Identity becoming and stories we live by

Identity becoming and stories we live by: Narrative and dialogical perspectives How do we become who we are? This is the central question of this PhD dissertation, which more precisely asks: how do the stories we live by shape the becoming of identity? While 'who we are' remains a well-studied question, 'how we become' is significant and less explored. This is especially relevant in today's VUCA world, where organizations increasingly demand that individuals curate who they are and develop adaptability for sustainable career development. Becoming is not merely a matter of personal traits or retrospective inquiry; it requires an approach equipped to explore the process of identity becoming itself. This dissertation takes a constructivist perspective and a narrative approach, valuing local knowledge over universal truth. It builds on the view that personal identity is a narrative identity, an evolving story connecting a reconstructed past, a perceived present, and an imagined future. Narratives are treated not merely as representations of reality but as means of constructing our social realities. From this perspective, the dissertation defines four key elements of identity becoming, each explored through a separate study. The first element, identity play, is an under-explored beginning of becoming a possible self. Study 1 proposes a conceptual model integrating identity play with the stories we live by, sensemaking, and social validation, highlighting the interplay between self, society, and others. The second element, multiplicity of identities, follows from this interplay. Multiple identities and self-narratives arise and interact, best understood through a dialogical approach. Study 2 demonstrates this empirically in the context of gender inequality and career progression for women in academia. The third element, prospective narratives, reflects that becoming is not only retrospective but also forward-looking, shaped by the imagined future, present relations, imagination, agency, and structure. Study 3 examines the narrativization of the desired future during the school-to-work transition of master's students. The fourth element, emerging grand narratives, recognizes that the socially constructed self is contextualized by the grand discourses of its time, which shape power relations, social structures, and authenticity. Many scholars argue a new grand narrative, metamodernism, is emerging following the decline of postmodernism. Study 4 problematizes identity construction within metamodernism to shed light on who the metamodern human is. By integrating personal construct theory, narrative identity theory, and dialogical self theory, this dissertation addresses identity becoming both theoretically and practically. Its shift from being to becoming offers a foundation for future research, while its practical contribution promotes narrative work as a tool individuals can draw upon in their own process of becoming. Limitations include its constructionist and narrative focus, the absence of the human body as a dimension of the socially constructed self, and the specific empirical contexts of each study. Through its attention to retrospective and prospective narratives, multiplicity, and the emerging grand narrative of our time, this dissertation seeks to open a creative space within the enduring tension between agency and structure. It offers neither the overambitious promise that we can simply author ourselves into being, nor the pessimistic resignation that structure determines who we become. It offers something more honest and more hopeful: that even in a world oscillating between certainty and doubt, we can continue to play, to become, and to write the stories we live by.