Autobiographical Narratives Research Articles

Narrative interview in social work research. Diagnosing biographical and social problems in the profession of a social worker

Social work, understood as a professional activity, consists in providing support to people on the basis of a previously conducted diagnosis. The diagnosis of a situation requires the social worker to undertake specific research activities, which include collecting data with the use of selected techniques and tools, processing data or presenting conclusions. In the field of widely understood social work, there are various qualitative approaches and research strategies which constitute an adequate way of explaining social phenomena, at the same time formal and legal regulations and the institutional context create different conditions for conducting research in the profession of a social worker. The adopted methodological solutions, in the form of a model questionnaire of a family environmental interview, are rather in the normative paradigm, which has specific consequences for the analysis of social problems. One of the techniques (or methods) identical to the field of interest and procedures functioning in professional social work, and at the same time enabling the understanding of human experiences, is the narrative interview. Autobiographical narratives collected through this method allow, among others, to diagnose biographical and social problems and to plan support activities on this basis. However, due to the barriers indicated in the paper, a change in the research method towards an interpretative approach seems unlikely.

Decolonial movements in rural teacher's training: resistance to the segregated knowledge pattern

The year of 2020 is the milestone of a decade since the implementation of the Rural Education Policy, also known as Procampo, which was enacted through Decree n. 7.352, from November 4, 2010. This policy, as victory of social movements, is changing university spacetimes, territorialities and the daily lives of rural communities. Therefore, it summarizes the counter-hegemonic struggle for different educational rights, for the emancipation of teaching practices and for schools and communities’ autonomy. Based on such elements, the aim of the present article is to present autobiographical narratives according to which students and teachers rescue different decolonial movements observed in academic training as the very outcome of experiences built on Interdisciplinary Degree in Rural Education at Fluminense Federal University (UFF). The narratives highlight that Rural Education breaks up with the Eurocentric view of knowledge in order to acknowledge the richness of different knowledge fields, identities, and students’ historical and epistemic place with a colonial scene that denies differences to the detriment of submission practices. In order to face such reality, the narratives point out that the Rural Education proposes decolonial movements – as prevailing feature in teachers’ training – focused on coping with, as well as on resisting and repairing historical violence imposed by the coloniality.

Emotions and Sociocultural Context in Foreign Language Teacher Identity

The present article analyses the influence of previous learning experiences, emotions, and socio-cultural context on the development of teacher identity. The life history of a Mexican language teacher in the middle of her career is explored, in order to understand how previous learning experiences, emotional events, and culture have shaped her teacher identity and professional development. It presents analysis undertaken on the autobiographical narrative of the subject, Renata, the results of which show the determining influence of culture and previous learning experiences in the construction of a teacher identity. This article aims to make professionals in foreign language teaching aware of the usefulness of personal narratives to understanding the teaching practice and supporting professional development.

Language biographies

AbstractThe various collections of language biographies starting in the 1990s have given rise to a new field of investigation in sociolinguistics. The interest in the very individual, autobiographical viewpoint on languages in speakers’ own repertoires offers new insights for macrosociolinguistic research. These detailed corpora also provide data for microanalytical investigations into the specificity of autobiographical narrations, i.e. how speakers construe their language repertoires in the narrative interview setting. This contribution seeks to depict how the interest in LB emerged and subsequently describes the most important developments in LB research, which to date is still limited to the European arena. Since the field is still growing and is in need of formalization, this overview must remain incomplete. Finally, the contribution warns of pitfalls and highlights some fields where LB has provided important input, from language didactics to neurolinguistic studies.

Individual differences in revising the life story-Personality and event characteristics influence change in the autobiographical meaning of life events.

Repeated autobiographical narratives have recently received increased attention as measures of the stability of narrative identity. We propose that one way to map change in life narratives is to rate the degree to which the autobiographical meaning of renarrated events changes. We aimed to test the influence of age, traits (openness, extraversion), and event characteristics on how much autobiographical meaning changes. In waves 3 and 4 of the MainLife study, 123 participants (15-72 years) narrated their lives twice, 4 years apart. Life events that were told both times were rated for change in autobiographical meaning (n=531). Multilevel models tested individual and event characteristics as predictors. Autobiographical meaning changed more the more individuals were open to experience, the more recently the events had happened, and the more negative emotions the event narratives contained. It was unrelated to extraversion and to the use of autobiographical arguments. A decrease in change with age was due to older individuals narrating older events. Our findings add to understanding how traits and life story are related and underscore the need to further study the role of event characteristics for stability and change in narrative identity.

