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Narrating Human Actions: The Subjective Experience of Agency,

Structure, Communion, and Serendipity
Amia Lieblich, Tammar B. Zilber and Rivka Tuval-Mashiach
Qualitative Inquiry 2008 14: 613
DOI: 10.1177/1077800408314352

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 Qualitative Inquiry
Volume 14 Number 4
June 2008 613-631
© 2008 Sage Publications
Narrating Human Actions 10.1177/1077800408314352
http://qix.sagepub.com
hosted at
The Subjective Experience of http://online.sagepub.com
Agency, Structure, Communion,
and Serendipity
Amia Lieblich
Tammar B. Zilber
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Rivka Tuval-Mashiach
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

In this article, the authors offer a model for the exploration of the ways social
actors narrate the forces that have driven their lives. They position this explo-
ration in light of the notions of agency, structure, communion, and serendipity,
as formulated in various social-science theories of human action, viewed as
part of the cultural repertoire of discourses available to narrators. The authors
suggest a model for understanding the interrelationships between agency,
structure, communion, and serendipity—as worked out in the subjective experi-
ence of life-story narrators—and exemplify the model through the analysis of
one woman’s life story.

Keywords: agency; structure; communion; serendipity; life story; narrative

analysis; unconventional families

I n the process of constructing a life story, narrators grapple with two tasks:
telling a story of their being and development, and providing explanations
as to how and why they have reached their present situation or identity
(Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998). The question “why” relates,
among other things, to the forces or factors that have driven them from one
station to the next along their life course. As constructivist scholars (e.g.,
Gergen, 1999), however, we are not dealing with the objective realm of influ-
ence and outcome but rather with the subjective experiences and construc-
tions of such forces as they are manifested in autobiographical narratives.
What drives the story forward, from the perspective of the narrator? Does
the narrator present oneself as a free actor with agency and experience one-
self as someone whose deeds, choices, and preferences have determined one’s
situation? Is this person attributing much influence to others and to one’s
613

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614 Qualitative Inquiry

relationships within one’s social network—what we term “communion”—

in the manner one’s life turned out to be? Is he or she relating his or her life
story mainly as an outcome of randomality, luck, or chance, which we term
“serendipity”? Or does one narrate one’s life as being controlled by external
circumstances such as one’s social class, gender, or historical period, namely,
by social “structure”? Notwithstanding the vast theoretical expositions and
debates around these concepts in various fields of the social sciences, it
seems that social actors invoke them in their life stories.
Personal identity is constructed from the available cultural stock of stories
(Bruner, 1986). Apparently, every culture, at a specific moment in time, offers
its members a repertory of available answers to the basic question, What
moves life forward, for better or worse? Modern Western culture, for example,
emphasizes agency, namely, the autonomous individual, who leads his or
her life according to his or her will and wishes (J. G. Miller, 1984; Nisbett,
1998). Still, cultures are not unitary. Each culture contains several options
for narrating life, some more dominant and others marginal. When people
narrate their identity stories, they use culture as a tool kit (Swidler, 1986),
that is, select, mold, and edit cultural meanings into their stories.
In this article, we examine the cultural repertory of forces and motiva-
tions as it is expressed through subjective accounts of personal narratives.
In trying to become sensitive to the variety of accounts people use while
narrating about the direction their life has taken, we started by exploring the
major theoretical discourses concerning human action in the social sciences.
In particular, a wide and profound theoretical discussion in the sociological
literature presents and analyzes the place of agency and structure in the
determination of human action. A somewhat parallel exposition in psychol-
ogy relates to what is termed agency and communion and examines their
interrelationship in motivating human behavior. Sociology, psychology, and
feminist theory all relate to an additional cluster of possible factors in human
action, namely, chance, contingency, or serendipity. While reading through
this literature, we noticed that each of the four theoretical constructs—
agency, structure, communion, and serendipity—emerged from a different
disciplinary tradition and developed in isolation from the other conceptual-
izations. Still, it is not our intention, in this article, to offer a theoretical
integration of these constructs. We argue instead that these theoretical con-
structs, like everyday layman attributions, both reflect and take part in the
production of cultural accounts. We assume that the theoretical-academic
discussions and debates manifest current cultural models and discourses that
are accessible to scholars within a certain context, their discipline, and the
wider sociocultural environment. We do not claim that when people narrate

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 615

their life stories, they are concerned with theoretical issues. Rather, they are
trying to make sense of their own lives, while using a common stock of
cultural narratives. Hence, methodologically, we have used, in our work, a
bidirectional perspective: understanding and interpreting individuals’ experi-
ences and constructions with the aid of the theoretical concepts, on one hand,
and demystifying the conceptual discourses with the aid of actual narratives
about people’s lives, on the other.
In what follows, we will first briefly outline some of the theoretical dis-
courses dealing with agency, structure, communion, and serendipity. We will
then propose a model for their interrelationships in the subjective experi-
ence of life-story narrators. In the second part of the article, we will demon-
strate the rich analytical possibilities inherent in using these concepts for
exploring the narrator’s constructions of identity.

