Collective Narratives Research Articles

MASCULINIDADES E FEMINILIDADES A BORDO: PROJETO(S) DE GÊNERO NA CARREIRA DE COMISSÁRIAS E COMISSÁRIOS DE VOO

ABSTRACT This article resumes the interactionist bases of career studies to analyze the construction of gender project(s) regarding masculinities and femininities in the careers of flight attendants. We used a qualitative-oriented research methodology divided into five main stages: documentary and bibliographical research; 16 months of general immersion with field observation and journaling; specific immersion with field observation (participating in a flight attendants’ training course); collection of 23 professionals’ biographies; and construction and analysis of thematic narratives. The information was analyzed based on the perspective of collective narratives in three relational moments: training, joining an airline, and work routine. The discussions point to the necessity of constructing career projects as gender projects and the potential for personal metamorphosis by emphasizing and embodying masculinities and femininities, as well as trajectories negotiations in the field of possibilities - temporal, dynamic, and contextual dimensions. The research findings broaden the debate on gendered careers and bring an original methodological and theoretical contribution to collective careers.

Building Bridges: A Conversation between Friends, about Language, Laziness, and Long-distance Running

This conversation took place in a shared Google Doc over several occasions in April and early May 2021, between friends and colleagues, artists and writers, Hannah Clarkson and Matilda Tucker, in the context of an ongoing experiment in collaborative writing. In their individual and collective practices, Clarkson and Tucker explore potential embodiments in language(s) of thinking and dwelling in the ‘here and elsewhere’ of places and spaces they may not physically be in, across cultural, geographical and/or emotional distance. They are interested in how language can be employed as a tool for empathy beyond concrete linguistic understanding; how translation as method opens up to modalities of fictioning and collective storytelling; and writing as an experiment in sharing everyday struggles and building collective narratives of care. An attempt to bridge gaps between the here and elsewhere of Stockholm, Berlin and all the other places that in this time of pandemic we cannot be, the text below is not a conclusion but a conversation. It is a thinking out loud - or rather, on screen - together, on themes of language and translation; belonging and resisting; work and laziness; former and formless selves.

The post‐war generation remembers: A mixed‐method study exploring children’s attitudes towards World War II commemoration

AbstractThis study investigated how children, a post‐war generation without direct connection to war, relate to the commemoration of World War II (WWII). Seven group interviews were held among pupils in the Netherlands, aged 9 to 18 (n = 55) and, subsequently, questionnaires were administered to other pupils (n = 374). Results revealed that children are affected by the collective narrative of WWII, and connect to commemoration on a social and emotional level. Comprehension, tangibility, inclusiveness and a right atmosphere are key elements to appreciate a commemoration. Insights from this study may help societies practice more appealing remembrances with post‐war generations.

Found in Narration: Nonhuman Voices in Jessica Grant’s Come, Thou Tortoise and Colin McAdam’s A Beautiful Truth

This article delves into the problem of nonhuman subjectivity in two literary texts: Jessica Grant’s Come, Thou Tortoise with the first-person tortoise narration, and Colin McAdam’s A Beautiful Truth that employs the collective primate narrator. While nonhumans cannot actively participate in the act of creation of the text, their presence in the story, arranged by the author, conveys multiple meanings. Considerations of the narrative techniques are critical for negotiating the relevance of nonhuman actors. I argue that although each author finds different methods of giving voice to nonhumans and both ensure practical significance of animal particularity, nonhuman subjectivity should not be perceived as a fixed value of the presented literary texts.

시론: 한국 사회 감염병의 사회성 · 문화성과 돌봄윤리의 함의

Apart from the praise for “k-quarantine”, many people suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic. Plenty of issues are raised in taking care of people and the community and dealing with fear and pain under the burden of quarantine. This article explores the possibility of caring as civic ethics in epidemics. Also, for humanistic response to disasters, we examine whether socio-cultural exploration and reflection can be associated with caring. Reflecting on social and cultural aspects of epidemics can restore collective narratives and expand caring for community members. Moreover, it can contribute to recovery by allowing them to understand the experience of epidemics as shared ones.<BR>Exploring the social and cultural aspects of infectious diseases can be twofold; one is tracing the perception of diseases and their victims in terms of time and locality; the other is examining the affection and discourse in the current COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the stigma of diseases can be an important topic in exploring the issues of infectious diseases. By examining the affective flow of stigma and hatred, powerful hindsight will be obtained for the direction of care during pandemics.

The Concept of “Capitalist Realism” in Literary Context: Reading Adrian Schiop’s Novels in Terms of the Sociology of Literature

The first part of the article proposes a general overview of the notion of “capitalist realism,” introduced by Mihai Iovănel in his History of Romanian Contemporary Literature 1990‒2020 as one of the paradigms which help to read and classify post-Communist Romanian literature taking into consideration the political, social and economic conditioning of literary production. The second part of the paper aims to investigate the individual trajectory of Adrian Schiop (b. 1973) ‒ one of the authors classified by Iovănel as representatives of “capitalist realism,” whose literary and artistic work is defined by a high degree of social relevance. By deconstructing collective narratives and cliches, Schiop proposes a polemical point of view on post-Communist society, occupying at the same time the position of a very self-conscious agent within the Romanian literary field.

Contradiction as Injustice: How Senses of Inequality Differ across National Contexts

Similar levels of inequality may be coded as acceptable or unacceptable in different places. To account for misrecognition of inequality, the existing studies highlight the roles of ideological legitimation and situated comparison through which individuals read inequality around them, but these accounts can be further elaborated upon. This article argues that it is neither the belief in ideology nor social comparison alone but rather the relationship between the two which shapes particular ways in which inequality is experienced. The dominant collective narratives rooted in macro-level contexts and individuals’ situated comparisons shape perceptions of the contradiction (or lack thereof) between how people think things should be and how things are in three specific ways. The proposed framework is put to use with interviews with 98 millennials in Japan and South Korea.

