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This paper examines the narratives of the European Council, European Commission, and European Parliament regarding the European refugee crisis. Although the relevant scholarly research suggests that the EU Institutions held different perspectives about the refugee crisis, this paper argues that there was no such a clash of perspectives. This paper builds on the Copenhagen School’s securitization framework as complemented with subsequent methodological tools to support the author’s arguments. The findings suggest that despite the similarity in the views held by the main EU Institutions considering the refugees’ influx, there was a variation in the intensity of their securitizing narratives. Theoretically, this study develops an understanding of the importance of the securitization narratives’ intensity. Methodologically, this study introduces the Securitization Narratives Continuum, a research tool that facilitates the assessment of securitization. Empirically, this is the first study to interview and take into account the opinions of the securitizing actors.

Abstract Background The dramatic reconfigurations of work-family roles and social boundaries resulting from the social restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic led working mums to look for online sites as spaces of emotional support and regulation where they could vent their emotions, share their concerns and griefs, and seek advice. They also became interactional spaces where mums’ relevant identities were reassessed and enacted as they aimed to balance work-family roles and improve their wellbeing. The paper explores how working mums discursively negotiated their multiple identities in an online support forum during times of global struggle, how these identity constructions reflect the domains of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and how working mums perceived these identities are related to their mental health. Methods 127 posts of Chilean working mums published in a public online support forum for working mums collected during the first half of 2020 were analysed in three phases. The first one involved a thematic analysis to identify themes and subthemes related to working mums’ identity construction in the data. The second phase involved conducting a narrative analysis of working mums’ microstorias in order to identify a master narrative crafted by these working mums, and contesting and conforming ideologies of motherhood, among others. Finally, the third phase involved a fine-grained discourse analysis of the most representative extracts illustrating working mums’ identity negotiation. Results The sociolinguistic analysis showed that working mums’ discourses displayed three themes of self-reflection, namely, diminishing self-care, reassessing their self, and enhancing self through self-care. Identity-related sub-themes for each main theme are discussed and discursively analysed. Two main points are emphasised: (1) the identity that was most salient in working mums’ discourse was their personal identity (rather than work-family roles and identities), and (2) microstorias allowed working mums to challenge the hegemonic power of dominant discourses around their identities and their work-family roles. Conclusions The study shows that a sociolinguistic approach to the exploration of working mums’ identity negotiation is useful to highlight the ways in which mums contest binary assumptions of work-family roles and the need to reconsider working mums’ life domains so that they reflect working mums’ actual identity needs and lived experiences. Future lines of research are outlined.

Managers tend to use opportunistically corporate narrative disclosure when financial performance is poor. However, there is little research on impression management in situations of extreme distress, such as bankruptcy. This paper analyzes ten textual characteristics of corporate reports at two moments in time, the last year just before entering the legal bankruptcy procedure (sick year) and five years earlier (healthy year). Specifically, it investigates the management reports of all bankrupt listed companies in Spain from 2005 to 2019. Our findings near bankruptcy only show behavior that may be compatible with impression management in relation to length and positive language. Litigation risk associated with bankruptcy may condition managers’ attitudes to using narratives in a self-serving manner. Our results are also robust if we only test the most financially distressed bankrupt companies. This paper contributes to the understanding of impression management in companies in conditions of extreme financial distress.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(1), 361-378 | European Forum Insight of 1 July 2022 | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Conceptual framework. - II.1. "Narratives". - II.2. Fundamental rights: the starting point and ultimate goal. - III. The case of the German Constitutional Court. - III.1. A case overview. - III.2. The narrative characteristics of the decision. - III.3. Interpretation: a narrative illustration of the climate crisis? - IV. Addressing emotions at the expense of "objectivity"? - V. Conclusion. | (Abstract) The reaction to the climate crisis is dominated by recurring political failure and a reluctance to engage in ambitious climate action individually and publicly. Against this setting the judiciary has been called into action to address the climate crisis, adapting general principles, including fundamental rights, to the phenomenon of global warming. Persuasive arguments are needed to compel individuals and policymakers to act in a foresightful manner that can combat global warming. Judicial decisions can transmit such arguments within society departing from the individual case. A narrative analysis can reveal the persuasiveness of judicial reasoning ad enable the re-imagining and stretching of existing law for the purpose of climate action. This Insight encourages Courts to engage in the role of a narrator. An analysis of the decision of the German Constitutional Court through the "interpretative lens" of narratives exposes how such an interdisciplinary perspective can enable the identification of the broader conviction communicated by the Court. Narratives showcase the interdependent relation-ship between judicial reasoning and societal debate by operating on an emotional level. The decision of the German Constitutional Court relating to the compatibility of the German Climate Act with fundamental rights illustrates how judges can become narrators of climate change and how this new perspective may benefit the understanding of the role of the judiciary in addressing the climate crisis.

Popular culture is not a coherent concept; it lacks an organic whole and is subject to change. It is neither fixed nor concrete, with its modus operandi rooted in everyday life. It does not possess a definitive meaning, as it is constantly being redefined and reevaluated, and the canon of pop culture works is continually expanding. During its heyday in the 1960s, pop culture evolved, shaping both its passive and active roles. The passive (mass) aspect reflects a tendency to act as a “mirror” of reality, as it is and as it should be, adding a certain degree of glamour within the entertainment industry, major Hollywood productions, and politically correct celebrities. The active aspect relies on the potential for social action within pop culture. Pop culture has become capable of supporting and leading significant cultural changes, such as in music, film, literature, and shifting social attitudes toward war and destruction, family, religion, and other critical issues since the 1960s. In the 21st century, the activity, vitality, and relevance of pop culture are based on technology, AI, and video gaming. Other narratives become allusive and outdated, yet they still define the modes of life of the era. This paper aims to first investigate and define the trajectory of popular culture and, consequently, to project the future directions and modalities we can expect, considering the increasing significance and impact of popular culture juxtaposed with elite culture.

This paper is an investigation of reference production in 84 Italian-Spanish bilingual children aged 8 to 12. The study explores whether such reference production is influenced by either the type of referential expression involved or language dominance by analyzing how these children manage reference. The children’s relative proficiency in the two languages (and thus their language dominance) was assessed through a cloze-test, and their narrative production was evaluated using a retelling task. Results indicated a preference for null pronouns to refer to subjects and full referential expressions for objects, with Italian showing a higher occurrence of full referential expressions. Dominance in either language did not significantly impact reference production. This suggests that bilingual children can distinguish between language-specific patterns, a behavior consistent with adult monolingual groups. These results contribute to our understanding of bilingual reference management and shed light on the role played by language and language dominance.

This paper aims to analyze the relevance given to violent deaths and imprisonment by male homicide perpetrators in their biographical reconstructions. Drawing on narrative criminology, this study examines the offenders’ emic terms, rationalities, and stories. The analysis is based on seventy-three purposefully selected narrative-biographical interviews and field observations in prisons and homes of former convicts (2016-2020) in Metropolitan Buenos Aires, Argentina. The corpus was analyzed following an inductive thematic coding strategy using ATLAS.ti. Three central narratives about homicide and incarceration emerged: “opportunity,” “rock bottom,” and “disruptive.” For most, homicide was described as a biographical opportunity to rethink their lives, pursue new pathways, and “stabilize” a previously uncontrolled lifestyle. However, homicides perpetrated by respondents with higher socioeconomic status were disruptive events. Participants used stoic rationality—the positive appraisal of painful experiences—to structure their sense-making and stories of violence. This rationality permeated perpetrators’ presentations of themselves, their turning points and lived experiences, and the violence performed and suffered. This paper grapples with the widespread assumption that homicide is a radical change in the lives of offenders and questions the universal meaning of violent death. Performing violence is not only neutralized but is also seen as an expected and inaugural event in life stories, dependent on the worldviews of the social actors.

