Self-alteration : how people change themselves across cultures

Abstract

For years now, the Guardian newspaper has been running an occasional column titled “A Moment That Changed Me.” Written by readers who send in their accounts of their experiences, the articles have recounted a huge number of life-altering events. The death of a loved one, of course, but also the inexplicable visitation of sadness; a violent beating, but also the day a man first dressed as a woman; illness; joining a choir; the realization that one was Black—all were events that set a new course in people’s lives. In these short, sometimes profound stories of shock and transformation, nearly all authors narrate the moment of change as simultaneously the end of a long process of self-formation and the beginning of a new journey of self-alteration. Change happens in an instant, but it also takes a lifetime to actively embrace or reverse. [excerpt from the Introduction]