Alternative Narratives Research Articles

Exploring parental perspectives and engagement in shared reading with digital books: A comparison of urban and rural Chinese families during the Covid-19 pandemic

This research explored parental perspectives and engagement in the home literacy environment amid the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing a theoretical framework integrating Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model and Bourdieu's Theory of Capital, the study conducted a case-study analysis involving eight parents, with reflexive thematic analysis applied to their interview data. The findings affirmed existing urban-rural literacy disparities while also shedding light on similar disparities in parental cultural capital. Further, the study revealed a more intricate reality of the Chinese home literacy environment, depicted as a multifaceted mosaic shaped by economic reforms, sociocultural shifts, and cross-generational influences. The evidence demonstrates that the formation and expression of cultural capital by individual parents are profoundly influenced by their socio-cultural contexts, leading to diverse home literacy practice. This suggests that the home literacy experience is intricately linked with various layers of socio-cultural contexts, revealing a dynamic and interconnected framework rather than a static or isolated view. This dynamic nature challenges the conventional notion propagated by large-scale quantitative projects, which tend to portray rural areas as inherently disadvantaged compared to urban areas. Instead, this study suggests that the home literacy environment holds the possibility to be conceptualized beyond simplistic urban-rural dichotomies, resisting an understanding of their relationship as comparable entities evaluated by quantifiable data. Therefore, this research underscores the importance of adopting ecologically comprehensive and culturally responsive approaches in promoting the Chinese home literacy environment. Furthermore, it calls for in-depth qualitative research to capture the vast and diverse facets of Chinese families, aiming not for conclusive definitions but rather for the exploration of alternative narratives that run parallel to each other.

Analysing Narration of Museum Exhibition Information for Young Visitors

Current museums lack innovation in their exhibition design resulting in a decline of young visitors' interest. There is a need to enhance visitors' experience in museum exhibition design to attract young visitors' interest in traditional Chinese culture. The purpose of this study is to analyze potential advanced narration of museum exhibition information for young visitors. This study conducted a systematic literature review synthesis process to evaluate the trend, identify the gaps, and recommend future approaches in designing alternative exhibition narration. Results will cover museum exhibition design, exhibition information, thematic narrative exhibition, exhibition design process, and high technology display. The results of the study include recommendations for a typical exhibition layout, a typical process of exhibiting artifacts in museums how best to narrate an exhibition, and the critical components in artifact narration. The significance of the study is supporting to increase the interest of young visitors in the museum exhibition by enhancing experience and further well-studied the traditional Chinese culture. Future study recommends to enhance cultural confidence through better inheritance and innovation through interactive exhibition design and gamified museum storytelling.

African-American Cultural Expression: The Defiance of Black Aesthetics

This research delves into the transformative realm of Black Aesthetics as a profound and resilient cultural resistance strategy employed by African-Americans. In a historical context marked by the degradation of the genuine image of African-Americans through Western perspectives, Black Aesthetics emerges as a dynamic force challenging stereotypes and reclaiming agency over cultural narratives. The study explores the foundational influences of key socio-political movements, namely the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Power Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement, in shaping and catalyzing the development of Black Aesthetics. During the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance served as a crucible for cultural revitalization amid the multifaceted struggles faced by African-Americans. Fueled by a desire to break free from racial stereotypes, this movement laid the groundwork for the emergence of Black Aesthetics as a tool for empowerment and self-expression. The subsequent impact of the Black Power Movement and the Civil Rights Movement on Black Aesthetics is examined, revealing how these movements contested prevailing Western perspectives and sought to redefine the narrative surrounding African-Americans. The Black Power Movement, emphasizing self-determination and autonomy, stood in stark contrast to the assimilations goals of the Civil Rights Movement, collectively contributing to the nuanced evolution of Black Aesthetics. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this research navigates the intersection of art, ideas, and socio-political dynamics, elucidating how Black Aesthetics serves as a cultural resistance mechanism. It explores the multifaceted dimensions of this resistance, including the creation of alternative narratives, the celebration of cultural identity, and the reclamation of dignity. Ultimately, this research contributes to a comprehensive understanding of Black Aesthetics as a transformative force in cultural resistance, shedding light on its historical roots, its evolution through significant movements, and its enduring impact on reshaping the narrative of African-American identity.

