Conflicting community commitments: A dialogical analysis of a British woman's World War II diaries

Citation

Gillespie A, Cornish F, Aveling E & Zittoun T (2008) Conflicting community commitments: A dialogical analysis of a British woman's World War II diaries. Journal of Community Psychology, 36 (1), pp. 35-52. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20215

Abstract
Recent developments of the concept of ‘sense of community’ have highlighted the multiplicity of people’s senses of community. This paper introduces the theory of the dialogical self as a means of theorizing the conflicts that can arise between a person’s commitments to multiple communities. The paper asks: When faced with conflicting community commitments, how does a person decide where her allegiances lie? The contribution of the theory of the dialogical self is illustrated through an idiographic analysis of diaries kept by one British woman living through World War II. Conflicting commitments to her home community and to the national community’s war effort provoke troubling dilemmas and efforts to resolve them through internal dialogues. Contributions to theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Keywords
community; dialogical self; identity; case study; Self; Social perception; Community psychology; Decision making Moral and ethical aspects; World War, 1939-1945 Women Great Britain Diaries

Journal
Journal of Community Psychology: Volume 36, Issue 1