Narrating everyday harm: Constructing stories of microaggression

Abstract

Experiences of victimization highlight the importance of storytelling as much as they obstruct it. Although victimology tends to focus on clearly severe and/or conventional forms of harm, this article turns to experiences that are both common and contested. Specifically, we examine how people recount and evaluate experiences of microaggressions: subtle, everyday forms of exclusion, insult, or discrimination directed at marginalized groups. To examine how people make sense of such experiences, we recorded 17 peer conversations about microaggressions and conducted follow-up interviews with the 34 participants. Using narrative analysis, we examined how and with what effects storytellers communicated their experiences of microaggression to their co-participants. Our findings demonstrate that participants used various narrative strategies to convey the feeling of being targeted, frame microaggressions as morally transgressive, and exert mastery over past experiences. Conversational partners played a key role in co-constructing evaluation and affirming moral meaning. The findings highlight the value of storytelling for articulating experiences that are hurtful yet ambiguous, suggesting ways to foster recognition and mutual understanding across social differences.