ABSTRACT
The dynamic process underpinning shifts in personal and/or group understandings of perceived categories of reality can be illustrated though an analysis of speech acts, storylines and positions. Using positioning theory, narrative analysis and a conceptualization of agency developed by Emirbayer and Mische (1998), this chapter captures moments of change as individuals begin to challenge a hegemonic narrative that is anchored in a specific storyline and oppositional qualities of the other. I explore the lived experiences of individuals 1 who served in Iraq, but who, over the course of time, began to question their previous thought patterns and belief systems. The personal experiences of those who lived the reality of the dominant narrative patterns in Iraq narrowed the gap between belief and experience. This process, for the participants in this chapter, resulted in the personal construction of a counternarrative, which challenged the presenting narrative’s identification of the enemy, the characterizations of self and other, the mission and the cultural assumptions underpinning it that provided the moral justification and legitimacy of the war.
