Autobiographical Approach Research Articles

Understanding Chinese Principalship—An autobiographical approach

Cultural context matters in leadership. Traditions and cultures may saliently impact how leadership is conceptualized and enacted in practice. With the influence of Chinese traditions and culture, particularly Confucianism and Confucian culture, Chinese principal leadership may differ from the dominant leadership approaches that reign in the literature. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of leadership in a Chinese context is long overdue. Informed by an autobiographical approach, this study aims to explore a Chinese principal’s daily leadership practices. Autobiography renders accounts of layered reality, affords access to inner experiences, and unpacks the rationale in decision-making when engaging in the leadership process. The influence of various traditional (particularly Confucian) culture variables is crystalized through the subjective experience of the principal, as articulated in the autobiography and the analysis followed. This study provides an example of how traditional (particularly Confucian) culture permeates into a principal’s daily practice, including how the principal understands his role and deals with guanxi (network of relationships) using leadership tactics.

Los Diarios de viaje en los Festivales Franco chilenos de videoarte: una aproximación documental desde el autorretrato y la autoetnografía.

Los Diarios de viaje were audiovisual pieces produced for Festival Franco chileno de videoarte (1981-1992) that were presented as a visual diary of the experience of Chilean video artists in France and French artists in residence in Chile. These pieces can be understood as a unique corpus that sharply observed, with political insight and formal audacity, the difficult social and artistic conditions of the 1980s in Chile. This article argues that studying these video works may create a parallel space to the testimonial documentary production of those years. They establish their narrative operations centered on the self, where such documentary quality is constructed from an autobiographical approach, specifically in the modalities of autoethnography and self-portrait.

Digital Advocacy Journalism’s Push for the Narrative Tipping Point of Singapore’s Capital Punishment

A narrative tipping point leading to the abolition of capital punishment will come from specific events and broader trends that move public opinion and the accompanying legal systems away from the justification for death penalties. Through Singapore’s independent digital journalist Kirsten Han’s reflection on her reportage and advocacy for the abolition of capital punishment in the republic, this paper seeks to highlight the role of digital advocacy in pushing for the narrative tipping point on the death penalty online. Against global trends of abolition, retentionist cultures on capital punishment remain resilient, particularly in countries that claim strong domestic support for authoritarian populist narratives of being “tough on crime.” Institutionally sustained and discursively binarized as “Asian values” against rights-based Western individualism and continuously reiterated by national leaders, Singapore’s policy on capital punishment is termed muscular retentionism. Contending with this dominance in cyberspace is Han’s affective emphasis on death row inmates facing imminent execution, particularly those condemned to death for drug trafficking. Using a partially autobiographical approach as the second author of this paper, she illustrates her experiences as a woman activist in Singapore, journeying with these inmates and documenting their experiences as part of the broader effort to move toward the narrative tipping point. Positioned against the largely impersonalized and instrumental justification of the traditional retentionist position established in the pre-Internet decades is Han’s rights-based emphasis on the sanctity of life. Receiving little attention in the republic’s mainstream media, cyberspace has oxygenated this perspective. Aside from facing legal and police scrutiny for her involvement in abolitionist campaigns, Han has also been subjected to misogynist ad-hominem attacks online from supporters of retention. Kirsten Han’s digital advocacy journalism poignantly sharpens the existing feminist critique in Singapore of the carceral regime with a more intersectional approach toward expanding the scope of the discussion to that of predominately male death row inmates. Her emphasis comes from the notion of difference feminism in considering the structural inequalities and power dynamics that render the more socially disadvantaged vulnerable to the regimes of punishment. Aside from being openly singled out and chastised by the state, it may remain difficult to determine the public impact of Han’s journalistic work. Nonetheless, through amplifying the otherwise invisible emotional states and voices of death row inmates and their families as individuals, she exposes the human cost in the regime of capital punishment and in the process inches Singapore toward the narrative tipping point.

The pain, the pedagogy, and the politics of IELTS: a critical autobiographical inquiry

ABSTRACT Language tests, including international high-stakes English proficiency tests widely used around the world, are to be viewed as ideological constructs connected with power relations and center–periphery demarcations at different social levels. In this paper, we examine the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as an instance of such tests to uncover some of its underlying sociocultural functions. Adopting a critical autobiographical approach that revisits three personal trajectories in relation to each other and in connection with wider contextual dynamics, we reflect on our own lived experiences of engagements with IELTS in various social and institutional settings and in different roles. Each one of us first shared narrative accounts of turning points in our learning, taking, teaching, and using IELTS within the past two decades. Then, we explored these narratives through multiple rounds of reflections and discussions of their common underlying ideas related to the sociocultural functioning of IELTS. Although the narratives presented unique trajectories, three common themes of Pain, Pedagogy, and Politics emerged from our collective analytic reflections. We discuss these themes and how they can problematize different aspects of IELTS from a critical point of view.