Literatura carcelaria en los Andes: indigeneidad y nacionalismos en Perú y Bolivia

This essay develops a comparative analysis between two prison texts produced in Peru and Bolivia. In my reading hypothesis, the novel El sexto (1961), by José María Arguedas, and the autobiographical account Bolivia: cemetery of freedom (1955), by René López Murillo, establish, starting from the prison as the setting and the indigenous figure as a character, alternatives and criticisms of the authoritarian nationalist discourses mobilized in Peru and Bolivia in the mid-twentieth century. These same anti-establishment practices, however, are not exempt from contradictions. As this essay demonstrates, whether out of admiration and respect in El Sexto, or with the absolute distance posed by the autobiographical narrator in López Murillo's story, the representation of the indigenous subject and, consequently, the assessment of his difference, are subjected to parameters that, if not fully equated with authoritarian discourses of integration and acculturation, do minimize indigenous agency on the horizon of the national community. Instead of that agency, these narratives reinforce the exceptionality of the indigenous subject in the prison setting and in the nation itself. In El Sexto, the construction of the political wisdom of the character Cámac elevates his representation to the condition of ideal model for nationality. In Bolivia, the disingenuous presence of Kenta, the indigenous character, among the political prisoners constitutes a remarkable deviation from expectations. I propose that both, idealization and caricature seem to inform the limitation that the narrators of these texts confront when trying to include or reject the representation of the indigenous within the codes shared by a presumably non-Indian audience of readers.

Mission saves us all: Great Russia and Global Britain dealing with ontological insecurity

In this paper we analyse a situation wherein the political establishments of Russia and the United Kingdom, in the face of ontological insecurity, use narratives with messianic overtones in their foreign policies. Although these narratives do not feature prominently in the official discourse, they are nevertheless noticeable and provide a valuable insight into dynamics of national identity. We call them ‘mission narratives’ and interpret their (re)appearance in foreign policy as a reaction to a ‘critical situation’ which undermines the stability of the autobiographical narrative of both countries. Although different in scope and nature, the fall of the USSR and the Brexit referendum both resulted in the status and identity of the two states being questioned. Both countries reacted by emphasising their special role in the world. Referring to mission in foreign policy strengthens a coherent autobiographic narrative which soothes ontological uncertainties.