대체재 개념의 확대에 관한 연구

Hicks, in his delineation of substitutes based on the sign of the substitution term, established a definition that has been widely employed in discerning the relationship between two goods due to its intuitive and easily explicable nature. Samuelson in his paper, however, demonstrated that the relationship between two goods becomes less perspicuous when another good is concurrently consumed as both a substitute and a complement. In a more comprehensive context, substitution can be conceptualized as the process by which one good is replaced to achieve specific objectives. When applied to Hicks' definition of substitution, it suggests that a good is replaced by another good with a relatively lower price for utility. In this context, the price assumes the role of a mediating variable. By modifying the mediating variable, it becomes conceivable to redefine substitutes in alternative ways. This study suggests that income and physical constraints also serve as pertinent mediating variables. Consequently, the concept of substitutes can be extended beyond those contingent on price to encompass substitutes contingent on income and substitutes contingent on constraint. The integration of these new types of substitute categories into economic theory has the potential to yield alternative theoretical narratives.

Vita brevis, ars longa

The article deals with collecting in Utz (1989), by Bruce Chatwin. I read the fascination with collectors and collecting in the novel from and across two theoretical questions: (1) can objects enfold both a material status and an intangible effect as well as create an alternate narrative that would draw us away from commodification, objectification, and pathology? and (2) can the object confront us more with remnants of human life, with fragments of the representation of desire, and less with the residue of human labor? Kaspar Utz is a great collector of Meissen porcelain who the adverse events of history lead to living in Prague with his fragile treasures, under the malevolent eyes of a police state. Utz knows that a collector is almost an occult “theologian”, and his relationship with the Harlequins and the Colombines of Meissen has something idolatrous. Utz wages a silent war against the enemies that surround him, against the background noise of history, which would like to swallow forever these object-figures made of a substance refined by time. Utz’s lonely and manic life will become a game against the enemies, whose stake is the collection itself, an army of beings that must be removed from the brutal fingertips of tyrannical authority.

“Envejecer en Cuba”: reflexiones desde la literatura, las artes visuales y la sociología

This research paper explores the portrayal of aging in Cuba through artistic and literary projects driven by social science, operating outside of Cuban official channels. The focus lies on the efforts of the “Cuido60: Observatory of Aging, Care, and Rights,” an initiative led by Cuban sociologist Elaine Acosta. Within this initiative, Acosta has organized literary and photography contests. The primary objective of this study is to analyze how these artistic endeavors capture the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by the elderly in Cuba, offering insights into the socio-economic decline and the disillusionment of a once-utopian aspiration.
 The themes of the body, aging, vulnerability, and illness are intricately woven into a comprehensive framework intertwined with migratory processes, neglect, and abandonment. In this contextual structure, family dynamics and adversities traverse the domains of politics and society. My aim is to underscore the extent to which these artistic projects facilitate discourse that extends beyond the confines of Cuban officialdom. This extension serves as a call for a set of policies that advocate for dignified aging in Cuba. Furthermore, can this intermedial language provide an alternative narrative regarding Alzheimer’s, memory loss, and vulnerability? Can it go beyond merely presenting these corporeal experiences and delve into their deeper implications? Guided by the works of philosophers such as Jean Améry, Simone de Beauvoir, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and Victoria Camps, this research seeks to unveil the multifaceted implications of these artistic expressions for the conversation surrounding aging in Cuba, its representation, and its broader societal significance.

STRATEGIC EFFORTS OF BINCANGSYARIAH.COM AND ISLAMI.CO EDITORIALS IN SPREADING COUNTER-NARRATIVE EXTREMISM ON THE INTERNET

The increasing religious enthusiasm of some Indonesians has become a target for extremist actors to spread their ideas and concepts. In fact, extremism can threaten the integrity of the nation and state. This article aims to discover the strategies Islami.co and Bincangsyariah.com used in conducting counter-narratives of extremism through online media. Islami.co and Bincangsyariah.com are moderate Islamic media involved in the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). This article uses a qualitative approach with content analysis techniques over supported data which are founders of Islami.co and Bincangsyariah.com as informants. Their published articles consist of counter-narrative extremism themes. The article primarily investigates the methods Islami.co and Bincangsyariah.com use to promote moderate Islamic content in the digital realm. The findings reveal that these sites engage in counter-narrative strategies by scrutinizing the arguments and claims of individuals or groups promoting extremism, thereby highlighting their fallacies. Moreover, they craft and disseminate alternative narratives that represent moderate Islam. As a result, Islami.co and Bincangsyariah.com have successfully exposed the flaws in the reasoning of pro-violence groups. However, further research is necessary to gauge the broader societal impact of these counter-narrative efforts.