This article examines what responsibility means in the context of synthetic biotechnologies, based on academic researchers in the American west who are using/developing synthetic biology, engineering biology, and synthetic genomics. Advancements in technical capacity are ushering in imminent/current possibilities of creating whole genomes/organisms from scratch, yet extant narratives about ‘responsibility’ have neither been fleshed out, nor compared against normative frameworks (such as ELSI and its critiques). Through empirical data collection (e.g. discourse analysis), this paper examines interviews with biotechnologists (N = 16) to analyze responsibility narratives on the ground, which include: being responsible towards grand challenges, national values, and research relations involving other beings in the lab, both human and more-than-human. The analyses presented here offer feminist and multispecies critiques for studying the relational webs of responsible (response-able) research and concludes with a discussion about the mismatch between how responsibilities are narrativized across different actors within academic research institutions.

The mining industry is diligent about reporting on safety incidents. However, these reports are not necessarily analyzed holistically to gain deep insights. Previously, it was demonstrated that mine accident narratives at a partner mine site could be automatically classified using natural language processing (NLP)-based random forest (RF) models developed, using narratives from the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) database. Classification of narratives is important from a holistic perspective as it affects safety intervention strategies. This paper continued the work to improve the RF classification performance in the category “caught in”. In this context, three approaches were presented in the paper. At first, two new methods were developed, named, the similarity score (SS) method and the accident-specific expert choice vocabulary (ASECV) method. The SS method focused on words or phrases that occurred most frequently, while the ASECV, a heuristic approach, focused on a narrow set of phrases. The two methods were tested with a series of experiments (iterations) on the MSHA narratives of accident category “caught in”. The SS method was not very successful due to its high false positive rates. The ASECV method, on the other hand, had low false positive rates. As a third approach (the “stacking” method), when a highly successful incidence (iteration) from ASECV method was applied in combination with the previously developed RF model (by stacking), the overall predictability of the combined model improved from 71% to 73.28%. Thus, the research showed that some phrases are key to describing particular (“caught in” in this case) types of accidents.

In urban studies, the situation of small towns and their characteristic structures, and interdependencies are overshadowed by the much-discussed growth of very large cities. When analysing the development of metropolitan regions, we advocate taking effective account of smaller urban centres, and not just the largest ones. As an introduction to this special issue, this paper wishes to place small towns in recent debates about planning and governance of metropolitan regions. We explore three themes: functional relations and socio-spatial dynamics, spatial imaginaries and narratives, and the role of small towns in the governance of metropolitan regions. We then present a brief overview of the articles included in this special issue on small towns in the metropolitan age.

In urban studies, the situation of small towns and their characteristic structures, and interdependencies are overshadowed by the much-discussed growth of very large cities. When analysing the development of metropolitan regions, we advocate taking effective account of smaller urban centres, and not just the largest ones. As an introduction to this special issue, this paper wishes to place small towns in recent debates about planning and governance of metropolitan regions. We explore three themes: functional relations and socio-spatial dynamics, spatial imaginaries and narratives, and the role of small towns in the governance of metropolitan regions. We then present a brief overview of the articles included in this special issue on small towns in the metropolitan age.

The current paper analyses narratives used within the Quran regarding Islam and its relationship/opposition to other religions – focusing on how Islam portrays its mission against other religions as a zero-sum-game. Born in times of war, conquer and geographical expansion, Islam understands its da’wah mission (the act of calling people to embrace Islam) and calculates its gains in terms of losses for its adversaries. As Jihad sums up to be an obligation of any orthodox Muslim, and since many Ayyat (Quranic verses) describe conflict, revenge, war-waging and punishment for the kufr (disbelievers), Islam seems to understand its rapport to other religions in a zero-sum-game logic; briefly put, in order for the one true religion to win, all others must lose.

Digital maps greatly support storytelling about territories, especially when enriched with data describing cultural, societal, and ecological aspects, conveying emotional messages that describe the territory as a whole. Story maps are interactive online digital narratives that can describe a territory beyond its map by enriching the map with text, pictures, videos, and other multimedia information. This paper presents a semi-automatic workflow to produce story maps from textual documents containing territory data. An expert first assembles one territory-contextual document containing text and images. Then, automatic processes use natural language processing and Wikidata services to (i) extract key concepts (entities) and geospatial coordinates associated with the territory, (ii) assemble a logically-ordered sequence of enriched story-map events, and (iii) openly publish online story maps and an interoperable Linked Open Data semantic knowledge base for event exploration and inter-story correlation analyses. Our workflow uses an Open Science-oriented methodology to publish all processes and data. Through our workflow, we produced story maps for the value chains and territories of 23 rural European areas of 16 countries. Through numerical evaluation, we demonstrated that territory experts considered the story maps effective in describing their territories, and appropriate for communicating with citizens and stakeholders.

Composing remains a male-dominated field within the domain of Western art music. Through analysis of two case studies of composing education schemes in Finland (Equity in Composing/Yhdenvertaisesti säveltäen), and England (Young Composers Project), this paper seeks to better understand how music education may play a role in addressing and alleviating gender inequality in music composing. Thematic analysis of qualitative data identified three ways in which the two educational projects addressed issues related to inequality in composing, namely by (1) challenging narrow perceptions of “The Composer”; (2) addressing the lack of diverse role models; and (3) introducing diverse pedagogical approaches in composing. The findings illustrate how music education has the potential to challenge narrow and stereotypical perceptions of what it is to become and be a composer, and provide alternative and more diverse narratives.

This paper examines the numbers associated with the water demand estimation process followed for the city of Mumbai, particularly focusing on the per capita water supply standard. The per capita standard is a critical figure for the planning, design, and operation of the entire urban water supply system from dam to household level tap. Historically, high per capita standards were consistently prescribed for Mumbai to overestimate water demand and construct number narratives of water shortages. These narratives were successfully used to appropriate a larger share of water by justifying a series of dams and keeping other urban centres and villages within the region water deprived. In colonial and post-colonial times Mumbai always received enough water, brought using higher per capita standards. However, these supply standards were never measured and monitored during actual service delivery within the city. The water demand of poor slum residents was overcounted by following universal per capita standards when bringing water to the city. However, the same slum residents were subtracted or underserved during actual service delivery. Analysing colonial and post-colonial practices of water resources development, this paper illustrates the limitations of the existing approach of water demand estimation using the prescribed per capita standard, which delinks the process of water resources development from water distribution within the city. The prescribed per capita standard does not reflect the conditions of access and status of supply provisioning and underplays the issues pertaining to the poor performance of the distribution network, which further marginalises the urban poor.

IntroductionIn the face of the current climate crisis, environmental communication can contribute to providing new frames of understanding and promoting social change and positive citizen action. Through social media, on platforms like Instagram, concerned citizens embrace environmental communication activism ultimately reshaping the narratives regarding the climate crisis. These individuals, who we identify as both activists and environmental influencers, are challenging the established media narratives with their posts and stories, thus offering alternative narratives. Accordingly, this paper aims to elaborate an incipient characterization of a communicative agenda that includes the emerging elements of these visual narratives in social media as potentially able to engage citizens to take action in their ordinary lives.MethodsOur research draws on a qualitative methodological approach, based on: (1) a digital ethnography carried out on 60 Instagram accounts devoted to the dissemination of environmental concerns and contents, (2) a visual narrative analysis of 281 selected posts of the previous accounts, and (3) 14 in-depth interviews conducted with digital activists.ResultsWe have identified the main traits of these emerging visual narratives: the use of positive visuals and content; first-person accounts highlighting the small actions and achievements (propositive narratives) that can be carried out in our daily lives; and/or the use of memes, humor, and other elements of popular culture to make the environmental cause mainstream.DiscussionThe study underscores a notable divergence between established environmental narratives and those curated by eco-influencers on social media. These influencers strategically leverage emotionally resonant, positive visual narratives, departing from fear-inducing content. They emphasize individual actions and solutions rather than collective interventions, personalizing the climate crisis. Additionally, their narratives engage in a nuanced dialogue with nature and integrate popular culture, humor, and memes to effectively reach diverse audiences. This shift reflects a broader cultural change in communication strategies, signaling a novel approach to mobilize audiences toward environmental engagement.