Managing Editor’s Message

Managing Editor’s Message Conxita Domènech With this December 2022 issue of the journal, allow me to recap on what happened for our organization, AATSP, and our journal, Hispania, during the present year. 2022 has been a year of hope and desire to put a long pandemic behind us. After the cancellation of the 2020 conference in Puerto Rico, we finally had the opportunity to present our papers and listen to our colleagues in a setting of encanto—the iconic San Juan hotel, Hilton Caribe—and we returned to our homes with a great feeling of satisfaction. The 2022 conference in Puerto Rico has reminded us of the pre-COVID conferences, but it also warned us that complete normalcy had not yet arrived: masks were present and messages notifying exposure were not lacking. We cannot forget, furthermore, the moment of sadness, but also of understanding, when our Executive Director, Sheri Spaine Long, announced that she will retire from her position on June 30, 2023. I knew that one day Sheri’s departure was going to happen. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine our organization and our journal without her. She interviewed me for my initial position as Assistant Managing Editor of Hispania in 2013 when she was the editor-in-chief. From then until today, Sheri has been a fabulous boss, a wonderful colleague, a fantastic mentor, a good friend, and most of all, the best role model. Her previous departure from Hispania in 2018 also caused me sadness, but then I was relieved to know that she was moving up from editor of the journal to director of the organization. We know that Sheri will never completely leave the journal, as she has always been our strongest supporter. Your example and your legacy, Sheri, inspire us to be better Portuguese and Spanish teachers and scholars. Mil gracias and muitíssimo obrigada for your impressive work at AATSP and Hispania. I cannot wait for June 26–29, 2023 in Salamanca to celebrate Sheri’s accomplishments. Let me set aside the past and the future and concentrate on the present issue of Hispania. This December 2022 issue contains a short-form article, seven research articles, and a robust collection of book reviews. The short-form article by Marisa Filgueras-Gómez titled “En defensa de la formación de los futuros profesores de Español como Lengua de Herencia” focusses on the need for university departments to offer training programs for future teachers of Spanish as a heritage language. The research article section begins with Emily Joy Clark. Her essay, “Arranged Marriages and Imprisonment: The Domestic Gothic Horrors of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s La baronesa de Joux (1844) and Dolores (1851),” examines how Gómez de Avellaneda employs techniques and tropes associated with women’s Gothic writing to communicate proto-feminist messages and to reveal the potential dangers of marriage and domesticity. Clark’s article is followed by “On Blackness and Belonging in Contemporary Spain: Desirée Bela-Lobedde’s Ser mujer negra en España.” Eva María Copeland analyzes this 2018 autobiographical narrative which creates a space for the Black, Spanish female lived experience as a maker of meaning and identity. In “Business Spanish in the United States: Origins and Continuum,” Michael Scott Doyle revisits the foundational importance of business Spanish to the United States and tracks its early formalization in American secondary and higher education. Meanwhile, Mehl Allan Penrose with his article, “The Society of San Guiñolé: Pederasty and Prostitution in La chula by Francisco de Sales Mayo,” presents a rigorous and in-depth study on male homosexuality in La chula. In “The Medicalization of the Economy in Early Modern Spanish [End Page 485] Political Discourse,” Rocío G. Sumillera explores how early modern Spanish political authors applied the discourse of medicine to the economic and fiscal arenas during times of severe economic crisis. The last two research articles of the issue take us to Brazil and China, respectively, or better yet, make a further contribution to the Portuguese of Brazil and the Spanish of Chinese students in “Ditongos <ai>, <ei> e <ou> no português brasileiro” by Nancy Mendes Torres Vieira and Gabriel Antunes...

Специфика первых автобиографических повествований северной литературы Якутии («Жизнь Имтеургина-старшего» Т. Одулока, «Моё детство» Н. Тарабукина)

The study aims to identify the properties and features of an autobiographical narrative in the first epic works of the northern literature of Yakutia (the Yukaghir novella “The Life of Imteurgin Senior” by T. Odulok and the Even novella “My Childhood” by N. Tarabukin). The paper examines the structure and type of narrative that determined the singularity of the genre and compositional-speech organisation of these works. The researcher traces the formation and specificity of autobiographical narrative forms in the northern literature of Yakutia, the development of the plot and chronotope of the novellas from the perspective of the author’s view of himself and history, as well as the functioning of autobiographical elements in the texts. The study is original in that it is the first to analyse the forms of expression of the “author’s self” (the author - autobiographical protagonist, the author-narrator, the author as a “prototype” of the protagonist, i.e. the biographical author as a “special subject of depiction” but not equal to the author-narrator), the correlation between the chronotopes of the protagonist and the author, biographical, historical and subjective time and space. As a result, the features of manifestation of the narrator, the character and the author in T. Odulok’s novella and the interaction of the author, the adult narrator and the child protagonist in N. Tarabukin’s novella have been determined.

교육실습이 초등교사 성장에 부여하는 의미

Purpose: This study explored the meaning of Teaching Practicum experience on the growth of elementary school teachers. Methods: For this purpose, an autobiographical Narrative Inquiry was used to study the experience of a Cooperating Teacher. The Teaching Practicum experience of a elementary school teacher ‘J’ using documents, memories, and interviews was drawn upon, and the meaning of J’s experiences were discussed. Results: As a result, J's narrative revealed the following meaning. Teaching Practicum is a process for pre-service teachers to understand the importance of relational context in the class. At the same time, it was revealed that a Cooperating Teacher recognizes the class is herself, so she has to accurately coordinate well complex relationships inside and outside the class, as the self-contained classroom teacher. This is the process of the professional development of elementary school teachers. Conclusion: Therefore, teacher training colleges should operate the Teaching Practicum in accordance with the original purpose by focusing on learning the role of a self-contained classroom teacher, and a Cooperating Teacher should also help ‘student teachers’ acquire the role of a self-contained classroom teacher properly.

