Narrativity and the representation of experience in American Indian discourses about drinking.

This paper explores the impact of American Indian people's experiences on the kinds of accounts they offer for their drinking. Based on the analysis of three transcripts that are representative of open-ended interviews with 48 self-defined problem drinkers from the Minneapolis American Indian community, it develops the argument that narrative is neither a necessary nor inevitable way to talk about illnesses and other difficulties. Distinguishing between narratives, which are marked by the element of evaluation where the implications of a person's drinking are clearly stated, and chronicles, in which this element is absent, this paper discusses the implications of non-narrative accounts for our treatments of culture and experience in anthropology.