Early research on anther-smut disease: A fuller view of science?

The anther-smut host-pathogen system has provided extensive insights into the evolutionary ecology of disease resistance, transmission modes, host shifts, pathogen specialization, and disease evolution in metapopulations. It also has led to unexpected insights into sex ratio distorters, sex chromosome evolution, and transposable elements in fungi. In addition, anther-smut disease played a major role in Linnaeus' germ theory and the correspondence on parasitic castration between Darwin and Becker, one of the first female botanists. Here, we explicitly highlight some of the realities in the process of science, using an unusual autobiographical approach to describe how we came to collaborate on this system in the 1980s. Using perspectives from our different career stages, we present a surprising narrative that could not be deduced from merely reading the published papers. While our work was grounded in previous ecological and evolutionary theory, it was the product as much of empirical failures and intellectual roadblocks, as the result of a progressive scientific method. Our experiences illustrate not only the "human dimension of science" but more importantly show that linear sequences of hypothesis testing do not necessarily lead to new study systems and new ideas. We suggest there is a need to re-evaluate the scientific method in ecology and evolution, especially where the challenge is to engage in a productive dialog between natural history and theory.

Character Building in the Novel (The Hedgehogs on a Hot Day)

The character in the novel (The Hedgehogs on a Hot Day) by the author (Falah Rahim) played an important role; it was the beating heart of the novel as it created the events and gave vitality to time and place. The author utilized all techniques well and artistically in drawing the characters, striving to make them lively and lifelike, not cartoonish figures moved at the author’s whim. The main character is the narrator (Salim Kadhim), who narrates in the first person, tilting the novel towards an autobiographical approach. As for the secondary characters, some were supportive while others opposed and struggled against the main character. The author was able to clarify the dimensions of the character in the novel through external features, psychological descriptions, as well as their thoughts, beliefs, and social backgrounds. The author presented his characters in two ways: the first is reporting, which depends on drawing the character from the outside, such as appearance and clothing; the second is revelation through what others say about a character, as well as dialogue—both the external dialogue, which is the best means of introducing the character, and the internal dialogue, through which the character reveals all their feelings and emotions, and discloses their behavior and actions in response to events in reality.

Investigating the role of affects in additional language learning in the context of mobility through a multimodal autobiographical approach

This study focuses on the role of affects in additional language learning in the context of mobility. The starting point is the discovery of Francophone migrant literature by intermediate-level learners of French at an international university in Bulgaria. It concerns in particular the encounter with the Hungarian-Swiss writer Agota Kristof and her autobiographical text “L’Analphabète” [The Illiterate], which reveals a polarized attitude towards languages that have marked her life and career. Brought to reflect on the tension behind the way the author qualifies languages as “enemies” or “friends”, the learners share their own attitudes towards the languages of their repertoires through reflective drawings (language portraits), autobiographical narratives, and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of the collected data was conducted to examine in what ways students express their affects relating to languages with different status and how their attitudes are connected to the mobilities and other significant changes they have experienced. The results indicate that the participants express predominantly positive affects. All are attached to their initial languages, although this strong identification may be destabilizing in critical situations like mobilities abroad and significant life changes. English has an important place in the learners’ identity and is related to fluency, comfort, desire, and various opportunities. French is cherished mostly for its aesthetic values, although pleasure is often mixed with anxiety due to the lower levels of proficiency. Students feel attracted to additional languages, which they connect to cultural and leisure activities but have omitted other languages from their repertoires since they do not feel strongly attached to them. It appears that both teachers and learners can benefit from the multimodal autobiographical approach as it allows to explore the complexity of the learners’ plurilingual repertoires, the stories behind their construction, and the affects related to this process. / Keywords: additional language, affects, language portrait, migrant literature, mobility, multimodality, plurilingualism

Bodily Uncertainty, Precarious Body: An Embodied Narrative of a Physical Education Teacher From an Autobiographical Perspective

School physical education (PE) is influenced by different discourses that play a crucial role not only in the (re)production of PE practices but also in shaping teacher subjectivities. This paper aims to explore how a PE teacher responds to, lives, and negotiates his embodied professional subjectivity over time. To achieve this, we employ an autobiographical approach to delve into the first author’s life story of becoming and being a PE teacher over time, grappling with the unease generated by the knowledge that his body may have an “expiry date.” Through narrative analysis, we discuss and reflect on the complex experience of teaching a physical and corporeal subject such as PE, focusing on four themes: (1)reflecting his life as a PE teacher“the young, healthy and athletic body,” (2) “the uncertain body,” (3) “the precarious body,” and (4) “the shut-up and just-do-it body.”