Cultural content in self-education - based on students' autobiographical narratives

The article presents a fragment of qualitative research, which is a part of a larger research project concerning the cultural concept of pedagogy, especially cultural practices of young people studying in a full-time mode. The research used the biographical method, the author's narrative interview questionnaire. The sample selection was purposeful and 32 autobiographical narratives were obtained. All interviews were recorded on a voice recorder and then transcribed. A content analysis method was used to analyse the research material. The research yielded a diverse and complex picture of students' self-education with cultural content: Model I: Systematic and purposeful use of cultural content in the process of self-education; Model II: More or less conscious use of cultural content for self-development; Model III: Culture as a manner of spending leisure time - involuntary influence of culture on human development; Mixed models.

Amplifying Latinx Students’ Voices about Bilingual Experiences: A Critical Metaphor Analysis

Abstract This study amplifies Latinx students’ voices about their bilingual experience in a Spanish in the U.S. course. We use conceptual metaphor theory to analyze how students conceptualize their bilingualism and reinforce or resist present language ideologies. The data consists of 50 writing samples: 25 autobiographical narratives and 25 sets of blog commentaries. We found 356 language-related conceptual metaphors. The most common framing was Spanish as a natural resource (e.g., root or plant), vulnerable to dissipating if neglected. Both English and Spanish are referred to as tools for success (e.g., opens doors). Students use journey metaphors to discuss the challenges of learning English, and describe English as an opponent. Finally, they personify language to express the “higher value” of bilinguals, potentially criticizing monolinguals. Understanding how students conceptualize their language situations and express ideologies through metaphor leads to a deeper understanding of their bilingual experiences. These findings also have implications for tailoring language pedagogy.

Together or apart? Doing biographical research and oral history in an interdisciplinary context

This article compares research and analytical approaches with biographical materials in the fields of biographical research in sociology and oral history practised by a historian. The reflection is based on the experience of long-term cooperation between biographical sociologists and oral historians in the Polish research context. These contacts have created a space for the fruitful exchange of experiences in the field as well as for strengthening the researchers’ distinctiveness and disciplinary identity. It also makes it possible to identify various concerns, both mutual and individual, for each research field. The main objective of this article is to share perspectives, highlight the similarities and differences between the two disciplines, and to show concerns related to the practice of oral history and biographical research, especially those close to the boundaries between the two approaches when they use the same tool, that is, the autobiographical narrative interview. The first section of the article focuses on the specifics of each approach. It then describes the different results of the common research practice and their consequences in relation to anonymising, archiving and reanalysing the data. Ethical issues are embedded into the whole course of our argument.

Engaging with Under-Resourced Communities for User Research through Self-Authored Videos

The conventional 'participant-as-informant' model of user research has recently been challenged by approaches that advocate for participants to have a greater authorial control over narratives that portray their lived experiences. This is particularly important for addressing relationships of power and representation. Informed by narrative approaches in social work, we report on a study exploring the use of self-authored videos captured by 16 participants from under-resourced communities. Participants portrayed their mundane life experiences in a form of a video biography. Co-analysis of resulting videos showed that video biographies were used for: authentic representation of daily routines and life stories; portrayal of DIY identities; and promoting living well. Findings show how the self-authored biographies afforded participants a vehicle for challenging cultural stereotypes often associated with the research population. We further demonstrate the value of video-based approaches in user research for illuminating mundane life through rich autobiographical narratives.

Resilient communication using art in applied contexts

ABSTRACT Narrating my reflections on the quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and my experience of the crisis in Syria, this paper studies the ways fear can transform into resilience by examining the self-reflexive works Path Out (Causa Creations, 2016) and Another Kind of Girl (You Must know, 2016). Using digital media, the creators of these works of art construct autobiographical, educational, and interactive narratives about coping and belonging in the course of the crisis. I propose viewing both texts as examples of ‘resilient communication’ that reacts to social and cultural issues brought about by crisis and suggests creative solutions that convey optimistic views of the future. Outlining the conventions of resilient communication, in turn, promotes the production of media works that use educational, creative and autobiographical techniques to foster collective resilience.

Emergence of Language Related to Self-experience and Agency in Autobiographical Narratives of Individuals With Schizophrenia.