Part 1: Theoretical Discussions of Human Action

In this section, we will briefly outline three disciplinary discourses about

human action, each of which focuses on the interrelations of agency and
another analytical construct—communion, structure, or serendipity. Although
each of these discourses developed within a different discipline, we group
them here together to highlight their “hidden dialogicality” (Bakhtin,
1984). Following Bakhtin, we assume that even when only one speaker is
visible, he or she is leading “a conversation of the most intense kind, for each
present, uttered, word responds and reacts with its every fiber to the invisible
speaker, points to something outside itself, beyond its own limits” (p. 197).
In this spirit, we will offer a model that integrates these discourses of human
action, as they are enacted in the subjective experience of life-story narrators.
Taken together, these discourses of human action will guide us in thinking
about the concrete narration of a life story and the constructed identity of
its narrator.

Agency and Communion

Introduced by Bakan (1966) and further developed by McAdams’s prolific
research (e.g., McAdams, 1990, 2001; McAdams, Hoffman, Mansfield, &
Day, 1996), this duality is well known in psychological discourse about
personality, gender, and human development and provided a fruitful theo-
retical dimension for much research (e.g., Hermans, 1988; Tuval-Mashiach,
2000).

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616 Qualitative Inquiry

Bakan theorized two basic modes of being: communion, the tendency to

merge or unite with others, and agency, the tendency to separate Self from
Others, to master, dominate, and control. Whether inborn, learned, or cul-
turally constructed, these are proposed as two motivating forces, forms of
being, or preferred modes of the individual’s action in or reaction to the
world. According to McAdams’s (2001) explication, self-mastery, status/
victory, achievement/responsibility, and empowerment are four themes that
characterize agency, whereas love/friendship, dialogue, caring/help, and
unity/togetherness all describe communion. Although some psychologists
may see agency and communion as two ends of a single continuum, the
prevalent view, especially in the realm of motivation, is that the two modes
are independent dimensions. The ideal, or the meaning of full humanity,
according to Bakan, is a balanced integration of agency and communion in
each individual, a man or a woman, and in society.

Agency and Structure

Sociologists also use the term agency widely, but in quite a different sense,
in reference to purposeful social action and overcoming obstacles. Agency
means to intervene in the world, or to refrain from such intervention, with
the effect of influencing some process or state of affairs. Discourses of
agency in sociology have a long, rich, and complex history, and it goes
beyond the scope of this study to explore them in full depth (see, most
recently, Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). For our purposes, we will focus on
Giddens’s (1984) conceptualization, which locates human agency in relation
with structure.
For Giddens, agency means both to act purposefully or intentionally, and
to monitor these actions reflexively. It relates to situations in which the person
is the actor. Human agents exercise power, will, and choice, namely, to carry
out actions, which make a difference to a preexisting state. Structure, the
other concept in Giddens’s duality, is a feature of social institutions and is
relatively stable and enduring across time and space. It relates to recursively
organized sets of rules, habits, and resources that are necessary for the main-
tenance and reproduction of the social system. Structures, according to
Giddens, are both constraining and enabling. They provide opportunities or
boundaries for human agents, whereas individuals, out of their own beliefs
and desires, frequently take actions despite the social structures that underlie
their life course. Thus, individual agents shape the social world through their
actions, at the same time that they are reshaped by society.

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 617

Giddens’s theory has been criticized on several accounts, among them its
lack of distinction between various forms of agency (Emirbayer & Mische,
1998) and its philosophical weakness with regard to its dualistic nature
(Fuchs, 2001), or the problems of determinism, causality, and free will
(Loyal & Barnes, 2001). Nevertheless, from our viewpoint, this conceptu-
alization can contribute to our ability to understand and evaluate individual
actions within the constraints or resources provided by the social order—an
important addition to the narrow, individual perspectives often employed by
psychologists. In studying the experience of agency or structure as mani-
fested in life stories, our work joins several recent sociological studies that
have applied the concepts of agency and structure to life stories research.
For example, Berger (1995) analyzed stories of Holocaust survivors and
Hubbard (2000) studied life stories of youth in transition, both using the
agency-structure dimensions as their tool for reading the texts of their
conversations with research participants.

