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On the Impulse to impart is about communication and language. Communication is a fundamental group-analytic theme and one on which S.H. Foulkes laid great and repeated emphasis. I look at their parts in group-analysis, how they may have originated and evolved, and at an experiment that appears to confirm Foulkes' belief in language being the defining human attribute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we seek to intervene in the proposition that there are recognisable or abstract-able modes of doing qualitative writing, and instead affirm that writing from a feminist scholarly perspective is often an embodied, domestic, haptic and serendipitous gesture. Occurring in in-between spaces and moments, in which personal and professional life frequently meld, with porous boundaries, our writing practices appear to talk back rhetorically to the notion of writing qualitatively. What are the qualities of qualitative writing? Within education (our field) quality can seem to masquerade as a measurable, generalizable thing, implying a 'gold standard' or that different writing practices or products can or should be compared or ranked. For us, writing is frequently encountered as serendipitous, messy and intricately entwined with daily life at numerous scales. This is not to suggest that writing magically takes shape, but rather it is un-abstract-able from daily routines, situations and energies at local and global scales. In the middle of these situations, writing happens when it takes precedence, at whatever cost that might be to bodies, relationships and domestic schedules. Working with a range of feminist philosophers, we draw the temporal, situated, mattering of writing into focus. This paper engages in non-linear story-telling about the processes of our collaborative writing of this paper. We are particularly inspired by Stewart's (2007:75) approach to writing to convey moments of ordinary life, which she describes as 'a circuit that is always tuned into some little something, somewhere. A mode of attending to the possible and the threatening'. We dwell upon the somethings and the somewheres as a means to draw out the temporal passing by of life in all its messiness, as a piece of writing comes together, tracing moments of shimmering intensity and mundane frustration and distraction throughout the work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we enact a partial cartographic storying of reconceptualist turns in our work. We do this by situating ourselves in relation to each other and our work across time as a mode of tracing the (situated) possibilities that these turns have enacted for children-in-relation with worlds. In enacting this dialogic and cartographic storying, we collaborate in a way that is inspired by Black methodologies. This means that we intentionally think with liberatory possibilities in our work in early childhood education research and practice across modalities, disciplines, temporalities and geographies. Importantly, like Black methodologies this co-theorizing is also ontological; it is inseparable from our own relational becomings. Following an anticolonial ethos, we are interested in the liberatory potentials of our work, at multiple scales and in different but specific places. We attempt to enact the difficult task of (re)storying our childhood education research and practice in ways that pay attention to the interconnected presences and effects of white supremacy, human supremacy and colonialism, while simultaneously refusing to reinscribe a flattened damage-centred understanding of children, educators and their relational worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the phases and dynamics of workplace bullying (WB) as a social positioning phenomenon within moral orders. Applying the positioning theory (PT) and the relational model of WB, the study analyses 136 written online stories of WB, utilizing narrative analysis of positioning in self-other relationships. The findings, limited to the perspective of the bullied (targets), identify four distinct storylines of WB that involve different forms of positioning: (1) the loss of health and ability to work, (2) passive acceptance of bullying, (3) unresolved conflict, and (4) active opponent in bullying. These findings shed light on the development and variations in WB storylines regarding the target, perpetrator, and work community, with a focus on the organizational and interpersonal power dynamics associated with WB. Furthermore, each WB storyline emphasizes the diverse strategies employed in response to WB and the various paths WB can follow over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign language education may serve many goals, but national storytelling would not be an obvious one. Due to the position of English as an international language, it has become an increasingly important tool for intercultural communication and international public relations for countries whose official language is not English. In this study, we will look into the case of China, where English has been seen as the most important medium of China's national storytelling. Chinese youths are encouraged to learn English well and to equip themselves with the competence to tell China's stories well in English. As a key theoretical underpinning in this study, national stories are taken as national identities to live by. To better understand this relationship, we have invited 100 undergraduate English Majors in a provincial Chinese university to each tell a China story in English. By subjecting the 100 China stories told by 100 Chinese youths in English to a rigorous thematic analysis, we hope to determine in this study what Chinese national identity is constructed through this national storytelling exercise. More importantly, by examining the Chinese case of English as a medium of national storytelling, this study aims to shed light on the specific purpose of English as a global medium for communicating a country's national narratives and national discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through five ethnographic stories, this article rethinks science from the African home and homestead. Focused on our interlocutors' efforts to heal and protect themselves and their families, these stories of experimentation challenge the ways science is often understood in science