Disturbances in self-experience are a central feature of schizophrenia and its study can enhance phenomenological understanding and inform mechanisms underlying clinical symptoms. Self-experience involves the sense of self-presence, of being the subject of one's own experiences and agent of one's own actions, and of being distinct from others. Self-experience is traditionally assessed by manual rating of interviews; however, natural language processing (NLP) offers automated approach that can augment manual ratings by rapid and reliable analysis of text. We elicited autobiographical narratives from 167 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SZ) and 90 healthy controls (HC), amounting to 490 000 words and 26 000 sentences. We used NLP techniques to examine transcripts for language related to self-experience, machine learning to validate group differences in language, and canonical correlation analysis to examine the relationship between language and symptoms. Topics related to self-experience and agency emerged as significantly more expressed in SZ than HC (P < 10-13) and were decoupled from similarly emerging features such as emotional tone, semantic coherence, and concepts related to burden. Further validation on hold-out data showed that a classifier trained on these features achieved patient-control discrimination with AUC = 0.80 (P < 10-5). Canonical correlation analysis revealed significant relationships between self-experience and agency language features and clinical symptoms. Notably, the self-experience and agency topics emerged without any explicit probing by the interviewer and can be algorithmically detected even though they involve higher-order metacognitive processes. These findings illustrate the utility of NLP methods to examine phenomenological aspects of schizophrenia.

Label Noir's Heimat, bittersüße Heimat : A Transgressive and Transformative Text

Label Noir's <i>Heimat, bittersüße Heimat</i> : A Transgressive and Transformative Text

El rol de las narraciones autobiográficas en la comprensión histórica del sujeto y su comunidad

This article collects the results of an interventional research regarding the educational possibilities and obstacles that arose after the implementation in the classroom of a teaching and learning sequence that sought to link the historical narratives with the autobiographical fragments of young people around the Civil Military Dictatorship. in Chile (1973-1990). This qualitative research acquired the methodology of content analysis in thirteen stories written by high school students in a paid private school in Santiago de Chile. The results show that the student group elaborated narratives with different structures according to the temporal context. Thus, the autobiographical fragments acquire prominence in the present and future, since the students explained some personal ideas from conceptual quasi-characters (individualism) that were consolidated in the Chilean dictatorial context. Despite the above, the quasi-characters incorporated in the stories limited the spaces of freedom of the subjects and hindered, on some occasions, the incorporation of the individuality of the students. In addition, the presence of the past-present-future temporality allowed the autobiographical to be incorporated into a broader temporal context, characterized by negative judgments about the political conflict and by ways of acting as citizens restricted to individual spaces, preventing the encounter with others. In conclusion, the links between the content and skills of historical thinking with autobiographical narratives are not natural, but complex to work in school and present challenges on how students can understand themselves historically.

기록기술의 발전과 기억: 라이프로그와 디지털적 기억의 양면성

This paper examines the problems of the lifelog, the digital recording of everyday life, now increasingly used by the younger generation, and digital memory, based on Ted Chang's novel The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling. In the futuristic novel in which human memory work based on association and reconstruction has been supplemented and replaced by the new software search tool, Remem, the author deals with the reality that human organic memory is gradually replaced by digital memory: In the alternative reality one thinks organic memory is fallible, whereas the digital memory is completely accurate. This paper first examines the correlation between the development of writing technology and change in the form of memory, and secondly critically analyzes where the accuracy of digital memory comes from, and finally elucidates that fallible and emotional biological memory plays a decisive role in human autobiographical narrative and identity formation.

Intersection of the Personal and the Political Life in Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom

The autobiography is a genre that focuses on the personal life of the autobiographer as narrated by him. In an autobiography, the autobiographical narrator engages in the reconfiguration and reconstruction of his own personal history which is inextricably connected to the social, political, economic and many other discursive contexts. Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom records the tension between the personal and the political in the context of Mandela’s life and shows how it resulted in the formation of a larger personal identity. Although Mandela’s autobiography revolves around the personal, the subjects that it incorporates are much broader and complex than a personal narrative. It is at the same time the story of his personal life and the story of how his country gained independence as seen and experienced by him. Mandela’s autobiography not only represents his personal life but it is also representative of an era. In writing his autobiography, he also writes the major political events that effected millions of lives. The autobiography documents Mandela’s life, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the struggle across Africa to shake off the control of colonial powers. This paper will address the interlacing of details pertaining to the individual as well as the political activist with a support base across Africa.