Patient’s Consent and Autonomy in Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom

This paper addresses the idea of patient consent in the Indian mental health care system. Mental hospitals tend to treat patients as machines. The personhood of the sufferer is treated as invalid. The paper argues that the conventional clinical practice dehumanizes patients, neglecting their autonomy and perpetuating the stigma associated with a psychiatric diagnosis. In contrast, through the narrative voice of Imelda’s son, Jerry Pinto’s novel Em and the Big Hoom (2012) intimately intertwines the experiences of mental illness within the broader context of familial struggles. Em refuses to become a mere statistic or a diagnostic label, embodying the agency to shape her narrative beyond the constraints of clinical definitions. The novel challenges the flawed clinical gaze and provides an alternative narrative that portrays an ambitious woman who does not succumb to the definitions of her illness. These alternative narratives resist reductionist perspectives, offering a more comprehensive understanding of mental illness that transcends clinical definitions. This paper critically examines the novel’s portrayal of patient autonomy and consent, shedding light on the implications for mental health care practices in India. It explores how the text serves as a catalyst for reevaluating conventional clinical perspectives and fosters a more compassionate and patient-centric mental health care system.

Facilitators and Barriers to Understanding and Accepting People with a Sexual Interest in Children: A Thematic Analysis.

The widespread conflation between having a sexual interest in children and engaging in sexually abusive behavior contributes significantly to elevated levels of stigma targeted at people living with a sexual interest in children. Stigmatization and societal punitiveness surrounding people living with these interests can impact their well-being, obstruct help-seeking, and potentially increase risk of offending behavior. Recent quantitative research employing stigma intervention strategies has produced encouraging results in reducing stigmatizing attitudes toward this population. The current study sought to expand on quantitative research findings to explore qualitatively the facilitators and barriers to understanding and accepting people living with sexual interest in children. Thirty participants were interviewed following completion of an online stigma intervention study. Participants were asked about their attitudinal responses to the earlier study and how personal and professional experiences contributed to shaping their attitudes surrounding people living with a sexual interest in children. Reflexive inductive thematic analysis was used to explore what factors promote understanding and what factors act as barriers to understanding people with sexual interest in children. The significance of experiences which challenged the dominant social narrative was identified across several themes which facilitated understanding and acceptance of people who have a sexual interest in children. Themes which reflected barriers to understanding included difficulty comprehending alternate narratives, parental concern, and reinforcement of current stereotypes. Implications for developing stigma-reduction interventions and future research are discussed.

The Parenting Gold Standard: Maternal Master Narratives of Parenting Black Emerging Adult Children

Little is known about the prevailing narratives of how to be a “good” parent in American society, and even less is known about parenting emerging adults in Black families. To address these gaps, this qualitative study employed a master narrative approach to investigate the maternal master narratives of parenting and the mechanisms by which Black mothers ( N = 20) of emerging adults navigate such constraints through cultural alternative narratives. Themes that emerged for a master narrative of parenting emerging adult children focused on education, over-parenting, hands-off parenting, permissive parenting, guidance and support role, and contribution to society. Results also described how mothers utilized alternative narratives to make sense of their culture in light of American society through themes that emphasized stern parenting, family values, cultural generational awareness, parenting independent of norms, restrictions on parenting, guidance and support role, and contribution to society. Findings indicated instances of microlevel culture. Ultimately, the major implication from this study was the importance of taking into account culturally related experiences when defining what is “appropriate” parenting.