Agency and Serendipity

The third term proposed as confronting agency on the subjective level
represents perhaps the most common duality in day-to-day parlance:
“I wanted and tried to, but I wasn’t lucky to get it.” Some things happen to
us because we planned well, applied effort, and prevailed against all kinds
of hardships—clearly, manifestations of agency. Other things happen to us
because we had the good luck to be there just at the right time. Serendipity
is different from mere luck, however, because it implies taking advantage
of, using wisely for one’s benefit, circumstances that are out of the actor’s
control. The idea of serendipity (sometimes called contingency or chance)
was often invoked to describe unexpected scientific discoveries (such as
penicillin; see Kanterovich, 1993). Plunkett (2001), who studied the career
development of young women, directly posed serendipity against Bakan’s
concept of agency. It represents the individual use of the unplanned aspects
of experience and implies three similar elements in one’s subjectivity: the
absence of preconceived intent, strategy, or goal to reach a certain end state;
the lack of awareness of power or internal motivation; and attribution of
one’s development to external factors such as fate, luck, circumstances, or
accidents. Although most dictionary definitions limit the term to happy and
unexpected discoveries made by accident, we propose to broaden it to include
everything that may be constructed as an accidental development, event, or
influence in one’s life. Like Plunkett, we do not see it as an expression of
helplessness or lack of control but as manifesting openness to experience:

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618 Qualitative Inquiry

the ability to improvise and use so-called random events and choices made
by others (e.g., the narrators’ husbands) for the benefit of the narrator.

The Drama of Voices: A Model of Human

Action as a Subjective Experience
Explicating agency, structure, communion, and serendipity as phenom-
enological aspects of life stories and identity is an important step in our
study. We treat agency, structure, communion, and serendipity in the various
disciplinary discourses not as dimensions of human life in reality but rather
as components of human experience and its construction in narratives.
Placing subjectivity as the main level of our discourse and analysis follows
our conceptualization of identity as a life story, a construction: We are inter-
ested in the ways narrators experience the various forces and transitions that
move their lives to their present moment, rather than questioning whether
they really acted on their intentions or how they were obstructed by social
structures in their lives. Following the narrative stance, notwithstanding
what “real” forces propel one’s life, the question of one’s identity is treated
through one’s manner of constructing one’s life in one’s present life story.
From this stance, we propose an integrative model for the relationships
among the investigated dimensions in human subjective experience.
Based on our reading of life stories, looking for the voices of agency,
communion, structure, and serendipity, we found that life stories are charac-
terized by multiplicity—many different compositions of and dialogues
among these voices. In some cases, decisions or transitions were described
in terms of tension or conflict between two of the elements. In other cases,
opposite ends of the proposed dichotomies acted in unison, for example, the
appearance of agency-in-communion. Thus, our model for the relation-
ships among the investigated dimensions in human subjective experience
is integrative. This model separates the existential level of structure–
agency–serendipity (as defined by Giddens and Plunkett) from the motiva-
tional level, within which the person is acting as an agent in the world,
guided toward agency or communion as defined by Bakan and McAdams.
Our model (see Figure 1) suggests that the dynamics of agency versus struc-
ture, on one hand, and agency versus serendipity, on the other hand, form a
single continuum, which we will hereby term existential—the first-level
meaning of the concept of agency. Thus, an individual may experience, or
narrate, events of having freedom and initiative to act intentionally and
monitor his or her actions as a separate agent. This ability, however—in his
or her subjective experience—is limited, enhanced, and constructed by the

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 619

Figure 1
Agency, Structure, Communion, and Serendipity:
A Drama of Voices

Agency, Structure, Communion and Serendipity—A Drama of Voices

First level—Existential: Structure——Agency——Serendipity

Second level—Motivational: Agency -Communion

social, traditional structures, which are encountered in reality (external as well

as internal), on one hand, and by random forces that we named serendipity,
on the other hand. The meaning of agency in Giddens’s and Plunkett’s con-
ceptions translated into the subjective realm, namely, its connotation as it
emerges from the negation of structure and/or serendipity, is in our model
one and the same. Both serendipity and structure are perceived as out of one’s
personal control, but whereas structures are often stable so that individuals
can prepare themselves for meeting their offers or demands, serendipity
refers to unpredictable events.
On the second level, we deal with motivational tendencies of the actor
as agent as they appear in his or her experience or narratives. Whenever the
individual is acting in agency, he or she makes the choice to be self-enhancing
or Other-enhancing, to prefer agency or communion. Thus, it seems
that Bakan’s concept of agency, as opposed to communion, is layered on
Giddens’s more basic concept of agency versus structure. The discourse of
agency as distinguished from communion apparently assumes that agency
in its sociological meaning is already secured. One can speak about the
motivation to expand, protect, and assert the Self only after some sense of an
authorial, agential “I” has been achieved. Even communion seems to assume
this; one cannot merge with others unless one has a Self to merge.