studies. Drawing on the literature on science and technology studies (STS) in Africa, postcolonial and feminist STS, medical pluralism, and ontological approaches to health, we argue that rooting our analysis in the worlds of our interlocutors and the practices through which they heal forces a rethinking of what we mean by science. In its place, we offer a science that attends to ontological multiplicity and exceeds and expands on more traditional definitions of science, which for Africa have been aligned with the field experiment and the laboratory. We conclude with the stakes of this intervention, arguing that a more unsettled science studies will decenter the Global North, universalisms, and whiteness, reshaping how we understand science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using first-hand experience supplemented by an open-access archive, this article examines case examples of civically engaged, public-facing technical communication (e.g., training for community organizers) as well as the value of stories and storytelling for content strategy. By developing 10 best practices for content strategy in advocacy organizations, this article offers suggestions for how to design and sustain content strategy for community organizers and contributes to the field's knowledge of the content strategy of politically engaged nonprofits, particularly those with a strong digital presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergenerational transmission refers to the transmission of stories, traits, abilities, ideas, behaviors, and various outcomes from parents to their children. To date, there has been little research on the intergenerational transmission of positive behavior, traits, and actions. To determine whether hope may be transmitted from one generation to the next, a qualitative study was performed, using narrative inquiry and thematic analysis. Over 4 months, four mothers of children with mental illness were engaged in repeated conversations about stories of hope related to their past and how they envisioned hope in their children. Findings indicated that hope could be transmitted to the next generation, either explicitly (verbally) or implicitly (i.e., expressed through actions involving one's children). We conclude that also positive patterns may be transmitted both explicitly and implicitly from one generation to the next. Transmitting hope between generations played a significant role in the mothers' experiences of hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Varied ways of engaging with ethics, drawn from the worlds of institutional and applied research ethics, professional ethics, and theater and aesthetics, each draw attention to different aspects of the ethical terrain in RbT and contribute to the formulation of questions that sit, sometimes uneasily, at the intersection of these diverse forms of ethics. Her work draws on mad theory and mad aesthetics to integrate the performance of "weighty ethical conundrums" she encountered during the research and development of I The Space in Between: A Research-Based Play About Military Trauma, Moral Injury and Transition. i This novel approach of weaving the ethics of RbT into the play itself points to the importance of reflexivity as a practical tool in ethical engagement throughout the RbT process. Keywords: research-based theater; ethics; stories; voice; evaluation EN research-based theater ethics stories voice evaluation 247 256 10 02/07/23 20230201 NES 230201 To be effective, Research-based Theater (RbT) requires people to work collaboratively and in ways that balance methodological and ethical rigor with the creative practice and aesthetics that theater requires. Thus, ethics in RbT also becomes a question of the ability to maximize good through RbT practice. [Extracted from the article]

Recent research into LGBTQ kinship has suggested that reproductive technology might stabilise and/or disrupt dominant ideals about the importance of biogenetic relatedness in family formation. This article examines the way adults raised in lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) households are interested in tracing queer family histories, rather than solely their biological relations. Data comes from biographical narrative interviews with twenty-two adult children raised by LGBTQ parents. The article examines how participants' kinship stories relate to parents' identities and journeys to, and through, LGBTQ parenthood. Knowledge of queer kinship was pivotal in the process of self-making and enabled participants to produce and express connections between themselves and their LGBTQ parents. Furthermore, queer social histories allowed them to articulate their affinity to LGBTQ communities and culture more widely, particularly noting their knowledge and experience of socio-legal discrimination against LGBTQ people. Thus, kinship narratives of people raised by LGBTQ parents highlight that the desire to 'know where we come from' is not rooted exclusively in biogenetics. In this case, kinship stories disrupted the established biogenetic narrative, stressing the importance of LGBTQ culture and history for constructing a connection between collective and individual identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories have played a central role in human social and political life for thousands of years. Despite their ubiquity in culture and custom, however, they feature only peripherally in formal government policymaking. Government policy has tended to rely on tools with more predictable responses—incentives, transfers, and prohibitions. We argue that stories can and should feature more centrally in government policymaking. We lay out how stories can make policy more effective, specifying how they complement established policy tools. We provide a working definition of stories' key characteristics, contrasting them with other forms of communication. We trace the evolution of stories from their ancient origins to their role in mediating the impact of modern technologies on society. We then provide an account of the mechanisms underlying stories' impacts on their audiences. We conclude by describing three functions of stories—learning, persuasion, and collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses narrative inquiry to investigate the lived experiences of fathers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It aims