Abstract Research on international student migration has been burgeoning, leading to a more nuanced understanding of international students whose experiences were, for many years, conceptualised in a rather limited way. In this paper, we aim to advance understanding of the diversity and complexity of student migrants’ experiences, by proposing a new interpretive framework, developed through narrative enquiry. Based on an in-depth narrative analysis of 41 “biographical encounters” with student migrants in Portugal, we illustrate the potential of biographical approaches in highlighting students’ subjectivities, and the complex interplay of diverse factors that shape migration processes. A migration “profile” was assigned to each narrative, capable of representing its leitmotif. This biographical approach to student migration provides a more nuanced understanding of how student migration emerges in time, thus offering a methodological approach that does justice to the diversity of student migration trajectories and may enhance the empirical examination of their experiences.

The article focuses on the evolution of the Russian Federation’s official discourse concerning Ukraine, from the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 to the official decision to invade the Ukrainian state on February 24, 2022. During this period, various official messages were launched in the public sphere to prepare Russian society for the next phases of the hybrid war or were designed to shape a series of social attitudes on the territories of other states that would favour political leaders in Moscow. The Kremlin resorted to a plethora of specific communication tactics: the launch of several official narratives at the same time, some of which were subsequently discarded; challenging the legitimacy of Kyiv authorities; fostering the idea that Ukraine was an artificial state created by Russia; launching certain debates in the public sphere regarding the historical unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples as well as the build-up of neo-Nazi tendencies on Ukrainian territory. Official narratives endorsed by the Russian Federation were a special mix of international law and historiography topics. Russian media outlets disseminated them as part of disinformation and fake news campaigns. This paper is an analytical effort to organize official Russian narratives about Ukraine promoted over 2014-2022, before the large-scale invasion.

The repeated destructions and reconstructions of Beirut have been widely acknowledged and conveyed from one generation to the next through different narratives, anecdotes, literature, and popular cultural productions. This paper describes the historical transformations of the city of Beirut from an old harbour city to a generic central district through a selection of dominant narratives, as well as alternative counter-narratives and anecdotes. The paper argues that the post-civil war reconstruction project is submissive to the neo-liberal models of development which resulted in the generic city that we can observe today. The paper also projects two extreme case scenarios for the future development of the city, of which one seems to prevail: a scenario that has started to materialise since the sudden dramatic and deadly port explosion that hit the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.

Purpose – This paper aims to explore different possible economic narratives concerning trade, which may emerge based on lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis and likely effects of these differing narratives would have on global poverty reduction. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper based on original analysis of selected literature. Findings – The global response to the COVID-19 crisis of severely restricting international travel and business operations has been accompanied by slowing economic growth and increased levels of global poverty. Due to the nature of the crisis, it is not currently clear, even with hindsight, whether the measures taken have produced more benefits than problems. However, the pace and direction of the economic recovery and the effect on future levels of global poverty will likely depend to some extent on which narratives go viral and become accepted. Social implications – Members of academia as well as others have a role to play in creating and spreading narratives about economic activities and focusing on narratives, which do not ignore the plight of the global poor in the aftermath of the current crisis might have a positive effect on the living standards of the hundreds of millions of people living in poverty who have been affected by the current global economic slowdown. Originality/value – The paper uniquely links ideas associated with behavioral economics, international business theories and empirical evidence with reducing poverty as we move past the COVID-19 crisis.

Emerging narratives call for recognising and engaging constructively with small-scale farmers who have a leading role in shaping the current irrigation dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper explores whether new irrigation data can usefully inform these narratives. It argues that, for a variety of reasons, official irrigation data in sub-Saharan Africa fail to capture the full extent and diverse nature of irrigation and its rapid distributed growth over the last two decades. The paper investigates recent trends in the use of remote sensing methods to generate irrigation data; it examines the associated expectation that these techniques enable a better understanding of current irrigation developments and small-scale farmers’ roles. It reports on a pilot study that uses radar-based imagery and analysis to provide new insights into the extent of rice irrigated agriculture in three regions of Tanzania. We further stress that such mapping exercises remain grounded in a binary logic that separates 'irrigation' from other 'non-irrigated' landscape features. They can stem from, and reinforce, a conventional understanding of irrigation that is still influenced by colonial legacies of engineering design and agricultural modernisation. As farmers’ initiatives question this dominant view of irrigation, and in a policy context that is dominated by narratives of water scarcity, this means that new data may improve the visibility of water use by small-scale irrigators but may also leave them more exposed to restrictions favouring more powerful water users. The paper thus calls for moving away from a narrow debate on irrigation data and monitoring, and towards a holistic discussion of the nature of irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa. This discussion is necessary to support a constructive engagement with farmer-led irrigation development; it is also challenging in that it involves facing entrenched vested interests and requires changes in development practices.

The impact of the shock waves of thought sent by mass media through society, on the consciousness, mind, feelings, and behavior of individuals has been argued. The ethnic conflict has been given first priority in the national agenda of Sri Lanka for the last few decades. The role of the news media in the ethnic conflict is something that has not been identified. This study investigates whether the newspapers that targeted the Sinhala population which is the ethnic majority in Sri Lanka did perform professional news functions in covering the final phase of the war in Sri Lanka and what factors affected the situation. For this purpose, news professionalism theory, narratology theory, and structuralism theory were employed. In a society where conflicts occur based on ethnic diversity, this study found that newspapers that target the ethnic majority which possesses the monopoly, engage in covering war using the construction of narrative function instead of professional news reporting. The paper argues that the influence exercised upon the mentality of readers by narratives constructed by the news genre of newspapers in a society facing an armed conflict based on ethnic differences obstructs the ability to look at the ethnic conflict critically.

AbstractStates, companies and civil society actors broadly agree that ICT misuse needs to be prevented through effective international policies and regulatory efforts. However, corresponding norm-building processes have been repeatedly characterized by setbacks and controversies regarding interpretations. Whenever such a situation has arisen, state representatives quickly engaged in intense storytelling, accusing their counterparts of seeking to impose “the law of the jungle” or of following hidden policy agendas at the UN. This paper focusses on the stories state representatives use to explain the international community’s recurrent failures, such as arms races, crisis escalations or destructive criminal acts. Using narrative concepts and methods, the analysis explores the dynamics of this emerging transnational public diplomacy, focusing on Russia and the United States in particular. Beyond comparing main structural elements of each narrative, the goal is to elucidate legitimization strategies and dilemmas, resulting in several policy implications. For example, United States representatives and allies need to make specific and concise references to UN cyber norms during public attributions, lest they could play into the hands of a counter-narrative of Western domination and hypocrisy.

While numerous studies have established relationships between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and adult substance use, few qualitative studies have explored the differing ways in which experiences of childhood adversity are emplotted into narratives of drug use and recovery. This paper analyzes qualitative data collected as part of a mixed-methods longitudinal study of people with opioid use disorder. Narratives of adverse childhood experiences emerged unprompted. After coding qualitative data for mention of ACEs, we thematically analyzed coded data using a framework of critical phenomenology and constructed a four-part typology to differentiate the ways that ACEs were emplotted into narratives. Our four sub-types—which we call ‘haunted by trauma’, ‘seeking redemption’, ‘casual mentioners’, and ‘reckoning with inevitability’—did not necessarily cleave along types or number of ACEs, but rather by the manners in which these experiences were conditioned by subsequent life trajectories, and the social, structural, and interpersonal factors that contextualized them. While participants often linked experiences of childhood adversity to adult opioid use, we argue that the differing ways in which individuals understand and process these linkages has implications for both clinical and therapeutic practice. For frameworks like trauma-informed care to be meaningful, we must pay closer attention to these meaningful differences.

Textbook is not as it being to read out but too instill values, ethics and standards of society specified within the educational modules. Essentially, the educational programs of Pakistani educational programs are largely constructed on the celebration of history which is instructed in several subjects like, Islamiat, Social Studies, Pakistan Studies, history and languages. Such textbooks are being utilized as an instrument to proliferate and propagate national heroes whereas speaking to stories of Pakistani national figures. These top class personalities (heroes) carry certain covered up and expecting philosophies and ideologies. The point of this investigation is to investigate the aiming and covering up the belief systems carried by Narratives of Pakistani National Heroes in English Language Textbooks at Higher Secondary level in Sindh, Pakistan endorsed by Sindh Textbook Board. Besides this, paper also examines the distinctive features such as identity, ideology, theme, author’s objectivity and construction of certain ideas which are hidden behind the representation of national heroes. They promote the ideologies of Islam, nationalism, fundamental division of the Muslims and Hindus, patriotism and anti-India that can make young learners nationalist, religious and militaristic. These themes and ideologies can cause exploitation and manipulation of religious, misrepresentation of reality, misinterpretation of different facts, strengthening of various practices and so on. For this research study, the qualitative method was applied. TA (textual analysis) was the method which is applied in such types of research works. We applied Foucault Social Constructive Model as a systematic model to explore the intended and unknown ideologies that have been propagated and promoted by the Pakistani national heroes.