THE USE OF SIMPLE SENTENCES AND DIRECT SPEECH IN "BABURNAMA"

The manuscript of "Baburnama", common to the Turkic peoples, which is an example of the memoir genre, provides all the basic information about the sights in which the author himself lived and traveled. Zahir ad Din Mohammed Babur, whose life was connected with military campaigns and conquests, tried in every way to reveal his life path, which has historical significance in the literary heritage of "Baburnama". In his work, Babur realistically depicted the lifestyle of that era, and in the text of the work he used an autobiographical approach through the replicas addressed to him. This relic, filled with important information about Central Asia, Afghanistan and India, contains the author's reflections, scientific and educational comments. From the point of view of the author of the text of each part, the type of presentation is determined and the structure of the general text can be based on the system of introduction, main part, generalization. In this article, taking into account grammatical and lexical elements, Baburnama describes the functions, usage and types of simple sentences and words used by the author, and is reasoned by language analysis. Examples of simple sentences of the Kazakh language such as zhakty/zhaksyz, tolymdy/tolymsyz and nominal sentence, the methods of formation of direct speech are explained and compared with the use in the modern Kazakh language, its form and content character are determined.

La sostanza del padre nel quotidiano convivere la relazione con il figlio disabile

In an uncertain climate of value and family mutations, the crisis of the paternal model emerges. The father is required to (re)construct a new identity, which risks being further undermined by the child’s condition of disability. The primary objective of this work is to reflect on the present crisis of the father who is confronted with his son’s disability. The narrative methodology gives fathers the opportunity to narrate the uniqueness of the relationship with their children with disabilities and to think about their own way of being fathers. The studies by Gelati and Bonsall illustrate the potential of the autobiographical approach.

APRENDIZ DE PROFESSORA: O INÍCIO DA CARREIRA NA EDUCAÇÃO INFANTIL

The present work aims to identify possible challenges faced by beginning teachers in early childhood education. Therefore, we start from the following questions: what may be the challenges faced at the beginning of the career? Do these teachers have support from managers in their daily pedagogical practices? What are the possibilities that help you adapt and stabilize your career? To elucidate these questions, we carried out a qualitative research, and as a methodology we chose to carry out a bibliographic survey, on digital platforms, identifying in the literature in the area of early childhood education, its teaching specificities, and in the area of teaching professionalization, the beginning teacher. We also chose to carry out narrative interviews from the perspective of an autobiographical approach. As a result, we identified that the orientation of pedagogical work, by school managers, contributes to professional development. We infer that insecurity and emotional instability are present at the beginning of a career, and the possibilities to adapt to the profession are the learning acquired with more experienced teachers, and acting in teacher training programs, such as the Teaching Initiation Program (PIBID) are spaces for career engagement and professional construction. We also highlight the mandatory curricular internship role, in which it is possible to acquire knowledge that can minimize the shock of entry at the beginning of a career.

Woman, Life, Freedom: Decoding the feminist uprising in Iran

This paper examines the gap between a researcher's positionality and theory building; seeing research through the lens of women of color in academia. Drawing on the autobiographical approach in feminist geography, I argue how a researcher's background and life events influence how we produce knowledge in the field by sharing my personal journey. Specifically, I share what it means to be a Middle Eastern Muslim academic conducting research on female immigrants' cultural adaptation process in the U.S. I urge readers to uncover the power of self-reflection, embodied subjectivity and emotions in expanding geographic research and conclude how the future research will benefit from the motives behind each study, as well as giving a reflexive researcher a platform to be heard.

APRENDIZAGEM AFETIVA E INCLUSIVA DE LÍNGUAS PELO WHATSAPP: UM ESTUDO DE CASO ENTRE UM GRUPO DE PROFESSORES ESTAGÍARIOS E ALUNOS DE ITALIANO COM FORMAÇÃO PLURILÍNGUE E PLURICULTURAL

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study is twofold: 1 to investigate the strategies used by a group of trainee teachers during the implementation via WhatsApp of pre-task activities inspired by the autobiographical approach; 2. to analyse whether and how learners show emotional engagement through online messages, referred here as the ability to express their own personal sphere in the host country’s language. The case study consists of the observation of 900 WhatsApp messages sent over a period of 39 days, aimed at carrying out 9 pre-task activities to enhance the intra-personal emotional sphere. The data were collected during an Italian L2 course designed for students of A2 level according to Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR) with a multilingual and multicultural background and taught by trainee teachers. The quantitative-qualitative survey, carried out on the basis of studies analysing digital communication and supported by the autobiographical approach, shows that pre-tasks offered the community of practice the opportunity to go beyond the teaching activity and to build an affiliate network with emotionally engaging communicative spaces, enriched by iconographic material and stylistically and linguistically refined life stories. From a professional perspective, the study shows the path taken by trainee teachers to acquire skills and competences – stylistic, pragmatic, linguistic, interactional and emotional – necessary to foster forms of affective and inclusive language learning through multimodal resources.