to answer the question: "What stories do fathers of children with autism tell about their fathering experiences?" Data to inform this study was gathered through 30 in-depth interviews with 10 fathers living in Malta. A narrative analysis, which is defined as the configuration of data in chronological order, resulted in 10 stories that were written in the "third-person omniscient." An analysis of the stories resulted in the identification of eight common "events": (1) The diagnosis, (2) Search for solutions, (3) Relationship with spouse, (4) Communication difficulties, (5) Thoughts on fatherhood, (6) Society and autism, (7) Positive outcomes, and (8) The future. The stories illustrate the great lengths fathers of children with autism go to in order to support their children. It also provides insight into the fathers' concerns about the future. Finally, it highlights specific support needs, such as the need for more sensitivity when communicating the diagnosis, the need for professionals to be more conscious of "professional-client" power dynamics, and the need for more complete information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current deliberations on increasing access to English and the democratization of English in post-war Sri Lanka must extend to students with disabilities. Research evidence from speech and language therapy promotes the use of multi-sensory stimuli to advance the development of communication and language skills in children with intellectual disabilities. In this preliminary study, 3 local children's stories, together with relevant story-making activities, were offered to 7 children with intellectual disabilities in one special school across 12 lessons. Vocabulary measures of word naming of target vocabulary were undertaken pre- and post-intervention using picture-based tasks presented via PowerPoint. A positive difference was found post-intervention on the target vocabulary naming test. The findings of this small preliminary study should be interpreted with caution. However, the findings are suggestive of the potential benefit of using culturally relevant familiar local traditional stories with a range of multi-sensory stimuli and storytelling activities to aid learning of new vocabulary in children with disabilities accessing English as an additional language. Further research using a large sample together with a control group will be required to substantiate the positive trend of vocabulary gains observed within this preliminary study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on the complex and sometimes contradictory effects of generating films with and about young people who have experienced homelessness, through participatory research. Drawing on two projects – one in Ottawa, Canada, and the other in Manchester, UK – we scrutinise two key aspects of participatory research projects that use film: first, how to appropriately communicate the complexity of already-stigmatised lives to different publics, and second, which publics we prioritise, and how this shapes the stories that are told. Through a theoretical framework that combines Pierre Bourdieu's account of authorised language with Arthur Frank's socio-narratology, we analyse the potential for generating justice versus reproducing symbolic violence through participatory research and film with homeless young people. In particular, we scrutinise the distinct role played by what we are calling first, second and third publics – each with their own level of distance and relationship to the participatory research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguity plays a central role in how narratives about violence are told, but research has rarely taken into account the ambiguity used by criminals with complex motives. Drawing on narrative criminology, this contribution explores how ambiguity is deployed in the stories of violence publicly told in a television interview by Mario Mariolini, a paraphiliac Italian killer sentenced for homicide. The analysis of the narratives, in tandem with the discursive strategies therein, demonstrates that ambiguity is strategically used for different purposes. As a result, we identify three central narratives, each displaying different ways of making instrumental use of ambiguity. In contrast to the analysis of the ambiguity produced by ordinary criminals, this contribution shows how particular and severe criminal cases are better suited for the study of narratives about violence because of the more complex interplay between the ideological and communicative dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Veterans Affairs (VA) Storybook Program was developed to enhance nurse-patient relationships and satisfaction with care. Personal stories about nurses were distributed to patients on a medical/surgical unit. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation data were collected from patients and nurses to capture patients' descriptions of nurses and perceptions of program value. Results show patients describe nurses differently after reading the storybook. Patients were highly satisfied with the program, and interviews suggest the stories fostered connection and developed an atmosphere of trust. Story programs may be an effective, structured approach to enhancing nurse-patient relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the micro- and macro-level implications of the dual global pandemics of COVID-19 and racism through a narrative structure based on Barad's discussion of "timehops." Weaving personal, national, and international stories, the article explores qualitative research's responsibility and potential to offer new ways to respond to the entanglements of people, places, moments, materials, and these pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Images of maternal suffering are an evocative and powerful means of communication in a world where the private grief of victims has increasingly become subject to commodification and public consumption. This article looks at the influence of bereaved mothers as symbols of respect, peace and dignity in the aftermath of violence, and as a result their persuasive presence in family activism. Drawing upon two case studies, this article explores the importance of victims' stories in public life and, in particular, the presence of the charismatic matriarch in creating communities of solidarity, raising