Abstract Background Gender equality remains an outstanding global priority, more than 25 years after the landmark Beijing Platform for Action. The disconnect between global health policy intentions and implementation is shaped by several conceptual, pragmatic and political factors, both globally and in South Africa. Actor narratives and different framings of gender and gender equality are one part of the contested nature of gender policy processes and their implementation challenges. The main aim of this paper is to foreground the range of policy actors, describe their narratives and different framings of gender, as part exploring the social construction of gender in policy processes, using the Adolescent Youth Health Policy (AYHP) as a case study. Methods A case study design was undertaken, with conceptual underpinnings combined from gender studies, sociology and health policy analysis. Through purposive sampling, a range of actors were selected, including AYHP authors from government and academia, members of the AYHP Advisory Panel, youth representatives from the National Department of Health Adolescent and Youth Advisory Panel, as well as adolescent and youth health and gender policy actors, in government, academia and civil society. Qualitative data was collected via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 policy actors between 2019 and 2021. Thematic data analysis was used, as well as triangulation across both respondents, and the document analysis of the AYHP. Results Despite gender power relations and more gender-transformative approaches being discussed during the policy making process, these were not reflected in the final policy. Interviews revealed an interrelated constellation of diverse and juxtaposed actor gender narratives, ranging from framing gender as equating girls and women, gender as inclusion, gender as instrumental, gender as women’s rights and empowerment and gender as power relations. Some of these narrative framings were dominant in the policy making process and were consequently included in the final policy document, unlike other narratives. The way gender is framed in policy processes is shaped by actor narratives, and these diverse and contested discursive constructions were shaped by the dynamic interactions with the South Africa context, and processes of the Adolescent Youth Health Policy. These varied actor narratives were further contextualised in terms of reflections of what is needed going forward to advance gender equality in adolescent and youth health policy and programming. This includes prioritising gender and intersectionality on the national agenda, implementing more gender-transformative programmes, as well as having the commitments and capabilities to take the work forward. Conclusions The constellation of actors’ gender narratives reveals overlapping and contested framings of gender and what is required to advance gender equality. Understanding actor narratives in policy processes contributes to bridging the disconnect between policy commitments and reality in advancing the gender equality agenda.

This paper argues that the corporate annual report is not only a document comprising retrospective accounts of financial position and performance, but also a text that points to the future by means of presenting dreams, aspirations and fantasies. However, these dreams are not to be seen as irrational deviations from the rationalistically oriented discourse of accounting. Quite to the contrary, the three corporate dreams identified in this study – the colonial dream, the evolutionary dream and the efficiency dream – are part of the ongoing self-narration of the company, in which it tries to display an allegiance to a set of appropriate aspirations that are considered legitimate in contemporary global capitalism. Drawing upon ideas from narrative theory, annual reports from 2005 to 2010 collected from NASDAQ OMX Stockholm have been analyzed with the purpose of understanding how corporate dreams are used in financial communication. These corporate dreams contribute, the paper argues, to the construction of legitimacy and trust.

In this paper I will analyze the distinctive features of the twentieth century historiography with regards to its most salient events. By doing so, I will provide an interpretation of the struggles which underlay the production of historical knowledge at the end of the century. In contrast to various theories of historiography which assert that autonomy from collective memory is a methodological assumption of the historian, I will argue that historiography is always interwoven with the political and ethical challenges of the historian’s time. In this regard, this paper´s theses are inspired by Walter Benjamin’s ideas concerning historiography, as well as by the interpretations of this ideas provided by other historians and philosophers, such as Enzo Traverso, Dominick LaCapra or Michael Löwy. Their ideas will serve as a framework for understanding the challenges historians face when narrating contemporary history.

In 2020, COVID-19 took many people by surprise, as did the intercontinental waves of protest triggered by the casual racist murder of George Floyd by a US policeman. The years of 2020 and 2021 will undoubtedly be remembered for massive, unexpected disruptions that require new social normalities to be negotiated. These social disruptions were triggered by unexpected viral pandemics and viral video footage. Yet they built on already existing, entrenched inequities marked by the intersections of racialisation/ethnicisation, social class and gender. It was common, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, for politicians and commentators to espouse a narrative that COVID-19 “does not discriminate”. This is, of course, true. However, the research analyses that followed showed that both COVID-19, and the measures taken to arrest it, exacerbated already existing social inequalities. This paper draws on two narratives of the racialized impact of COVID-19 to examine the ways in which the authors mobilise intertextual narratives to protest against racism and call for resistance to the racisms they identify. The paper argues that, while the authors do not overtly position themselves as calling for change, their narratives are crafted in ways that resist current constructions of their racialized or religious groups.

This paper discusses the relationship between morality and engagement focused on the narratives about climate change. The goal of our research is to understand whether moral grounds identified in individuals and in narratives can influence youth’s engagement in environmental debate and news consumption on climate change. Recognizing that people’s perceptions of climate change are related to several factors, such as ideas, cultures, and values, we sought to understand whether there is a “green morality” or a prevalence of more responsive moral attributes in individuals when they are exposed to thinking about the environment. We use the Moral Foundations Theory to analyze comments on the environmental news on Twitter and a questionnaire adapted to the environment on moral grounds. The data were collected from Brazil and Portugal between 2021 and 2022. The overall results showed a high incidence of responses with Care/Harm and Fairness/Cheating, and an average incidence of responses related to Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/Subversion. The results indicate that youngsters show a more prominent moral to care and environmental harm, as well as justice and responsibility, which may influence their interest in the consumption of environmental news and future engagement. In addition, there are factors, such as political issues, that can influence moral values and engagement.

Objective: This paper analyses intergenerational relationships in Sweden during the corona pandemic, with a special focus on practices of care. The research question is: How is care between generations – between grandparents, adult children and grandchildren – done during pandemic conditions? Background: In Sweden, where an extensive welfare state provides affordable child- and eldercare, the corona strategy of generational separation has still affected family practices of care between generations. In this article we analyse narratives of intergenerational care, taking our point of departure in theories of personal life (Smart 2007), relationality (Mason 2004), and care as sentient activity (Mason 1996). Method: The paper draws on a qualitative interview study with grandparents (n=30), adult children (n=12) and grandchildren (n=12), with data collection taking place shortly before and during the coronavirus pandemic. Results: The study detects the reciprocal and complex ways in which care between generations takes place. When people relate their experiences, strategies for new ways of doing care are at the centre, involving creative ways of negotiating distance and risk, all marked by both worry and relief. Conclusion: The pandemic condition becomes a "filter" affecting and leading to a reformulation of practices of care, from taken-for-granted co-presence narratives, into narratives of relational participation resulting in an overall heightened awareness of the importance and difficulties of intergenerational care practices. The study concludes that a strong welfare state does not translate into complete autonomy or independence; rather, people continue to live "linked lives".

Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash ABSTRACT Medical education has a long history of discriminatory practices. Because of the hierarchy inherent in medical education, underrepresented-in-medicine (URiM) students are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and often feel they have limited recourse to respond without repercussions. URiM student leaders at a USA medical school needed their peers, faculty, and administration to know the institutional racism and other forms of discrimination they regularly experienced. The students wanted to share first-person narratives of their experiences; however, they feared retribution. This paper describes how the medical students partnered with a theater company that applied elements of verbatim theater to anonymously present student narratives and engage their medical school community around issues of racism and discrimination. The post-presentation survey showed the preponderance of respondents increased understanding of URiM student experiences, desired to engage in conversation about inclusion, equity, and diversity, and wanted to make the medical school more inclusive and equitable. Responses from students showed a largely positive effect from sharing stories. First-person narratives can challenge discriminatory practices and generate dialogue surrounding the experiences of URiM medical students. Authors of the first-person narratives may have a sense of empowerment and liberation from sharing their stories. The application of verbatim theater provides students the safety of anonymity, thereby mitigating fears of retribution. INTRODUCTION The field of medicine has a long history of discriminatory practices toward racial and ethnic minorities, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.[1] Because of the inherent hierarchy in medical education, medical students are particularly vulnerable to discriminatory practices and may feel they have limited recourse to respond to discrimination.[2] Underrepresented-in-medicine (URiM) students experience “death by a thousand cuts,” often with the perception that they are alone to shoulder and overcome injurious behavior inflicted by peers, faculty, and administrators. l. Social Impetus and Desire for Change Spring 2020 saw the confluence of three social exigencies in the United States: the disproportionate burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on people of color;[3] wide-spread awareness of racist police brutality;[4] and resurgence of demands for equity within medicine by the White Coats for Black Lives organization.[5] URiM student leaders at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, CT, USA, felt compelled to awaken their medical school community to the bias and discrimination they faced regularly. The URiM student leaders (15 people representing Student National Medical Association, Latinx Medical Student Association, Netter Pride Alliance, Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, Student Government Association, and White Coats for Black Lives) met regularly with the medical school dean and associate deans to address issues of culture and institutional racism. They needed their peers, faculty, and administration to know that institutional racism and other forms of discrimination were present in the school of medicine, despite vision and mission statements that prioritize equity and inclusion. To that end, in addition to advocating for policy changes, the URiM student leaders wanted to share personal stories from their classmates with the hope that the narratives had the power to instigate change for the better at the school of medicine. They wanted to be heard and seen and to have their perceptions recognized and valued; yet, they could not shake the fear of retribution if they were truly honest about their experiences. Therefore, the students concluded that anonymous storytelling was the safest approach. ll. Foundational Deliberations and Partnership To anonymizing their stories, the students first had to deliberate two foundational features: One: How to account for a plurality of opinions and make decisions? Two: How to speak about their personal experiences and maintain anonymity? The 15 URiM student leaders elected three students (GH, VS, SD) to organize the event and imbued the three organizers with decision-making capacity. The three students, named the Crossroads Organizers, arrived at decisions by consensus. With the aim of maintaining student anonymity, a faculty member (AW) suggested the students investigate using a theater company to present their stories – the premise being that the actors would provide anonymous cover for the students while speaking the students’ words. Having a script comprised exclusively of storytellers’ words is a foundational technique of verbatim theater.[6] The students decided the Crossroads Organizers would meet theater company representatives to seek assurance that their stories would be presented with respect and appropriate representation. Squeaky Wheelz Productions[7] is a theatrical production company specializing in giving voice to the stories of minoritized individuals. lll. Recruit Story Authors The Crossroads Organizers used email and social media platforms such as Facebook, GroupMe, and Instagram to invite medical students to author stories. Authors were given three weeks to submit their stories via an anonymous survey drop on Google Forms, thus assuring that no one, including the Crossroads Organizers, knew the identity of the story authors. lV. Work with the Theater Company The Crossroads Organizers met with the director of the theater company (AMW) multiple times to discuss logistics for the production. The director guided the medical students to refine their goals for the audience and authors (see Theater Company Process) and establish the timeline and task list to arrive at a finished product promptly. Initially, the Crossroads Organizers thought it would be a good idea to have the authors and actors meet to discuss their specific stories and roles. However, after further discussion, they decided that meeting would compromise the anonymity of the student authors and might discourage them from coming forward. Instead, they let the authors know they had the option of meeting their actor. In the Google Forms survey, the Crossroads Organizers provided the opportunity for authors to list specific demographic characteristics of the actor they wanted to portray their story. For example, a Latinx author could choose to have a Latinx actor portray their story. V. Theater Company Process The Squeaky Wheelz actors and director met to discuss how best to use their artistic skills to serve the students’ goals. Given that the collaboration occurred amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there were health, safety, technology, and geography parameters that informed the creative decisions. Actors were recorded individually, and then the footage was edited to create one cohesive piece. Using video meant that in addition to the artistic choices about casting, tone, pacing, and style (which are elements of an in-person event), there were also choices about editing, sound, and mise-en-scéne (“putting in the scene” or what is seen on screen). The Squeaky Wheelz director collaborated with the Crossroads Organizers about the project goals for their audience and colleagues. For example, the theater company encouraged the Crossroads Organizers to consider questions such as: Do they want to tell the viewer what to feel? If a student author identified their race or ethnicity in their story, should casting reflect that as well? Is there anything they would like the audience to know in a disclaimer, or should the stories stand on their own? Consequent to the discussions, the theater company made the decision to not include music or sound (often used in film to dictate emotion), to cast actors of the same race or ethnicity if the author included such identifiers, and to create an introduction for the piece. The introduction stated: “The stories you are about to hear are the true, lived experiences of students in this program, read by actors. Students submitted these words anonymously. We, the actors, ask you to listen.” The Crossroads Organizers expressed their goal was to share the stories authentically and to be clear that these were real experiences, not fictional accounts performed by actors. To serve these goals artistically in the mise-en-scéne, each actor was filmed in front of a plain white wall, in a medium-close-up, and holding a piece of white paper in the bottom corner of the frame from which they read the story. The actors looked straight to the camera for most of their reading, occasionally looking down to the paper to indicate that these words belonged to someone else visually. Actors were directed to “read the words,” not “perform the story” – to communicate the words simply and clearly rather than projecting an assumed emotionality behind the story. This choice was made for two reasons: One, the stories were submitted anonymously, and an assumed emotion may have been inaccurate to the author’s intention; two, without projecting assumed emotionality, the audience has permission to feel and think for themselves in response. All the actors worked independently to prepare for their virtual shoot dates. They also were available if any student authors wanted to meet about their personal stories. [One author chose to meet with their actor.] The final production, comprised of 16 student stories, was entitled Netter Crossroads: A Discourse on Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class. Vl. Finding the Audience Knowing the unique features and importance of the video as a tool to increase awareness of institutional racism and discrimination within the school community, the Crossroads Organizers aimed to secure as large a viewing audience as possible. To that end, they sought and obtained approval from the dean of the school of medicine to show the video during the Annual State of the School Address, which historically is delivered on the first day of classes and attracts a sizable cross-section of students, faculty, and staff. The Crossroads Organizers asked the dean and associate deans to make event attendance mandatory to engage as many students and faculty as possible in active reflection about discrimination, racial inequality, and social injustice within the medical education community. The deans agreed to make attendance mandatory for first-year medical students and to strongly encourage all other students, faculty, and staff to attend. The Annual State of the School Address is typically an in-person event. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all university events had to be hosted virtually on Zoom. The Crossroads Organizers valued the real-time shared experience of viewing the video as a community, so they decided to divide the video into four short segments. The shorter length increased the likelihood that the video’s audio and visual quality was not affected. Between the video segments, the Crossroads Organizers presented national data about underrepresentation in medicine. Vll. Attendee Feedback The 2020 State of the School event had 279 attendees who watched the video, Netter Crossroads: A Discourse on Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class, in real-time. The audience was comprised of medical students, medical school faculty, staff, and administrators, and university administrators. A four-question Likert-scale survey and open-response field disseminated after the event indicated the vast preponderance of attendees were favorably impressed by the Crossroads video (see Table 1). Approximately 84 percent (67/80) of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that their understanding of URiM student experiences had increased based on the presentation. Approximately 82 percent (66/80) of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that the Crossroads presentation effectively conveyed the challenges of URiM students. Seventy percent of respondents (56/80) strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that they were more inclined to engage in conversation about inclusion, equity, and diversity since seeing the Crossroads presentation. Approximately 77 percent (62/80) of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that since seeing the Crossroads presentation, they wanted to learn more about how to help make the medical school more inclusive and equitable. Table 1. Likert-scale survey results after viewing Crossroads video (N=80). The open-response field attracted 24 commentators who largely made favorable comments. Representative favorable comments included: “That was a great presentation. I wish I could hear more from students like that.” “A big thank you to the students who conveyed their stories to the actors – that was a heavy lift.” “Hearing the stories of people at Netter made this presentation hit close to home.” “The Crossroads presentation was outstanding and really opened my eyes to things that I had no idea were happening or that I had never even thought about.” “Definitely we need to hear more of these voices. Very powerful and moving session!” “It was powerful to hear real students’ experiences, played by actors…It communicated to me that Netter is…really committed to improving diversity and inclusion.” Representative unfavorable comments include: “I found this style confrontational instead of conversant/dialogue, and that may have been what the students were going for…but dialogue might have been just as, if not more, effective…” “I fear that welcoming new students virtually to our school by sharing stories of bias, racism, and sexism at our own institution may have left them feeling even more isolated and insecure.” “We need less of these presentations.” Vlll. Student Author Survey After the assembly, the Crossroads Organizers posted announcements on their social media sites inviting the student authors to respond to two queries about their experiences of sharing their stories. Since the student authors were anonymous and unknown to the Crossroads Organizers, they could not directly query the student authors. Instead, the posted announcement asked for open responses to the following questions: a. How did writing and sharing your personal experience at Netter make you feel? b. How did viewing your story portrayed by actors during the state of the school address make you feel? Six of the sixteen student authors put their responses anonymously in a Google Forms survey drop. The authors indicated a range of feelings about writing and sharing their personal experiences. Several authors expressed appreciation for the process and the psychotherapeutic effects. “I feel as though it was an opportunity for my voice to be heard in an anonymous way.” [student author #3] “Empowered to get that frustration out.” [student author #4] “It helped me process some thoughts and emotions that were bothering me subconsciously. I was allowing things like microaggressions affect me without actually addressing the issues.” [student author #6] Others focused on the value of having an audience for their experience. “I feel as though at school, I am never in safe spaces to be able to share my concerns, and that my voice is never heard. I just appreciated being able to vent to someone else about my experiences other than my friends.” [student author #3] “Before this presentation, I had only shared my feelings about being viewed as a minority at school privately with my close friends. Hearing someone else’s stories normalized my feelings of isolation (unfortunately).” [student author #5] Two authors expressed concern about how their stories would be received. “A little worried about the reaction.” [student author #1] “Vulnerable, scared, apprehensive.” [student author #2] The authors also had a range of responses about their experience of seeing their stories portrayed by actors. For some, there was a sense of exuberance and activation. “Really empowered!” [student author #1] “The actors were excellent and really funneled our voices. Viewing both my story and the other students’ [stories] made me realize there is so much work that needs to be done in predominantly white medical schools.” [student author #5] Others conveyed hopefulness. “Heard…like attempts were made to at least take my experience seriously.” [student author #2] Some students experienced conflicting and even negative emotions. “It made me feel sad, but also proud…” [student author #3] “The negative stress racism and discrimination that plays on underrepresented medical students is traumatizing and completely unfair. We are all trying to succeed as future physicians and none of us should carry the burden of feeling targeted based on our skin color or physical features. Viewing the other stories made me feel angry that these micro/macro-aggressions are tolerated every single day.” [student author #5] “It made me feel vulnerable that my experience was on display for the community to see.” [student author #6] And finally, there was mention of the psychodynamic processing that took place from seeing their experiences. “I felt that it was relatively therapeutic.” [student author #3] “It also helped me work through the emotions that I had been suppressing.” [student author #6] CONCLUSION Discriminatory practices often go unnoticed or unmentioned in the medical education setting. Failure to address discriminatory practices leads to isolation, stress, and disempowerment. To mitigate these harms, the medical school curriculum should enable conversations and events about racism and other forms of discrimination. URiM student narratives can aid faculty and student development. After viewing the stories, facilitated conversations could address questions such as the following: a. What could you do to prevent this scenario from ever even occurring? b. Now that it has occurred, how will you support this student? c. What structural changes and/or policies need to be in place for corrective action to be effective? d. If the scenario in the video happened to you, what would you do next? e. Why would you make that choice? f. Alternatively, if you witnessed this happen to a student or faculty member, what would you do? g. Why would you make that choice? h. What are the potential personal and professional consequences of your choice? In alignment with the published literature, our small sample of student author respondents experienced positive therapeutic effects from the process of writing and sharing their stories.[8] At the same time, seeing other authors’ stories of discrimination portrayed by actors ignited anger and sadness for some of our students as they recognized the depth of trauma within the community. Partnership with a theater company provides students the safety of anonymity when telling their stories, thereby allaying their fears of retribution. While some student authors maintained a sense of vulnerability despite the anonymity, they also expressed a sense of empowerment, hopefulness, and pride. Medical educators and administrators must take bold steps to address institutional racism in a meaningful way. Health humanities, including theater, can help the medical education community recognize and overcome the harms imposed on URiM students by institutional racism and other forms of discrimination and awaken capacity for compassionate, respectful, relationship-based education. [1] Hess, Leona, Palermo, Ann-Gel, and David Muller. 2020. “Addressing and Undoing Racism and Bias in the Medical School Learning and Working Environment” Academic Medicine, 95, no. 12 (December): S44-S50. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32889933/ [2] Naif Fnais et al., “Harassment and Discrimination in Medical Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Academic Medicine 89, no. 5 (2014): 817-827, https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000200; Melody P. Chung et al., “Exploring Medical Students’ Barriers to Reporting Mistreatment During Clerkships: A Qualitative Study,” Medical Education Online 23, no. 1 (December 2018): 1478170, https://doi.org/10.1080/10872981.2018.1478170 [3] “Racial Data Transparency,” Coronavirus Resource Center, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, accessed July 15, 2021, https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/racial-data-transparency [4] Radley Balko, “There’s Overwhelming Evidence that the Criminal Justice System is Racist. Here’s the Proof,” Washington Post, June 10, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/. [5] “WC4BL,” White Coats for Black Lives, accessed May 15, 2021, www.whitecoats4blacklives.org. [6] Will Hammond and Dan Steward, eds., Verbatim: Contemporary Documentary Theatre (London: Oberon Books, 2012). [7] “Our Vision,” Squeaky Wheelz Productions, accessed June 30, 2021, www.squeakywheelzproductions.com/. [8] James Pennebaker and Joshua Smyth, Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain, 3rd ed (New York, London: The Guilford Press, 2016).