Part 2: The Subjective Experience of Human

Action: A Demonstration

The analysis of an autobiographical narrative, presented below, assisted

us in exploring the subjective understanding and use of the four forces to
which human action is attributed. At the same time, reading the story

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620 Qualitative Inquiry

through the theoretical concepts reviewed above contributes to our under-

standing of experience and identity of the narrator. This analysis is based
on the by-now common assumption that autobiographical life stories are
constructions rather than representations of reality and history. In these
constructions, to what factors do the narrators attribute their decisions, tran-
sitions, and life course development?
Our example is based on one interview from the first author’s study of
women in the “new family,” loosely defined as households without a man
in permanent residence. The study included 30 Israeli women who were
interviewed individually in one or two recorded, open-ended sessions. They
were asked to describe their current family situation and tell the story about
its evolvement as they see it. The general purpose of the study as presented
to the participants was to explore and write a book about the life of women
in the new family in Israel (see also Lieblich, 2003). It should be added that
the theoretical constructs that underline this article were not in the mind of
the interviewer when conducting the empirical phase of the study.
We selected two sections from the interview (unpublished so far, and
translated to English for the purpose of this analysis)1 to demonstrate a
reading guided by the concepts of agency, structure, communion, and
serendipity. What follows should not be considered a report of findings but
a demonstration of the theoretical frameworks presented above as applied
to life stories research.

Sara (pseudonym), 32 Years Old

Sara, who defined herself as a “lesbian mother,” narrated her story of
getting out of the closet and getting to meet her partner and how they became
the mothers of a daughter, a 3-year-old child, who was biologically born to
her partner.
Following the interviewer opening, this was the beginning of the
interview2:

1 Amia: I heard that you live with your partner, that you formed a lesbian
2 household, and you have one daughter. Can you tell me how did you reach
3 this situation, where does your story begin?
4 Sara: This story begins as of five years ago. . . . That’s what led to my present
5 situation. But earlier, I would never have believed that I’d live this way. I’d
6 never have believed that this is what my life would be like at 30. If I think
7 about the earlier stage, before these five years, I wasn’t sure I’d live as a
8 lesbian, and the idea of having a family and kids in this situation seemed
9 completely out of the question, impossible, in this situation.

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 621

10 A: So there was a transition in your life.

11 S: I think that the subject of being a lesbian was very much there for me
12 throughout my adolescence, since I was 11 or 12, to be exact. It was very
13 much there as an idea. And it was also actualized at a pretty young age. I
14 always knew that I wanted to be with women, that I love women, that I’m
15 attracted to women, that this would be a part of my life. These things were
16 always clear to me, but I thought they were impossible in reality. It was like
17 something that would remain in the background, but would never become the
18 front, my calling card so to speak, my real life. It cannot be realized; it can only be an
19 affair, some combination, but not . . . not for real.
20 A: Why?
21 S: When I was very young, I couldn’t say what was the problem. I was certain
22 that I would eventually get married and have kids, that is, with a man! And I
23 would be . . . kind of normative. I am, in my character, a normative person, sort of,
24 straight. These were the expectations of my family from me. My entire family
25 is very normative. So during my senior year at high school, I had a boyfriend,
26 while at the same time, I had stormy affairs with women. And I thought that
27 this is how it’s going to be always. I’d never be able to lead open family life
28 with a woman, but it will always be in there behind the scenes, I’ll always
29 need it. . . . It was clear to me that it exists in me, and will have some place in
30 my life . . . but not . . . not on the outside. Because it is impossible, it is not right,
31 it is not moral! And even more so—to raise children in a lesbian family, this is
32 totally impossible, it was totally out of the question. You have a choice—
33 either to live a lesbian life, or family life, either/or.
34 And then, a year or two before I met Naomi, even before we started to live
35 together, there was a change. In me, as well. It’s like I accepted that this was
36 how I’d live, and that my life would be a full life, and I’d come out with it.
37 But socially also it became more possible then. It was a time of changes, or
38 maybe I became capable of seeing the change.

Our interpretation of the text will follow the drama of four voices—
agency, structure, communion, and serendipity as defined above. In passing,
however, we may include some remarks on other aspects apparent in trying
to listen to Sara’s world of meaning.
The very first sentences, namely, lines 4 through 9, convey a sense of
surprise and bewilderment that this is how Sara’s life turned out to be. The
first line (4) is just a repetition of the question, with a delineation of a time
boundary—something that changed five years ago in her life: She has lived
as a lesbian since. The word I appears frequently in this first section
(6 times) but mostly in negation: “I would never have believed I’d live this
way. I would never have believed that . . . ,” “I wasn’t sure I’d live. . . .”
Even the most important identity statement appears in a negative, indirect
utterance: “I wasn’t sure I’d live as a lesbian,” letting the listener conclude
that now she does. The only exception to this style is “I think,” which,

