Narrative identity and sociological studies on militancy

Abstract

According to Bernard Pudal, one can tell apart four “configurations” on sociological studies about militancy. The fourth differs from the previous ones because it performs sequential analysis from the militancy and it
overcomes the dichotomy between approaches that focus on the social structure and those that focus on micromobilization. This article suggests that Ricoeur’s concept of narrative identity proposes an exploratory ontology of the self that is consistent with these two major features of the fourth configuration and, to that extent, the concept is able to make explicit and ground a series of empirical studies of this stage.