The repeated destructions and reconstructions of Beirut have been widely acknowledged and conveyed from one generation to the next through different narratives, anecdotes, literature, and popular cultural productions. This paper describes the historical transformations of the city of Beirut from an old harbour city to a generic central district through a selection of dominant narratives, as well as alternative counternarratives and anecdotes. The paper argues that the post-civil war reconstruction project is submissive to the neo-liberal models of development which resulted in the generic city that we can observe today. The paper also projects two extreme case scenarios for the future development of the city, of which one seems to prevail: a scenario that has started to materialise since the sudden dramatic and deadly port explosion that hit the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.

Despite the several attempts to rework on his ideas, using non-mainstream approaches, George L. Shackle has remained an outsider in the economic discipline. Shackle, however, if we take seriously what he thought of economics, as a discipline concerned with a subject that is not self-contained but open-ended and impermanent, is not a man alone. Starting from an assessment of Shackle’s understanding of choice as originative and creative, the paper argues that Shackle should be rescued from the role of a nihilist where he is often relegated. In this perspective, a fundamental key to assessing the originality and anticipatory character of Shackle’s contribution can be found in the recent developments of several “friendly” disciplines such as the psychology of motivations and of self-rewarding actions, narrative as the “science” of the possible and the role of calendar time in choice theory. In fact, all these novel rethinkings can contribute to the understanding of Shackle’s main point, that human (and therefore economic) agents are active, creative enterprisers, who cut the deterministic thread by injecting the new in history to come, in making a difference in the future courses of action.

This paper explores scenarios created by young Faroe Islanders reflecting on the future of their local community and islands. The main objective is to outline and analyse the dynamic relationship between young people’s future images and present-day realities. Based on data from an ethnographic study from 2014, the paper discusses young people’s future-oriented essays in relation to their islands’ history, culture, and values. The essays, as methodological schemes, encourage the youth to draw a ‘future landscape’ without necessarily linking it directly to their personal (intimate) perspectives. They offer an opportunity to discuss the relation between micro- and macro-level events and between material and cultural shifts. In these narratives, we notice a strong commitment to connect the future to the past in a collective Faroese project. The future is often drawn as altered islands—a mesmerizing breakaway from present-day realities. The opportunity to dream and to imagine tomorrow is an important part of young people’s everyday life practices and identities.

