17. Examining a Kazakh Student’s Biographical Narrative and the Discourses She Lives By

In ‘Examining a Kazakh Student’s Biographical Narrative and the Discourses She Lives By’ (Ch17), Rob Evans presents an interesting account of a young Kazakh women studying in Germany and learning to balance her own emancipatory needs with her family’s desire for her to conform to traditional norms. Rob’s approach is one of talk-in-action and, quite apart from his skilful interpretation of the shared texts, offers a good example of conversational analysis (CA) in practice, within a Foucauldian framework. He presents excerpts from his narrative interviews to demonstrate the CA process, intertwining method, examples, narrative and theorization to sculpt an integrated whole that does his participant justice.