The Poetics of Hunger: Responding to Rupture in the Wake of the 1932–33 Famine (Holodomor) in Soviet Ukraine

AbstractThis article examines poems that were written by students in Soviet Ukraine during the 1930s to better understand how poetry served as a response to the ruptures caused by the 1932–33 famine (Holodomor). In a time when speaking openly about the famine was prohibited, survivors turned to poetry to write about what could not be said out loud. In this article, I contend that the poetry composed by these students offered alternative narratives about 1932–33 that challenged the state’s silencing of events and addressed what it meant, from a survivor’s point of view, to live through and experience the man‐made famine. The poems produced by these students, which were written between 1933 and 1937, described in detail what it was like to be subjected to search brigades, theft, humiliation, and starvation. As a whole, these poems offer a window into the physical and emotional impact of the famine on the lives of everyday Ukrainians and communicate what it meant to work through related pain, suffering, and trauma. However, the onset of repressions in the late 1930s served as another rupture and worked to suppress survivor efforts to write further about the famine and come to terms with what happened.

Who Cashed the Rent Gap? An Alternative Narration of a Shantytown Renovation Project in Nanjing, China

AbstractDespite research on shantytown redevelopment highlighting socio‐spatial exclusion, the viewpoint frequently disseminated through social media depicts it as a massive wealth‐creation movement in China. This paper intends to provide evidence that evicted residents of a shantytown in Nanjing, China, share a common identity with the encroaching gentrifiers – the housing class. By shaping the housing class, an increasing number of urban residents become micro‐agents of housing financialization, allowing the rent gap to be frequently opened even without producing a ‘higher and better’ space. This enables capital to circulate and accumulate within a broader temporal and spatial scope. However, both the class imagination of the housing class and the financial speculation in the housing market are based on the expectation of continuous price growth. This is unsustainable and leaves the real housing needs out of the housing market, which is detrimental to housing equity.

“Radio Is a Blank Canvas for Youth Work”: Communication, Creative Agency, Compassion and Empathy

AbstractYouth radio projects are firmly rooted in young people’s cultural and everyday experiences. Aligning with the open access, dialogic and participatory nature of youth work, youth radio programmes represent an ‘asset-based’ endeavour, which builds on young people’s cultural funds of knowledge. This article draws on data from two youth radio projects: Bolt FM, based in North East Glasgow, Scotland, and YMCA Digital, based in Nottingham, England. Youth workers and young people were interviewed about the affordances of radio as an outlet for creativity in their lives. In combination with youth work practice, radio as an art form can enable young people to tell stories, offer alternative narratives and more authentic modes of cultural production. Exploring creativity, this study theorises this mode of youth arts practice through Paul Willis’ Common Culture (1990). In the case of youth radio projects, communication, creative agency, compassion and empathy manifested. These findings strengthen existing research which highlights the value of youth work and radio programmes for young people.

Institutional memory and legal conflict in the Old Borough of Durham, 1300–1450

AbstractHistorians have long used the archives of major institutions to shed light on medieval society, but in more recent decades the focus has turned towards the proliferation of legal documentation possessed by those lower down the social order and the increasing penetration of legal processes into their everyday lives. Yet, in recapturing this world, there is a danger that we take for granted the immense documentary power of a large institutional repository. This article follows several legal conflicts across the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries involving the monks of Durham Priory to demonstrate the extent of this archival culture, showing how they turned to their vast array of documentary evidence for information about those who had incurred their wrath. Using their archives, they traced the descent of holdings, the offices held by key individuals, and previous payments in account rolls, all in a bid to demonstrate their rights, the ‘abuses’ of officials, and to counter legal opposition. Not content, the monks then compiled this evidence into an alternative narrative of events that questioned previous legal proceedings and ceremonies, constructing an institutional memory that saw contradictory documentation as ‘entirely most falsely forged’.

“I Had A Weird Dream:” Atlanta and Afro‐Surrealism as Alternative Narrativization

ABSTRACTCharacterized by a feeling of unease, weirdness, or outright absurdity, the television show Atlanta utilizes Afro‐Surrealist storytelling to depict everyday experiences of minoritized individuals. By relying on the extraordinary, Afro‐Surrealism emphasizes the unusualness of Black lives in the United States and highlights the limitations of narrative in representing the voices and stories of marginalized individuals. These limitations have pushed media makers to adopt alternative narratives for those who cannot identify with traditional televisual narratives.

Working Together to Create Meaning: Narratives of Care Leavers in Eastern Europe

Abstract This article uses life history research to reveal a new understanding of institutional care. The study draws on interviews with care leavers from a Latvian orphanage who narrate life histories and identify critical life events and moments of resistance to times of adversity. The methodology intentionally positioned study nineteen care leavers as experts on their own experiences, focusing on three main life phases: before, during and after living in care. Findings deconstructed and brought nuance to stereotypes and dominant assumptions about people growing up in care, providing alternative narratives of self-reliance and resistance to adversity. Recommendations for practice and policy are discussed. This rich knowledge base can be used to support and inform the practice of children in the care system in Latvia and more widely.