awareness of harms that have previously gone unheard and prompting policy change. It considers the 'canonical' story of the mother in public life and concludes by arguing that more attention should be paid to victims' stories and their influence on policy-making, politics and eventually in becoming public grievances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article enhances our understanding of the thoroughly embodied nature of knowledge production in relation to automation by demonstrating how making sense of automation is a generative process, rather than the demystification of an already existing object of analysis. It argues that the process of knowing automation involves situated encounters that transform bodies at the level of their indeterminate capacities to affect and be affected which, in turn, contributes to the production of what automation is. Contrasting with more generalised diagnoses about how automation is deskilling or reskilling bodies, it evaluates the constitutive role of situated encounters that register in sensing bodies for reshaping capacities. Focusing on iron ore mining in Australia, an industry sector that is currently increasing its automated operations, the paper draws on a series of fieldwork encounters with people differently positioned in the mining sector. Through the presentation of five stories that incorporate combinations of these fieldwork encounters, the paper constructs a more complex picture of how automation is redefining different bodies. Rather than taken to be mere representations of automation, it argues that the listening to and telling of stories about automation is a form of encounter that redefines bodies in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an autoethnographic account centered around family recipes, the author, a Mennonite, reflects on her interrupted family story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rich understandings of the phenomenon, urban household food waste (HFW), are critical to realizing the vision of sustainable, inclusive human settlement. In 2018/19, an exploratory study of HFW perceptions and practices of a diversity of urban residents, was conducted in the Bezuidenhout neighborhood, The Hague (Netherlands). Nineteen participants, communicating in one of three languages, as per their preference, participated through-out this visually enhanced study. The sequential "Snap-Send-Share-Story" qualitative, participatory action research (PAR) inspired methodology, employed in the study, is introduced in this paper. Focus groups ("Story") which resourced and followed photovoice individual interviews ("Snap-Send-Share") are principally emphasized. Three focus groups were conducted viz. Dutch (n = 7), English (n = 7) and Arabic (n = 5), within a narrative, photo elicitation style. Explicit and tacit, sensitive, private and seemingly evident yet hard to succinctly verbalize interpretations of HFW—shared and contested—were expressed through group stories. Participants accessed a stream of creativity, from photographing HFW in the privacy of their homes to co-constructing stories in the social research space of focus groups. Stories went beyond the content of the photographs to imagine zero HFW. This approach encouraged critical interaction, awareness of HFW, reflexive synthesis of meaning and deliberations regard social and ecological action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working in a participatory research project with young people who are disabled, care-experienced or otherwise disadvantaged, collaborative fiction writing was a core method of hearing and amplifying their voices. We discuss how meanings were made in this iterative process of capturing resonances in the different stages of the research, resulting in the creation of stories filtered through many different participants. Through individual and joint reflections on the complex processes of constructing the 48 short stories, we demonstrate how collective storytelling can address criticisms of fictional research outputs as (in)valid social science, and argue instead that the resulting stories can be considered rigorous and faithful research findings. We suggest that these research outputs preserve and proliferate the meanings of marginalised young people, and challenge the absence or distortion of existing narratives about their lives as experienced by themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehension of speech masked by background sound requires increased cognitive processing, which makes listening effortful. Research in hearing has focused on such challenging listening experiences, in part because they are thought to contribute to social withdrawal in people with hearing impairment. Research has focused less on positive listening experiences, such as enjoyment, despite their potential importance in motivating effortful listening. Moreover, the artificial speech materials—such as disconnected, brief sentences—commonly used to investigate speech intelligibility and listening effort may be ill-suited to capture positive experiences when listening is challenging. Here, we investigate how listening to naturalistic spoken stories under acoustic challenges influences the quality of listening experiences. We assess absorption (the feeling of being immersed/engaged in a story), enjoyment, and listening effort and show that (a) story absorption and enjoyment are only minimally affected by moderate speech masking although listening effort increases, (b) thematic knowledge increases absorption and enjoyment and reduces listening effort when listening to a story presented in multitalker babble, and (c) absorption and enjoyment increase and effort decreases over time as individuals listen to several stories successively in multitalker babble. Our research indicates that naturalistic, spoken stories can reveal several concurrent listening experiences and that expertise in a topic can increase engagement and reduce effort. Our work also demonstrates that, although listening effort may increase with speech masking, listeners may still find the experience both absorbing and enjoyable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the (re)emergence of human trafficking as a global social problem, this article presents an analysis of asylum determinations where claims for Asylum and/or Humanitarian Protection included accounts of trafficking