on a three-year ethnographic study of QuakeRescue, a UK-based voluntary, search and rescue charity, we show that volunteers worked on identity narratives as helpers, heroes and hurt. The primary contribution we make is to analyse how meaningfulness (the sense of personal purpose and fulfilment) that people attribute to their lives is both developed through and a resource for individuals’ narrative identity work. We show how organizationally-based actors attribute significance to their lives through authorship of desired identities that are sanctioned and supplied by societal (master) narratives embedded in and constitutive of local communities. In our case, the helper and hero identities dangerous volunteering offered members were seductive. However, their pursuit had ambiguous and sometimes, arguably, negative consequences for volunteers who had seen action overseas, and our study adds to understanding of how organizational members’ quest for meaningful identities may falter and sometimes fail.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 5, 2021
Online Publication Date Aug 17, 2021
Publication Date Apr 1, 2023
Deposit Date Oct 11, 2021
Publicly Available Date Oct 20, 2021
Journal Human Relations
Print ISSN 0018-7267
Electronic ISSN 1741-282X
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 76
Issue 4
Pages 551–576
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211043072
Keywords meaningfulness; identity work; helpers; QuakeRescue; identity; communities; desired identities, ethnography, identity narratives, volunteers
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7703004

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