The Foundations, Resilience and Spirit of Democratic Institutions

In this modified lecture on the spirit of democracy and the importance of the constitution as a radical document, the author engages with the manner in which the struggle for independence resulted in the imagination of India as a sovereign, democratic and secular republic. Because this history is being systematically erased to create an alternate singular narrative of nationalism that is against the core constitutional values, there is a need to revisit the foundational values and emotions that gave rise to the democratic institutions and ensure that these processes are put to work through informed, organised and active citizen participation, keeping in view principles of equality and social justice. Active citizenship is indeed a powerful transformative force to expand and deepen democracy. The article details the reasons why the spirit of a democratic culture among citizens from the level of gram panchayats and municipalities to the district, state and national levels has the capacity to expose and resist the construction of Hindu nationalist hegemony, its falsity and authoritarianism.

Caring peripheries: How care practitioners respond to processes of peripheralisation

AbstractThe centralisation of acute health care is a key policy concern in many countries. Less attention has been given to the side effects of centralisation: peripheralisation, occurring mainly in rural areas and post‐industrial towns. In this research, we start filling this gap by exploring how this trend of concentration of health care can contribute to a phenomenon referred to as ‘discursive peripheralisation’. This article contributes to the literature on discursive peripheralisation by focusing on how actors, in our case acute care practitioners, cope with or oppose such processes. We draw on empirical data from two healthcare regions in different geographical contexts in Norway and The Netherlands. In these regions, we zoom in on the work of care practitioners and how they, in relation to care organisations and local authorities, aim to organise care for patients in ‘the periphery’ and how this contributes to more diverse and alternative narratives and practices of health care in these areas. Our findings offer important insights for both rural and regional policy. We conclude that other narratives, for instance, about perceptions of quality of care should be considered to avoid too much emphasis on the disadvantages faced by peripheral areas, compared to their urban counterparts.

Недостоверные нарративы в контексте институциональных изменений

The article develops approaches of the narrative economics to the analysis of evolution of institutions in the context of dissemination of unreliable (false) information about various kinds of economic processes. Narratives are seen as a way of transferring information and knowledge in a form that is maximally complementary to the perception of actors. Fake news became the most important channel of distribution of false narratives in modern society. The avalanche-like spread of fake news and the narratives contained therein is taking place against the background of a significant transformation of the institutions of reputation and expertise. The widespread and rapid spread of unreliable narratives poses systemic threats to the development of modern economic orders in the face of emerging institutions of surveillance capitalism. Misinformation in alternative narratives is associated with the actions of interest groups that have the incentive to falsify past and present information about ongoing reforms, leading to a pluralistic reality. Through proto-narratives, knowledge of theories and models circulating in the academic environment is transmitted in a simplified form. Persistent myths about various aspects of the conduct and results of economic policies are also spread through proto-narratives. Unreliable or distorted proto-narratives are widespread in the social environment of the Russian innovation system. Examples of such narratives include neo-liberal myths about measuring efficiency through the number of patents or scientific rating publications. In the process of reforming the Russian innovation system, it is important to understand the genesis of the various proto-narratives and their influence on the formation of the institutional structure in the context of the specific features of its evolution.

Santri Anti Baper: the Development of Narratives of Religious Moderation Through Digital Workshop in the Margoyoso Pati Pesantren Community

This dedication is a community-based service that aims to equip and boost the capacity of ‘santri’ in producing alternative narratives of religious moderation to the fight against intolerant narratives on social media. Kajen Margoyoso Pati Town is a village with tens of thousands of ‘santri’ potentially dominate digital public with religious moderation narratives. The team used the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) methodology to empower participants in this session, namely, human resource assets, social assets, and infrastructure assets are among the assets owned by pesantren. ‘Santri’ were still passive consumers of digital content and lack the awareness to produce digital content. Expected result from this training, learners will be able to generate alternative narratives by transforming negative narratives into positive narratives to counterbalance the narrative of intolerance on social media. From this training, students who participated in this training will implement on their pesantren web pages and on social media.