African philosophy emerged out of the rationality debates and the need to affirm the existence of a unique African intellectual tradition that primarily reflects on the legacies of colonialism. Such a debate also centered on whether there is a unique philosophical tradition rooted on African traditional practices. In such a context, Ethiopian philosophy represents a unique approach in defying the colonial bias which is founded on the idea that philosophy is exclusively a western mode of thinking. It is also unique in being available among others in a written form which is absent in other philosophical traditions in Africa. In this paper, I will develop a critical exposition of Sumner’s studies into the written, oral and sapiential sources of Ethiopian philosophy. I will discuss the contributions of Claude Sumner in light of questioning Eurocentric bias that undermined the existence of non-western philosophies, escaping the charge of ethno-philosophy, and situating Ethiopian philosophy on different modalities of Ethiopian experience. To attain such an undertaking, Sumner’s investigations on Ethiopian philosophy and their major contributions to the attempt to introduce a unique philosophical tradition in Ethiopia will be discussed. Through a discussion of Sumner’s works on Ethiopian philosophy, this paper attempts to situate the place of Ethiopian philosophy within the need to reflect on our existential predicaments. I will start my discussion by situating the forces that motivated Sumner’s pursuits, and also elaborating on Sumner’s explorations into the classical, oral and written sources of Ethiopian philosophy

Recently I was invited to write a short paper for Context magazine, a magazine for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice in the UK. It is a themed edition, due to be published in the summer of 2023, edited by Joanne Hipplewith who generated the theme of “Failing, to do better” (Context, 187). For me the title speaks to the idea that there is a tension to explore within failure; the tension of present pain and future opportunity that the inclusion of the comma brings into view. I wrote about experiencing the theme as a writing prompt and used the opportunity to reflect on times I have experienced failure in academic contexts and to reflect on the process of writing for publication. For many this can invite anxiety around failure and provoke fear of “getting it wrong”. I explored also the tension between the pain of failure and the hope of learning something useful from the experience (Salter, 2023). A sub-theme emerged in my writing linked to current health status and the recent loss of my father who died from cancer in September 2022. I suppose I was reminded of the invitation to see ill health and end of life as a failure of some kind, that I had been failing in terms of my own health and that my father ultimately had failed to survive cancer. But there were opportunities, even here. My father and I found a way to live with (and for me, live through and beyond) the health challenges we faced and we were able to create space in our relationship to honour each other’s challenges. This was new territory. A new tension.

This paper investigates the narratives involved in the becoming public of an ecological, relational, and culinary culture through artistic mediums. Specifically, the question posed is this: how do food and cooking feature in some selected design and architecture exhibitions? The argument is developed through a series of thematic case studies that aim to affirm the presence in contemporary design, architecture, and exhibition-making of an ecological paradigm. The examples blur the lines of food and art by being proposed as processes of collective authorship happening in atmospheres of conviviality and hospitality. I bring forth the argument that developing exhibitions through the lines of hospitality can improve the quality of public engagement, and amplify a relational model which calls for the collective and entangled nature of all things. Alongside the potential of the arts of sparking a cognitive restructuring and shift in perspective, some risks associated with the mainstream model of society are considered. The final aim is to affirm the importance of relationships to oppose the neoliberal geopolitics of power which foster object-oriented perspectives.

This paper examines discourses around the religious and social practice of taqiyya among members of the Sulaymani Isma‘ili community in Saudi Arabia. Isma‘ilism, in the context of 1200 years of anti-Shi‘a discrimination, cultivated the practice known as taqiyya (Arabic, ‘circumscription’) as a tool for self-preservation, which was then further rationalized and reinforced by the sect’s esoteric theology. Taqiyya consists of concealing religious identity, public avoidance of certain rituals, and, in some instances, claiming to be a member of the unmarked Sunni majority. Sweeping changes in Saudi society in the last several years have meant a growing ambivalence about taqiyya and its continued utility. This is significant since taqiyya for many of our interlocutors in this study is not merely a survival tactic. Instead, it is better understood as an embodied disposition cultivated against the backdrop of household privacy. This disposition intimately links everyday comportment to the esoteric cosmology of Isma‘ilism, which is the distinctive and iconic feature of the faith. Our interlocutors’ narratives demonstrated how the invocation of different spatial and temporal frameworks provides a basic heuristic by which to interpret these individuals’ accounts of taqiyya. For some of these individuals, taqiyya is an essential and timeless practice, while for others, the meaning has been reshaped by the recent socio-political reforms.

The current pandemic is sustained in dichotomies and distancing, as most of us awkwardly have recently experienced. Moreover, COVID-19 has definitely put the spotlight on social inequalities that are underpinning our society and it has highlighted the escalation of the state surveillance capability and new forms of oppression too. The discrimination ingrained in our societies, built on a historically defined regime of racialized oppression and structural disadvantage of racialized citizens and migrants, was produced well before the coronavirus, but it is now casting a different shade, reinforcing forms of exclusions, highlighting the pandemic as a political issue. Hence, this paper addresses a range of political perspectives of the lived experiences in and through social space with examples of narratives in language which capture the everyday political experiences of the pandemic within Europe. The kind of language used and its profound effect on the growing discourse regarding COVID-19 is the main focus in this paper. I here explore the intertwining of language and politics during the pandemic and bring out the countervailing narratives that seem to be in constant tension. I then ask where this takes us, not only in terms of scholarship and expansion of knowledge, but also with a pragmatic edge to it, trying to figure out how is it possible for us to achieve some sort of cognitive shift in our approach in order to learn from this challenge and from this new perspective. Methodologically, as well as looking at existing data, references to attitudes in general are made. A theoretical discussion on migration and language, and the kind of intersection between them, is offered, from the point of view of critical theory, before pointing to the metaphors used, the implications they allow, and how all these fit together, in the form of a concluding discussion. Metaphor or not, the power of language in its ramifications of articulations about the pandemic and the idea of distance underlines COVID-19 as a deeply political issue.

Therapeutic landscapes are defined as environments that promote the health and wellbeing of their members. Although the term originated in the field of geography, it has been popularized in other disciplines, including the social sciences. The purpose of this paper was to explore how Irish Men's Sheds functioned as therapeutic landscapes. Theoretical thematic analysis was used to analyze the narratives of older Irish Men's Sheds members to identify examples of Gesler's (1993) therapeutic landscape model. The model includes both inner/meaning components of natural setting, built environment, sense of place, symbolic landscape, and everyday activities as well as outer/societal components of beliefs and philosophies, social relations and/or inequality and territoriality. A total of 37 narratives were included in the analysis. Findings demonstrated the most support for the social relations/inequalities component of therapeutic landscapes within the narratives. Evidence for an additional therapeutic landscape component was also noted (e.g., lifelong learning) and its potential for inclusion in the therapeutic landscape literature is noted. Literature on therapeutic landscapes has often focused on theoretical perspectives. However, this research expands the discussion by applying therapeutic landscape criteria to specific environments and provides additional insight into how older adults engage with therapeutic spaces.

The logics that govern contemporary societies and economies produce increasing forms of marginalisation and new types of peripheral territories (Harvey 2003). The phenomena of polarisation of economic activities generate social changes of enormous magnitude that are reflected in complex and differentiated forms on local territories. Inner areas, as they have been identified within the innovative public policy dealing with development and territorial cohesion, are peripheral areas, distant from the offer of essential services of mobility, health and education, often characterised by strong depopulation, but at the same time they are custodians of an enormous environmental and cultural heritage (Partnership Agreement, 2013). Through the territorialist prism, inner areas will be read in order to describe the opportunity to define settlement models that can ensure the lasting sustainability of contemporary places, taking communities and their relationships with their environments as reference points. For the sustainable planning of inner areas, this paper will explore the present narratives to strengthen a systemic vision worthy of a possible future.