to the UK. The article traces the emergence of trafficking as a credible claim for refugee status and argues that this recognition was time-specific and story-specific. Trafficking victims were identified by the UK Home Office where a claimant's narrative mirrored the narrowly defined female 'sex trafficking victim' presented in campaigns and fictional depictions of human trafficking in the early 21st century. Through an exploration of the work that trafficking stories did in establishing an 'ideal' trafficking victim in asylum determinations, this article illustrates how social problems and legal judgments can be profoundly shaped by situated and strategic storytelling. These findings develop an understanding of the social construction of, and relationships between, social conditions and micro-meso-macro narratives of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of past standards stories and how they are deployed strategically in ways that shape the process of standards creation. It draws upon an ethnographic study over multiple years of standards meetings, discussions, and online activity. Building on existing work that examines how standards are shaped by stories, this study follows the development of Augmented Reality Markup Language and maps how the story of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) became the key story that actors utilized and debated to push for participation, agreement, and material development of the standard. The authors present several different ways the recurring HTML story was effective at various points in the process as a diagnostic tool, promissory future, empirical evidence, and confidence building measure. Understanding these strategic deployments serves as an empirical example of how recurring stories of the past can shape standards development. These mappings illustrate how standards can be built on past standards sociologically as well as technologically and also broadens our theoretical tools for understanding the importance of stories in the sociology of standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional methods of imparting knowledge are known as yarning to Australian Aboriginal Elders and talking circles to North American First Nations peoples. Yarning is a relational methodology for transferring Indigenous knowledge. This article describes an emerging research methodology with yarning at its core, which provides respect and honour in a culturally safe environment. Yarning is highly structured, with protocols and principles providing participants control over the process and their stories. The methodology is embedded in a yarning space, which is framed by six protocols and seven principles. The protocols are gift, control, freedom, space, inclusiveness and gender specificity, and the principles are reciprocity, responsibility, relationship, dignity, equality, integrity and self-determination—to protect participants, stories and data. This is ensured through respectful and honouring relationships, responsibility and accountability between participants. The key camps in which the yarning journey is segmented are the Ancestors, protocols, principles, connections, data, analysis, processing and reporting, and the wider community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid threats to the self, people shun comparisons with similar—yet immoral, mentally unstable, or otherwise negatively viewed—others. Despite this prevalent perspective, we consider a contrarian question: Can people be attracted to darker versions of themselves? We propose that with self-threat assuaged, similarity signals self-relevance, which draws people toward those who are similar to them despite negative characteristics. To test this general idea, we explored a prevalent context that may offer a safe haven from self-threat: stories. Using a large-scale proprietary data set from a company with over 232,000 registered users, we demonstrated that people have a preference for villains—unambiguously negative individuals—who are similar to themselves, which suggests that people are attracted to such comparisons in everyday life. Five subsequent lab experiments (N = 1,685) demonstrated when and why similarity results in attraction toward—rather than repulsion from—negative others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories are known to be powerful persuasive devices. Stories can capture attention, evoke emotion, and entrance listeners in a manner that reduces resistance to a message. Given the powerful persuasive potential of stories, one might deduce that it is best to embed one's facts within a story. In contrast to this perspective, the present research suggests that coupling facts with stories can either enhance or undermine persuasion. Specifically, to understand when facts benefit from the use of stories, this work provides a deeper examination of how counterargument reduction-a common explanation for the unique persuasive capabilities of stories-operates. Across three experiments, evidence is found for when it is more effective to embed facts within a story versus to use facts alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the enchanting powers of music is its ability to transcend language and culture and capture complex human experiences. But music, rather than a mere reflection of social reality, also constitutes within discursive practices and contributes to the social construction of gender and sexuality. By looking at two different examples of music works, I call attention to the social-political role music plays in our life. I argue that attending to the sociopolitical perspective of music is to understand how music traverses across lives (and materials) and creates different relationships with and among us. This is an attempt to better comprehend human experiences, through which, we may repair and recreate new relationships. I end this column with a few curriculum ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adds to recent intergenerational family memory research by presenting an empirical study of three-generational stories recounted by thirteen families in the Czech Republic. By drawing on a detailed and rigorous methodological approach, this article focuses on the topic of stories, their emotionality, and the personal traits of the heroes. The majority of families told their family stories in a prototypical, perhaps archetypal