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622 Qualitative Inquiry

together with the delineation of the time boundary at the very beginning,
marks the narrator as a reflexive (agency function according to Giddens),
albeit bewildered, witness of her own life. The apparent dialogue one hears
in this first section of self-introduction is between the voices of agency and
serendipity in Sara’s discourse. She seems to be saying, “How come I live
this way!? Although people normally feel responsible for the way their lives
turn out to be, and see continuity from childhood to adulthood, my life is a
big surprise to me.” Furthermore, it produces the impression that Sara the
narrator, who for that session collaborates with the interviewer, a straight
woman, is frequently an observer on Sara the lesbian, thus creating a strong
sense of Sara as the Other in terms of popular social conventions.
Toward the end of this section, however, in lines 8 and 9, the dialogue of
voices changes, and this time it is between agency and structure: The
strongest voice in this section is that of social conventions and practices
(structure), which form a framework of what-is-a-family, within which Sara
may try to define her own (agency).
Sara refers twice to “this situation,” meaning the structural aspects of
family life and the position of homosexuals in society, with the inherent
conventional view that families are—or should be—heterosexual. Thus,
according to Sara, the present structure of the institution of the family
includes a constraint for homosexuals, or at least this is the more traditional
view she held till “five years ago.”
Following the first author’s next intervention (line 10), Sara keeps talking
within the agency–structure discourse, this time in reference to the biological
structures that are part of her view of herself as a lesbian. In lines 11 through
13, the narrator conveys a sense of her awareness that her homosexuality is
part of her given nature—it was something that had always been part of her
make-up, both as an idea and a practice, and not a matter of her individual
choice. At the same time, Sara’s choice of words serves to distance herself
somewhat from her homosexuality, as she did in line 7 as well. She never
says, “I realized that I am a lesbian,” or some other such direct statement.
She talks about lesbianism as a separate being, “it,” a “subject,” or an “idea.”
This can be interpreted as some reluctance or shame to simply embrace her
homosexual identity, a well-understood tendency for a gay person within
traditional society, or a quite normal stage in the process of coming out of
the closet. On the other hand, it can be read as marking Sara’s individuality
and resentment of social categories, which tend to stigmatize people. These
two different readings can be placed in different positions within the
agency-structure discourse: If shame or embarrassment is the issue, then we
see here a manifestation of structure, namely, the voice of social messages

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 623

and expectations. If we understand it as an appeal for individuality, we con-

clude the opposite—that here Sara expresses her agency and struggle against
structures.
The following lines (14–16) bring out the third dichotomy of agency
versus communion. Here, Sara begins to present her relationships, doing it
in a strong, direct, and very general language. The strength of this declaration
of communion is expressed by the three repetitions, all phrased in direct
first-person sentences: “I wanted to be with women,” “I love women,” “I am
attracted to women,” further reinforced by the framework, “I always knew
that,” before, and “These things were always clear to me,” after the homo-
sexual declaration. Rather than presenting her identity in terms of belonging
to a social category—“I am gay, lesbian, homosexual, etc.”—Sara presents
it as a sexual preference, a rather individual and affect-loaded definition. Our
reading of this section, however, seems to indicate that although the content
of the utterance is in the area of communion, the assertiveness and intensity
of these statements (“I want,” “I love,” “I am attracted to”) sound very much
like agency. What Sara expresses is then, actually, her agency in communion,
exactly like the self-in-relation idiom (see J. B. Miller, 1991; Surrey, 1991).
Indeed, analyzing other women’s narratives, we frequently saw their agency
surface when speaking about their relationships, especially their mother-
hood. This close reading leads to a question about the division of the voices
of agency and communion: Can one love or take care of the other unless one
is well separated from him or her? As will be elaborated in the discussion, it
seems that agency and communion in Bakan’s sense, when tested in real
texts, seem to subsume some agency in Giddens’s sense. Except this brief
appearance of the agency voice, however, we see very little direct expres-
sions of agency in the first 19 lines analyzed so far. The meaning of agency
emerges, in any case, from the other voices against which it is compared.
The next few lines (16–19), and further in Sara’s clarification as an answer
to the “Why?” question in lines 21 through 33, bring to the foreground the
main inner dialogue in Sara’s life before her transition: They counter and
compare two life scripts, one that is possible in reality, in the open, and
another that is transient and clandestine. In other words, she compares the
normative life cycle, her vision of “real life,” which means seeing herself in
a normative family with a husband and children, on one hand, and her
deviant lifestyle, her fantasy of herself in relationship with women, which
she terms “an affair . . . some combination” and “impossible in reality,” on
the other hand. Again, we see Sara referring to her homosexuality as “it” (line
29), as if an alien part, or seeing herself as the “other.” In theoretical terms,
these may be two different structures (of family life and of homosexual