In this paper, we look at the way through which the conception of the relationship between the three notions of affects, narratives and politics has been conceptualized all along the history of idea identifying three main moments. (1) The Renan’s moment, in which narratives are identified as being a part of the core notion of what makes a nation through the affects of belongings that they are prone to generate. (2) The Halbwachs’ moment at which a distinction was made between history and memory. (3) And finally, the Ricœur’s moment, which tries to define a position that would respect but also pretend to go beyond the distinction previously made by Halbwachs. A common feature of these three moments is then identified pointing to the nexus between narratives, emotions, and politics.

This study focuses on the analysis of contacts and communications on Twitter concerning pandemic policies. The goal is both show mobilization processes rising from the web and detect main actors, themes, and contents within the European context. Through a mixed method procedure, we tried to identify the main themes and most relevant communities, the main users, the most relevant topics and languages, and the underlined meanings and differences related to languages (as proxies of areas). Monitoring the communication on 3 main topics (“no-mask”, “covid-19”, “greenpass”), we noticed the weight of the gap between the government's attempts to communicate information motivating measures geared toward managing the crisis and the perceptions of private users. These perceptions spread through the web with such force the more the emotional, ironic, or polemical plane weighs. In this sense, online communication could be considered a tool for understanding the weight of the interaction between the institutional, social, and private dimensions, with effects on the social construction of identities. Digital communication is becoming an element of this process. The paper describes the “reassuring” role played by the digital community in the construction of ontological forms of security resulting from the construction of a shared digital culture. Results show the emergence of digital communities, structured on reference hubs and standing out from the detected phenomenon, prevalence of idioms and even language structures. The relevant role of the emotional (French), ironic (Italian), protest (English) component is confirmed, but also the changing and fluid structure of the debate and the co-presence of many parallel discussion communities.

The paper explores African women school leaders' constructions of their leadership identity. Using self-perception theory which sees changes in self-perceived leadership skills and dispositions as being related to changes in perceived leader identity, constructions of African women's leadership identity are mapped over a life-long career. Leader identity is, in this sense, inextricably linked to gender and an attempt is therefore made to understand these leader identities as gendered. The paper presents an analysis of the interviews of three women selected from a bigger study of 89 school leaders from four countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The three narratives of women leader identity construction are drawn from three of the four case study countries. The narrative approach to data analysis reflecting women school leaders' experiences of leader identity construction involved reading transcripts and coding them with themes characterizing the processes of becoming a leader and being identified as one. Findings suggest that processes of becoming a leader are influenced by women leaders' experiences of early socialization that gave them ways of doing leadership as well as values and attributes that shape their approach to leadership. These women grew up with a strong perception of who they are, and this instilled a sense of agency that facilitates leaderful actions. These actions were then affirmed through their different stages of growth and career development, thus strengthening their leader identity. It is concluded that understanding women leaders' experiences of leader identity is an important ingredient of leadership development.

Climate change is dramatically shifting the way cities interpret and live with their local climate. This paper analyses how climate change is emerging as a matter of concern in the public spheres of Bergen, and interprets how this concern is affecting Bergen’s identity, with implications for the city’s climate risk governance. Historically, Bergen has a strong identity as Europe’s rainiest city, manifested in its cultural and social life. In the past 15 years, Bergen’s identity has been shifting from a ‘weather city’ to a ‘climate city’. This paper draws on ethnographic research, interviews and document analysis to map this shift as co-produced by certain social and natural events and processes; told as narratives of change. This identity shift is creating surprising hybrid representations of climate that are locally meaningful, shaped as much by Bergen’s cultural weatherworld as by incoming ideas of climate change. These representations influence Bergen’s attitudes towards climate risk governance, and may extend influence to global scales via climate city networks. This identity shift also moves the timeframe of risk governance. As a weather city, risks were implicit to the city’s heritage and peoples’ lived experience. But as a climate city, risks are predicted, to foresee and prevent impacts. Critically employing co-production as an analytical lens can help us understand the multiple facets to cities’ climate risk governance, including the role of culture and identity.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge associated with the analysis of transdisciplinary research. We use a narrative centered approach, focusing on hybridity, sensemaking and the potential for transdisciplinary research to foster agency.When confronted with changes, people – as individuals – and local communities – as groups – make sense of them in the light of their own knowledge, beliefs and experiences. The process by which communities make sense of changing institutional and natural environments can be defined as the interaction between their own frame of reference and the perception of the situational demands inherent to changes, together with their interpretation of these changes. Such a dynamic process of sensemaking constantly redefines the boundaries of the narratives that community members can call on to give meaning to their past, present and future. In this paper we use five case studies to analyze how this sensemaking plays out in situations of changing climate risk and changing frames of reference associated with the presence of transdisciplinary scientists. We identify the central challenge of ambiguity. We define ambiguity as situations where narratives of change assign different meanings to the changes observed. In such situations, we observe three potential outcomes in our case studies: (1) communities appear to be forced into inaction – as a consequence of agency-depriving senselessness; (2) communities appear to be cornered into maladaptation – as a consequence of a misguided sense of agency; and (3) communities try to resolve ambiguity and effectively move forward – as knowledge-based agency-fostering exercise. In light of these results, we argue that by contributing to the clarification of such ambiguities, climate science may contribute to increases in local agency, thus enhancing adaptive capacities. We conclude by proposing that climate science be place-based and community–centered. The purpose of such a shift would be aimed at building the agency-enhancing sensemaking of local communities.

That a stroke is a disruptive event in many people's lives is no secret. That it also represents challenges to the communal construction of narratives between couples is less explored, and is the subject matter of this paper. With a narrative theoretical approach to ethnographic fieldwork conducted among couples where one partner has had a stroke, this article explores how everyday imaginaries are challenged when narratives are reassessed following a stroke. The paper suggests that sometimes the communal narratives are taken over by the part not directly afflicted by the stroke. Thus, when the non-afflicted spouse is in control of the narratives, they may be utilized as a way to monitor both the relationship as well as the brain of the spouse afflicted by the stroke.

Abstract Storytelling is a two-way interaction, written or oral, between someone telling a story and one or more listeners. It is a well-known and powerful means of communicating messages and engaging audiences. In this commentary paper, we present a framework for the integration of storytelling in systematic reviews and systematic maps at the stages where stakeholders are actively involved. Using storytelling to explain complex research has, in the past, not been considered a rigorous method of communicating science. But an increasing number of studies are showing how narratives can be useful for developing trust with an audience and increasing knowledge retention as well as the ability and willingness by audiences to learn and take action. Being easily digested by the human brain, stories help bridging between our logos and pathos; when an audience becomes emotionally receptive of facts, chances increase that they will respond and act on the knowledge. Here, we argue that storytelling holds potential as a tool in systematic reviews and systematic maps, serving mainly two purposes. First, collecting contextual narratives from stakeholders at the stages of question formulation and protocol writing can help to inform and generate relevant research questions and review designs. Here, we refer to contextual narratives as stories gathered from stakeholders to gain an understanding of their perspective. Second, creating a final story that faithfully presents the review results, while also relating to the contextual narratives, can contribute to effective communication of the results to stakeholders as well as to a broader audience. This approach can increase their engagement with the science and the implementation of evidence-based decisions. The paper concludes that storytelling holds untapped potential for communicating evidence from systematic reviews and maps for increased stakeholder engagement. It is time for researchers and research networks such as the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence to support and emphasize the importance of exploring new tools for effective science communication, such as storytelling.

Fashion, by definition, implies (and requires) constant changes and innovations. This paper, using the example of the fashion production Sirogojno Style, follows the process of the adaptation of the narrative about the past, by which the fashion production Sirogojno Style was recognizable for many years in the Yugoslavian and international fashion scene, to the context of contemporary fashion. The focus, on this occasion, is George Styler's collection NetWork, presented in 2014 at London Fashion Week; more specifically, the part of the collection that was made in collaboration with the “Sirogojno Company”. The study of the new narrative function of Sirogojno knitwear in the context of contemporary fashion was based on written and visual sources as well as on data gathered during a semi-structured interview done in April 2021 with the fashion creator George Styler. The aim of this study is to contribute to contemporary anthropological studies of fashion and clothing.