fashion, depicting their ancestors as heroes under circumstances of danger, fear, and threat. A tendency to valorize ancestors is observed in the stories framed by important historical events while private family stories tend to have more of an amusing character. Why a family shares that or another type of stories depends on many circumstances, particularly on a long-lived and generative ancestor, intergenerational relations, and family values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparing students for a complex and ever-changing health-care environment is a daunting task for nurse educators. One way to accomplish this task is by reducing the gap between what is learned in school and what is practiced upon graduation. Nurse educators are challenged to create online environments that engage students with real-life activities that resemble practice—authentic learning. One authentic learning activity created for an oncology nursing course that resonated with students was Ann's Story. Ann, a nursing professor, was diagnosed with cancer, and her story was used in a course about caring for patients with cancer. Ann's goal of making something good come of her cancer diagnosis was met through student comments reflecting newfound wisdom in sharing thoughts, feelings, and compassion with patients rather than concentrating only on the completion of tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories are essential realities from our past and present. As the primary sources of data in narrative research, interview transcripts play an essential role in giving meaning to the personal stories of research participants. The pragmatic narratives found in transcripts represent human experience as it unfolds. Analyzing the narratives found in interview transcripts thus moves beyond providing descriptions and thematic developments as found in most qualitative studies. Crafting stories from interview transcripts involves a complex set of analytic processes. Building on the first author's personal experience in working on a doctoral thesis employing narrative inquiry, this article presents a multimethod restorying framework to narrative analysis. A step-by-step progression within the framework includes choosing interview participants, transcribing interviews, familiarizing oneself with the transcripts (elements of holistic-content reading), chronologically plotting (elements of the story), use of follow-up interviews as a way to collaborate (an important procedure in narrative inquiry), and developing the story through structural analysis. It is hoped that this article will encourage other researchers embarking on narrative analysis to become creative in presenting participants' lived experiences through meaningful, collaborative strategies. This article demonstrates the fluidity of narrative analysis and emphasizes that there is no single procedure to be followed in attempting to create stories from interview transcripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-qualitative inquiry can be seen to challenge—not fix—at least four elements of what Elizabeth St. Pierre calls conventional humanist qualitative inquiry: the nature of data, the role of methods, the quest for increasing clarity, and the idea of an individual "voice." In conducting post-qualitative research rather than offering replacements for these or completely renouncing them, I outline four key balancing acts. Unless understood as continuous acts of balancing, post-qualitative inquiry runs a risk of being identified as yet another isolated fortress of righteousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessing medical assistance in dying (MAiD) became legal in Canada in June, 2016. This marks a unique time in our history, as eligible persons can now opt for an assisted death and health care professionals can be involved without criminal repercussion. I used an autoethnographic approach to explore and describe my experience of implementing and coordinating a new MAiD program in a local health authority. Part I is a self-reflexive narrative based on journal entries about my immersion in this practice role over a 6 month period. In Part II, I share five emergent storylines: coming to the role (the calling), embodiment (becoming the face of), immersion in clinical practice, interactions with those seeking MAiD, and self survival (sense making). The created story and storylines shine a light on new ethical practice realities, enhance understanding about MAiD as it continues to unfold, and hopefully inspire human centered, compassionate care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging with fictional stories and the characters within them might help us better understand our real-world peers. Because stories are about characters and their interactions, understanding stories might help us to exercise our social cognitive abilities. Correlational studies with children and adults, experimental research, and neuropsychological investigations have all helped develop our understanding of how stories relate to social cognition. However, there remain a number of limitations to the current evidence, some puzzling results, and several unanswered questions that should inspire future research. This review traces multiple lines of evidence tying stories to social cognition and raises numerous critical questions for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can research contribute to a positive transformation of the politics of migration? This article addresses the question with reference to a recent research project, Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Boat, which maps and documents the journeys and experiences of people on the move across the Mediterranean. It explores how qualitative research engaging research participants as people with the authority to speak can affect change by exposing claims and demands that compel ‘receiving communities’ to bear witness to the contemporary violence of policies and practices. Exploring the dissemination strategy of sharing stories through interactive maps and research–art collaboration, the article emphasises the importance of strategies that foster constructive connections between diverse constituencies. This development, the article argues, involves a process of translation that goes beyond a form of passive empathy and that works towards positive transformation of a slower duration, albeit in terms that remain discomforting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a duplex theory for understanding the scientific impact of contributions to psychological science. I argue that articles that we “love” can be understood in terms of (a) triangular elements of intimacy, passion, and commitment and (b) types of stories that characterize high-impact articles. Certain kinds of stories (e.g., review articles) are more likely to have lasting impact, on average, than other kinds of stories (e.g., data-driven empirical articles). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voices of practitioners are often missing in research studies. This project focused on examining general education teachers' stories as they relate to implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and inclusion of students with moderate to severe intellectual disability. Seven general education teachers from Canada and the United States participated in this study. Narrative inquiry was utilized as a method of data gathering and analysis. Four themes emerged: designing for learner variability, talking about inclusion, teaming fosters success, and differing descriptions of UDL. Discussion of implications to research and practice is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience, or the process of adjusting well to adversity, draws on personal and social ecological resources (i.e., caregiving and community supports). Previous research--conducted mostly in the Global North--has shown that bibliotherapy offers a way to support children in identifying and utilizing resilience-enabling resources. In so doing, bibliotherapy has the potential to facilitate resilience. In this article, we confirm the resilience-supporting value of bibliotherapy for African orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). To do so, we report the quantitative and qualitative pre- and post-test results of the Read-me-to-Resilience Study (N=345). This quasi-experimental study showed that African children who listened to indigenous resilience-themed stories had a significantly increased awareness of personal and community-based protective resources postintervention, than those who did not. Interestingly, there was no significant increase in their perceptions of caregiving resources. The findings suggest that school psychologists and teachers should include resilience-enabling stories in their support of children who are orphaned. However, further research is needed on how best to use stories in ways that will enable children to identify caregiving resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Bourdieu has increasingly gained interest in criminology. His theoretical framework is rich and arguably the most sophisticated approach to social inequality and difference in sociology. It has however, been criticized for bias towards the structural aspects of social life, and for leaving little space for the constitutive, and creative role of language. We argue for the inclusion of narrative for understanding street fields. Based on qualitative interviews with 40 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we describe the narrative repertoire of the street field, including stories of crime business, violence, drugs and the ‘hard life’. The narrative repertoire is constituted by street capital, but also upholds and produces this form of capital. Street talk is embedded in objective social and economic structures and displayed in the actors’ habitus. Narratives bind the street field together: producing social practices and social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several poems by James J. Chriss are presented. "Strange Beginnings." First Line: The ultimate poem; Last Line: Hogwash! "The Journey." First Line: These questions are natural. Last Line: And I don't know where to begin. "Regrets?" First Line: I've altered my reality; Last Line: To mull over as we like; and "Back Home." First Line: It just seems to me; Last Line: "It's your son. He came after all."

Hermeneutic phenomenology, as a methodology, is not fixed. Inherent in its enactment are contested areas of practice such as how interview data are used and reported. Using philosophical notions drawn from hermeneutic phenomenological literature, we argue that working with crafted stories is congruent with the philosophical underpinnings of this methodology. We consider how the practical ontic undertaking of story crafting from verbatim transcripts is integral with the interpretive process. We show how verbatim transcripts can be crafted into stories through examples taken from interview data. Our aim is to open dialogue with other hermeneutic phenomenological researchers and offer alternate possibilities to conventional ways of work with qualitative data. We argue that crafted stories can provide glimpses of phenomena that other forms of data analysis and presentation may leave hidden. We contend that crafted stories are an acceptable and trustworthy methodological device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using qualitative methods, this study explores humor as an interactional, sensemaking practice and examines how public safety employees (PSEs) and their family members navigate the relationship between work and home. Results from 95 interviews and eight focus groups indicate that both PSEs and their families use humor in productive and unproductive ways and introduce a new way, via Humorous Bilateral Emotional Labor, to understand how humor is used. In addition, a new concept of sensetaking is introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's narrative skills have been widely studied in North America, but there is a paucity of African research. Within South Africa's diverse socio-cultural context, this study of mixed-race children explored the development of narrative production and the influence of home background variables. Using the Bear Story picture prompt, this longitudinal study investigated the fictional oral narrative skills of 70 English-speaking children in kindergarten and Grade 3. Four key findings emerged: first, with age, narratives increased in lexical diversity, macrostructure elements and written discourse features. However, there was no increase in evaluation, thus highlighting the complexity and nonlinear nature of narrative development. Second, early book reading experiences in the home were