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624 Qualitative Inquiry

relationships), which compete in modern society, or perhaps the structure of

the traditional family against the agency of the individual actor who
chooses a different, innovative lifestyle. Concerning Sara’s past, before the
transition of “five years ago,” her agency—in the sense of opposing or
fighting the dominant structure—is concealed in her discourse and perhaps
in her experience. Homosexuality is presented as a force within her that she
cannot ignore (line 29), which leads her to “stormy affairs with women,”
rather than as an autonomous wish that she chooses, accepts, and controls.
It sounds like an obsession, clearly unwanted. Sara seems to have incorpo-
rated the voice of structure—although she may already have some critical
or cynical second-voice as well—that to imagine or build a lesbian family
with children “is totally impossible” (line 32), “not right” (line 31), and even
“not moral!” (line 31).
This is where Sara locates the dramatic change she underwent (lines
34–38), as it becomes clear in the development of her plot; the change is
twofold, both in her as an agent and in her perception of the social structure
around her, with its constraints and challenges. On the individual level, as
an autonomous actor, she expressed her life choice clearly and directly,
including her brave decision to come out: “I accepted that this was how I’d
live, and that my life would be a full life, and I’d come out with it.” On the
social level, however, she realized how she and her friends, gay people every-
where in the Western world toward the end of the millennium, created new
structures and new possible life scripts. Indeed, as Giddens suggested in his
theory, we may see in Sara’s narrative the two-way process by which we are
shaped by society, itself shaped by our individual actions. This awareness
of a social and internal change happened for Sara—or is constructed into
the story—in that order, even before she met her life partner, Naomi. It is,
perhaps, the factor that enabled her to form this meaningful relationship.
Thus, there is no serendipity whatsoever in this section of Sara’s life story,
but controlled, goal-directed behavior.
The next section to be analyzed is taken from the second hour of the
conversation, when Sara detailed the development of her identity as les-
bian and told the interviewer about one particular year as a student at the
university.

1 This was a very difficult year. Because all my relationships up to that point
2 sort of happened just like that. I didn’t have to go to places, or to identify
3 myself as gay—I simply found my lovers in my normal environment. Or
4 rather, they found me. One thing led to another, with several relationships in
5 parallel—for years I had not been alone for a moment. And then I had this
6 roommate in the dormitory, and we were lovers for a while. It was a huge

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 625

7 secret, of course, like all my previous affairs. . . . One day she goes for a
8 weekend, and returns with a young man telling me that they are going to be
9 married. This is what she had wanted all along, she said, to be married and
10 have a family. . . . I was shocked. I was deeply hurt. (pause)
11 So I was alone for a year. I was very lonely. I had time to really look inside.
12 Gradually, I started to go out to the gay community. There was a gay group at
13 the university, that just started then, and I joined. Gradually, I felt some
14 legitimization. For the first time there were messages of some hope, that
15 life does not have to go on in secret. This was . . . there were hardly any women
16 in the gay group then, but just the same, I captured the proud tone, the hopeful
17 tone, and the message that it is OK, it is possible and permitted. That’s where I
18 met Eva.

And after a brief description of her life with Eva and the gay community at
the time, she continued to narrate her great interpersonal transition as follows:

19 Eva and I just established our household together, as we met Naomi at the gay
20 bar. The three of us became good friends, and gradually I felt that I was
21 falling in love with Naomi. This was terrible for me. I said: What, these
22 parallel romances again, it happened to me all the time when I was younger,
23 when I had an affair, and another one, and another one, all very short and
24 putting me in conflict all the time. With Eva, I hoped I was out of this phase
25 finally. And I was telling myself, now Naomi, it will happen all over again and
26 again. I’m in such a mess always. I have to cope with this. On the other hand,
27 I was asking myself whether perhaps this new love with Naomi is the real
28 thing, the real thing to which I had been waiting all my life. So go for it.
29 It was a very confusing time for me, very stormy. It was difficult, whatever I
30 did. I loved Eva, but was in love with Naomi. I felt we were soul-mates
31 so much alike in so many spheres. Suddenly, there is this creature who sees
32 the world exactly as I do. And you know, I didn’t ever touch her! I didn’t want
33 to taint our love. I wanted it to remain pure.
34 At the end, I don’t know how or why, one day I packed a small bag with my
35 most essential things, and I knocked on Naomi’s door. And never, never have
36 I looked back. I simply did it, and we remained together ever since, and I think
37 this will be for life. But I really don’t know how I did it. I didn’t think for a
38 second, I just did it straight from my guts. It is a great mystery to me.
39 (pause, very moved) All I can say is that life was never the same since this
40 moment onwards.