The Beginnings of Women’s Agency in Latvian Foreign Affairs: Autobiographical Approach

The Beginnings of Women’s Agency in Latvian Foreign Affairs: Autobiographical Approach

Altarplay: A Technology of the Soul

This article theorises how home altars can support healing, individuation and personal transformation. It is informed by theory pertaining to Jungian sandplay therapy and Donald Winnicott’s ideas about transitional space and the holding environment. The methodology is grounded in a critical reflexive autobiographical approach that illustrates how altarplay can support the practitioner when negotiating a difficult shift from Christian to postchristian space.

Of Course, My Own Teacher Education Impacts Others: The Quest Toward Erasing "Erasure"

The author uses an autobiographical approach in this article to discuss and reflect on his own past, that is of course filled with acts of erasure (by sitting still, living in ignorance, and remaining “neutral,” all acts of erasure that we routinely commit), by revealing a set of turning points in his life and life’s work. One particular recent experience has helped the author to recognize past mistakes, and to continue a significant amount of personal and professional movement that has been ongoing for several decades and has challenged many of his past assumptions about teacher education, public education, and the importance of these endeavors for the maintenance and enhancement of a democratic way of life.

A Depiction of War in Nigerian Poetry

This study depicts the quensequences of the war in the poetry of Nigerien authors namely Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Gabriel Okara. From the application of the sociocritical and autobiographical approaches, it appears from the texts that commitment is part of a moral and political awareness that identifies the poet in relation to a community of reprobates, no doubt, but a community fighting for a new morality. These texts are circumscribed in a context of deprivation of freedom by loneliness in prison, the slow and long disintegration that the man undergoes plunged into the abyss of prison isolation, the tortures suffered, the soiled walls, the fetid odors exhaled by the prison, the triumph of truth over the undermining of a system of repression. Prison disorients, disarticulates and fragments the personality of the prisoner who seeks to survive physical and mental attacks. It goes without saying that these texts have an autobiographical dimension. Keywords: Consequence; Death; Mental annihilation; Deprivation of freedom.

Art practices of the Chinese women diaspora: On cultural identity and gender modernity

Since the early twentieth century, Chinese women artists have emigrated to other countries. Their works are influenced and shaped by diaspora experiences, which vary across time phases. However, the world history of diasporic women is often lost in the larger historical narrative. As such, women diaspora artists also remain an under-represented segment in art realms, both within and outside of China. This is a case study of three Chinese diaspora women artists – Pan Yuliang, Shen Yuan and Pixy Liao. Their works reveal engagement in cultural identity as well as gender identity through an autobiographical approach. For cultural identity, dynamic interaction between the culture of the artist’s homeland and that of her host country play a vital role throughout their art practices. Rather than using elements of typical Chinese cultural heritage, women artists tend to engage in cultural emblems, which connect to their personal-gendered experiences. Albeit confronting the double otherness on cultural and gender identity in a foreign country, the experience of diaspora pushes women artists to pursue independence, self-awakening and broader world-views. With modern conceptions of gender, their practices, particularly the family-theme, convey reflections on the conventional ideology of the family, as well as traditional gender roles.

Food Narrations and Teaching Migration: An Autobiographical Approach to “Knowing the Other”

Is the clash of civilizations, or that of racism, the paradigm that best describes the intercultural dynamics that characterize the cultural horizon of young people today? This article addresses this question based on research conducted between 2012 and 2016 in four secondary schools in Piedmont by researchers at the University of Gastronomic Sciences. The research looked at adolescents and dealt with the topic of “knowing the Other” through the collection and patrimonialization of life stories about food. The results illustrate an educational model that stimulates young people to extend their knowledge of cultural diversity and overcome the considerable indifference towards discovery of “the Other” that appears to characterize most young people today.

Cheering for the Children: My Life’s Work in Youth Development Through Sport

I adopt an autobiographical approach to chronicle the contexts, experiences, and individuals that shaped my academic and career choices, which resulted in finding kinesiology and, specifically, sport and exercise psychology. Consistent with the developmental perspective I employ in my research and practical applications, I trace my life’s work in youth development through sport using transitional career stages. My academic path has been strongly influenced by hardworking and caring mentors and a commitment to balancing theoretical knowledge, applied research, and professional practice. Based on my many years in higher education, I conclude with some reflections on the future of kinesiology given past and present trends in the field.