Identities under Construction: Iraq War, Life Writing and American National Identity

Abstract

Life narratives, especially war narratives, are part of a nation s cultural history. These works have the potential to reinvigorate or outdate national narratives and the national identity promoted in them. Iraq War (2003-2011) narratives of American service members are intensely preoccupied with constructing identities for their authors and dismissing the ones attributed to them. This preoccupation stems from George W. Bush s identity-based war rhetoric which is based on You are either with us or against us mentality and internalized by the politicians and the military of the time. The humanistic sociological approach of symbolic interactionism, which attaches importance not only to individuals social needs but also to their emotions such as pride and shame in analyzing their behaviors is useful in investigating the construction of national identity in the works of life writing. Using symbolic interactionism, this study analyzes the processes of the individual and the national id