The section starts with the voice of serendipity. Up to a point, loves simply
pop in Sara’s way, and she floats with the stream (lines 1–5). An interesting
link that is revealed here is between communion, relationships or love, as
the topic/content of this section, and serendipity as the fashion whereby the
narrator moves within the realm of her relationships. Things simply happen
to her. Next is a more detailed relational episode (lines 5–10, communion,
once more), which actually forms a little story: A love affair is built and

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626 Qualitative Inquiry

destroyed, because of the lover’s conformity to the more dominant structure

in society, namely, a heterosexual family. The narrator’s conclusion, “I was
shocked. I was deeply hurt” (line 10), seals the episode as an arena of com-
munion in Sara’s life. Again, there is very little agency in this entire part.
The possible meanings of agency in this context only emerge from its absence
against the other ends of the three discussed continuums.
The next section (lines 11–13), however, is a direct manifestation of
agency, which becomes more frequent and dominant in Sara’s discourse as
she approaches her major transition. Simple sentences describe a situation
of communion, or longing for it, yet in doing so convey a sense of control and
taking responsibility for one’s life, especially the reflexive function, namely,
agency: “I was alone for a year. I was very lonely. I had time to really look
inside.” Stopping the race for relationships and taking stock of her inner state
prepared Sara for seeing the changes that have occurred in the structural
aspect of her society; suddenly, there is a “gay community” (line 12) and a
“gay group at the university” (lines 12–13). Meeting these structures, perhaps
alternative structures, is not experienced as a constraint but as a resource for
Sara, an empowering experience. Lines 14 through 17 expand on the nature
of this new structure and its messages of pride in homosexuality and hope
for being accepted by the mainstream society. It ends with going back to
communion, with the introduction of Sara’s next lover. It is interesting that
this part is expressed in a relatively active manner (even more apparent in
Hebrew): “I met Eva,” which is quite different from “finding” or “being
found” as a totally serendipitous event.
Another interesting choice of words is the phrase “the real thing,” repeated
twice in this section concerning Sara’s love for Naomi (lines 27–28). As
pointed out in the analysis of the first section of this narrative, Sara referred to
her past belief that open gay life was “impossible in reality” (line 16) and “not
for real” (line 19). The choice of the same word to convey the phenomenal
love Sara felt for Naomi manifests the tremendous change that had occurred
in her view of herself, of her life options, and of the world around her.
The next section in the quote above is all about relationships, namely, in
the general field of communion. However, the additional voices enrich our
understanding of the inner dialogue, which forms Sara’s narrative. It starts
with clear agency in the sociological sense: The narrator “established a
household” (line 19) and “met” another woman in a gay bar (lines 19–20).
Moving to pure communion, Sara is telling about the evolvement of a good
friendship among the three women, which gradually changed into a love
relationship (lines 20–21). Here, we see a shift from agency voice to a voice
of serendipity; falling in love is something beyond the narrator’s control.

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 627

This idea is further developed (lines 21–24) in reference to Sara’s past,

which she described as a series of affairs, often parallel, into which she was
repeatedly drawn beyond her control or responsibility. She had hoped that
this phase was over in her life but doubted this outcome: “It will happen again
and again” (line 26), and “I’m in such a mess always.” It almost sounds like
a given, some solid tendency that may even be seen as a structure, albeit not
a social but a personal one. Thus, this section demonstrates an inner dialogue
between serendipity and communion.
As the description of her dilemma continues, however, Sara uses a more
active speech, “I have to cope with this” (line 26), an example of agency in
the area of communion. The description of the entangled love triangle
(communion) and her being torn by external forces—“It was . . . confusing.
. . . It was difficult” (line 29) (serendipity)—goes on for several lines, inter-
rupted by a single agency statement, “So go for it” (line 28). Her attraction
to Naomi, her “soul-mate” (line 30), represents the dominant voice of commu-
nion. The conversation shifted; it is now between communion and agency.
Sara’s willful decision to refrain from making love to Naomi as long as the
triangle is not resolved represents the voice of agency (again in three repe-
titions of first-person declarations): “I didn’t ever . . . I didn’t want . . .
I wanted” (lines 32–33).
The culmination of this communion episode, constructed as a turning
point in Sara’s life, is presented as an extremely interesting combination of
the voice of serendipity, “I don’t know how or why . . . I simply did it
. . . I really don’t know how . . . I didn’t think . . . It’s a great mystery”
and more (lines 34–38), and the voice of agency, “I packed . . . I knocked
. . . I simply did it” (lines 34–36). Thus, we see in the climax of the story
of Sara’s epiphany an integration of agency (against structure), communion,
and serendipity. In other words, the crucial transition of Sara’s life story—
“never have I looked back” (line 36), “for life” (line 37), and “life was never
the same” (line 39)—is constructed as an unplanned, spontaneous, or mys-
terious event in the field of communion, yet one in which she did act as an
agent on her intentions. The triple, “thick” nature of this part of the narrative
is what constructs it as the major turning point of Sara’s entire life story.
Does structure also take part in this drama of voices? It is clear that it
is not dominant. Having the option to live in a homosexual household is,
naturally, a structural resource for Sara, or other gay individuals. The presen-
tation of a couple relationship that may or should last for life (line 37) is
another structural aspect of her story. Yet, because Sara—from her subjective
perspective—constructed her life as a deviation from the common family
structure, she seemed to put structural aspects of her story as secondary to
her other more dominant voices.