positively associated with Grade 3 narrative macrostructure. Third, there were no associations between narrative abilities and maternal education or mothers speaking a first language other than English, underscoring the importance of parental behaviours above factors such as education and language background. Finally, contrary to expectations, the findings suggest more similarities than differences between these children and their peers in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Sarajevo's memoryscape to investigate the ambiguous nature of artefacts of commemoration. Suggesting that memorials impact the ways in which people relate to the past and future, the article suggests that they represent important platforms on which different versions of peace and social justice are implicitly narrated and discussed. Depending on the artist/designer, the location, the shape, the audience and the surrounding socio-political discourses, memorials inspire and transform stories of war and peace. The controversies around the Sarajevo roses or monuments dedicated to the international community in Sarajevo mirror controversial societal debates around the nature and politics of peace(building). Conflict and contestation can thus be read through closer investigation of the maps of meaning underpinning the commemoration of certain events. Due to their ambiguous nature, monuments can be used as a platform for the constant transformation of discourses of peace into conflict, and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonprofit organizations have long used the personal experience narratives of clients, staff, and stakeholders in their communications. This study explores digital-age practices with this text form, analyzing 82 collections of digital personal experience narratives (DPENs) housed at or linked to Web sites of nonprofit organizations. Results are reported on the variety and frequency of the modes, featured constituencies, narrative perspectives, and digital interface features in the sample. Overall, the nonprofit DPEN collections sampled showed limited use of new digital production and distribution possibilities. Practice, however, differed notably between two segments of nonprofits: networks and service organizations. To explore these results, the article discusses key examples of DPEN collections from each segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology is changing, and has changed the ways we create and consume narratives, from moving images and immersive storyworlds to digital long-form and multi-branched story experiences. At the same time, blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, is revolutionizing the way that transactions and exchanges occur. As a globally stored and collaboratively written list of all transactions that have ever taken place within a given system, the blockchain decentralizes money and offers a platform for its creative use. There are already examples of blockchain technologies extending beyond the realm of currency, including the decentralization of domain name servers that are not subject to government takedown and identity management and governance. By framing key blockchain concepts with past and present storytelling practices, this article raises questions as to how the principles and implementation of such distributed ledger technologies might be used within contemporary writing practices - that is, can we imagine stories as a currency or value system? We present three experiments that draw on some of the fundamental principles of blockchain and Bitcoin, as an instantiation of a blockchain implemented application, namely, (1) the ledger, (2) the blocks and (3) the mining process. Each low-fi experiment was intentionally designed to be very accessible to take part in and understand and all were conducted as discrete workshops with different sets of participants. Participants included a cohort of design students, technology industry and design professionals and writing and interaction design academics. Each experiment raised a different set of reflections and subsequent questions on the nature of digital, the linearity (or not) of narratives and collaborative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how the MBA plays a role in some students’ lives that goes beyond conscious cost–benefit analyses and instrumental value and engages the personal and intimate. It presents a thematic analysis of essays written by MBA students exploring what their MBA was for. The analysis revealed that the MBA functioned as an element or character in a life story and how, in some instances, doing the MBA was not about the MBA as such. The article advances our understanding of the MBA as an element in a life story, as a rite of passage, and as part of the intersection of boundaryless careers and changeable life patterns. Enhancing the awareness of this on the part of students may improve their understanding of what they are doing by embarking on an MBA and could enhance the ability of faculty and business schools to address the sometimes less explicit interests of their students. The article also confirms the value of a qualitative ‘storied’ approach to the study of the MBA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Carol Berkenkotter and others who have expanded the realm of personal narrative studies over the past several decades would not have been possible without the pioneering efforts of those who first brought the study of narrative to nonliterary discourses. By revisiting what personal narratives were to these pioneers—working outward from William Labov in particular—this article considers how the early expansion of the field helps us to understand the far wider expansion of multimodal personal narrative today. In doing so, I suggest that understanding the notion of a personal narrative requires a twofold commitment to inquiry: first, about what makes it narrative; and second, about what makes it personal. These commitments hinge on two crucial junctures, what I call the problem of scope and the problem of autonomy. Framed as questions, the former asks, When does a narrative begin and end? The latter asks, Whose narrative is it? This recuperative essay shows that the heuristics of scope and autonomy can be useful ways to think about the ongoing complexities of personal narrative and its analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]