Narrative and Image: Metaphors of the Dialogical Self and the Problem of Spatiality (commentary on Ruck & Slunecko)

Ruck and Slunecko (2008) present a proposal for a method of investigation of the dialogical self which is based on the potential of the image as a form of self-expression and a privileged means of accessing its structure and relational dynamics. The main objective of the pictorial method is the study of the role of the self’s spatial and temporal dimensions and it seeks to become an alternative tool to methods of a narrative nature, which put stress on the temporal dimension, and which have dominated dialogical self theory at a meta-theoretical and theoretical levels and also at a methodological level. This commentary takes the form of a reflection on the dichotomy inherent to the general argument of the authors: image versus narrative in the dialogical conception of the self. The viability of both narrative and pictorial metaphors, in the description of the dialogicality intrinsic to the processes pertaining to identity is discussed through the difference between narrative/textual/linguistic spatiality and imagery/pictorial/geographic spatiality.