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628 Qualitative Inquiry

Discussion

The theoretical framing of agency and structure in sociological discourse,

agency and communion in psychological discourse, and agency and serendip-
ity in sociology, psychology, and feminist discourses informed our reading
of Sara’s life story. Our understanding of Sara’s inner world and identity
gained a great deal from our reading of her interview with these theoretical
concepts in mind. They made us more sensitive to the forces to which Sara
attributes her life choices and transitions. Moreover, every discourse seems
to shed light on a different aspect of her storied life. Had we listened to the
story only for the voice of the agency–structure dichotomy, we would have
focused on the enabling or constraining frameworks, which define her con-
structed reality. It would have led us to issues such as, who initiated certain
actions, or did her life evolve in paths predetermined by the traditions and
norms of her society? Such a reading, as much as it could have been illumi-
nating, would have totally missed the interpersonal dimensions that are so
meaningful in Sara’s life story and identity. These aspects would have surfaced,
however, had we read the story only through the lenses of agency versus
communion. But in that case, we might have ignored the importance of
social and cultural contexts, which had immense influence on her narrative
of a lesbian mother in a traditional society. Reading simultaneously through
both of these prisms, or for both of these dimensions, would have been
richer, yet still might lead us away from the importance of chance or fate in
many of Sara’s life transitions, as narrated in her interview. The spectrum
of voices or prisms outlined above exposed the rich meaning of Sara’s story
in its many layers. We offer, then, the reading through the voices of agency,
structure, communion, and serendipity as a means to expose the richness of
life stories and the narration of human action within them.
With this conceptual framework in mind, it may be possible to compare
various chapters of Sara’s life in terms of the prevalence or absence of certain
voices. Our general impression was that the term agency as defined by
Giddens, in its double opposition to structure and serendipity, was more
useful for our understanding of Sara and her life choices than that of Bakan’s.
We saw how in her early development, she attributed much to serendipity,
whereas her relational world was described more through the voice of agency
in communion. Later on in the interview, in sections not quoted here, Sara
narrated her motherhood in the voice of agency, with a significant absence
of serendipity. Similarly, transitions in her life are often described like a
choir of many or all the voices together. More generally, then, our model may

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 629

be used as a tool for the exploration of the dynamics of a narrative identity

and also for the identification, comparison, and interpretation of significant
points in the story, as these are evident from the interplay of voices.
To conclude, the research process itself can also be conceived as a drama
of the same voices we used to understand Sara’s narrative. Our interpretive
reading is clearly an act of agency, taking place within the boundaries of a
space of possibilities and constraints, which include the structure. Theoretical
perspectives, on one hand, and the interview materials (the empirical data),
on the other, provide as well as limit the possible routes we as researchers may
take in our work. The voice of communion is manifested in the interviewer–
interviewee relationship and in the process of writing as an outcome of joint
effort and endless dialogues among the three authors. Finally, as every
researcher knows, in the long and profound process of conducting research
and integrating its results, much serendipity happens along the way, like in
these blessed moments when things finally seem to fall into place, as if by
themselves. Perhaps, the secret of good research is in cleverly listening to
all the voices and to the dramas of their interplay.

Notes
1. The tapes were fully transcribed. For the purpose of writing this article, the relevant
sections were translated verbatim to English by the first author. Translation always involves
interpretation (Gentzler, 1993; Steiner, 1992), but we made every effort to offer a verbatim
translation.
2. Transcription conventions: Parentheses signify addition of an explanatory word, phrase,
or description by the authors. Ellipses (. . .) signify a pause in the flow of speech. The inter-
viewer’s questions appear in italics.

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Amia Lieblich is a professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her
academic work deals with the effect of culture and gender on individual and family life, espe-
cially in the Israeli context. Thus, she has studied the effects of military service, the war, and
the kibbutz on personal development and identity. Her most recent study investigates women
in the postmodern family. Her major research projects use narrative methods. Together with

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 Lieblich et al. / Narrating Human Actions 631

Ruthellen Josselson and Dan McAdams, she is the editor of the annual series The Narrative
Study of Lives, which has published so far nine volumes. Together with Rivka Tuval-Mashiach
and Tammar Zilber, she coauthored the book Narrative Research: Reading, Analysis and
Interpretation (Sage, 1998).

Tammar B. Zilber is a lecturer in organizational theory at the Jerusalem School of Business

Administration, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where she also earned her PhD
in organizational psychology at the Department of Psychology. Her research interests include
the symbolic and narrative construction of organizational realities and qualitative methods.

Rivka Tuval-Mashiach is a lecturer, teaching in the Department of Psychology and the

Gender Program at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is a clinical psychologist, and she studies
health and illness through narrative methodologies.

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