Understanding Collective Identity in Virtual Spaces: A Study of the Youth Climate Movement

How does collective identity form in virtual spaces and what role do hashtags play? This paper takes advantage of a unique dataset that includes surveys from activists who organized the nationally coordinated climate strikes in the US that began in spring 2019 to answer these questions. Building on the research about collective identity formation online and the role that hashtags play, we employ social network analysis to assess how collective identity forms online over three waves of protests. In particular, we analyze how activists involved in the youth climate movement used hashtags to project their collective identities and create collective narratives. Our findings show how hashtags use varied over the period of our study, in some cases indicating the formation of a thin collective identity. They also show that there are patterns in the ways hashtags are employed by activists in the movement that suggest the formation of subaltern narratives among those affiliated with youth-led groups. Our paper concludes by considering how this finding helps us understand collective identity in virtual spaces and the role that hashtags play more specifically within social movements.

Envisioning Complex Futures: Collective Narratives and Reasoning in Deliberations over Gene Editing in the Wild.

The development of technologies for gene editing in the wild has the potential to generate tremendous benefit, but also raises important concerns. Using some form of public deliberation to inform decisions about the use of these technologies is appealing, but public deliberation about them will tend to fall back on various forms of heuristics to account for limited personal experience with these technologies. Deliberations are likely to involve narrative reasoning-or reasoning embedded within stories. These are used to help people discuss risks, processes, and fears that are otherwise difficult to convey. In this article, we identify three forms of collective narrative that are particularly relevant to debates about modifying genes in the wild. Our purpose is not to privilege any particular narrative, but to encourage people involved in deliberations to make these narratives transparent. Doing so can help guard against the way some narratives-referred to here as "crafted narratives"-may be manipulated by powerful elites and concentrated economic interests for their own strategic ends.

Assessing the state of traditional knowledge at national level

Traditional practices of Indigenous Peoples support the sustainable management of a quarter of the global land area. Yet their traditional knowledge is declining. To date, there has been insufficient focus on the development of participatory and evidence-based processes for assessing the state of traditional knowledge at national levels. We used traditional knowledge indicators and participatory video to evaluate the state of traditional knowledge within three Indigenous groups in Guyana. We find that traditional knowledge is perceived to be ’stable’ and responding and adapting to a diverse set of environmental factors and new circumstances. There are differences amongst Indigenous groups, but also commonalities, which help identify areas of intervention and point towards developing shared and collective narratives at the national level to feed into policy making. The findings have critical implications for the ways in which traditional knowledge should be researched, measured and safeguarded.

Sense of community coherence, perceptions of collective narratives, and identity strategies in intra- and interreligious group conflicts.

Sense of community coherence, perceptions of collective narratives, and identity strategies in intra- and interreligious group conflicts.

From screenwriting to montage, evidence to understand the evolution of audiovisual narratives

In today’s world, image first and then sound have managed to dominate communication, consolidating a broad and complex language, this phenomenon being the genesis of individual and collective narratives; Therefore, all reflection, in this sense, will help to better understand how to advance in the creation and understand the design of audiovisual stories. Although the cinematographic narrative has been studied, there are still several questions to be resolved in relation to the content of the expanded narratives and the subtle connections between the script and the montage, therefore every effort to reveal these connections is important in order to glimpse grammatical structures, models and particularities in two stages of audiovisual production that are presented as different but that are basically complementary and equivalent. The text presents the grammatical bridges between script and montage, definitive to understand the transformations of the audiovisual story, taking as a starting point two works, Intolerance (Griffith 1916) and Napoleón (Gance 1927), different films that marked transformations in the audiovisual story and they are presented as a turning point to what we know today as complex narratives (Simons) that go beyond the regular forms of the story itself, this phenomenon being more and more vast and exciting. In summary, the text tries to answer the question, What relationship exists between script and cinematographic montage, and what impact has it had on the evolution of audiovisual narratives?

Sustainability Practices in Working Contexts: Supervision, Collective Narrative, Generative Humour, and Professional Respect

Research literature and field experience reveal that jobs in social education—just like other jobs with a high interpersonal involvement—feature a high risk of job burnout. By necessity, work organizations in social education have developed a definite set of practices to support their workers and provide occasions for mutual support. Here we analyze four of these practices—supervision, collective narrative, generative humour, and professional respect—and suggest ways in which organizations in other sectors may consider importing them to increase their own organizational sustainability. We also present an analysis of workers’ second-level skills (such as narrative skills, reflexive skills, team working skills) that are related to sustainability practices: on the one hand they allow the individual worker to effectively take part and contribute, on the other hand their development is stimulated by such participation. Organizational sustainability is in fact to be considered a positive collaboration between individuals and organization, rather than a one-way, top-down condition. Increases in sustainability may result from cascading effects triggered by management decisions as well as by workers’ individual and collective actions.

Online Intergroup Polarization Across Political Fault Lines: An Integrative Review.

We revisit the construct of political polarization and current distinctions between issue-driven and affective polarization. Based on our review of recent research on polarization from psychology, political science, and communication, we propose to treat polarization as a process that integrates the concepts of social identification (collective self-definition) with ideologically opposed camps - that is, psychological groups based on support or opposition to specific socio-political issues and policies (related to issue-driven polarization), and that of ideological and psychological distancing between groups (related to affective polarization). Furthermore, we discuss the foundations of polarizing groups – and more specifically, the role of conflicting collective narratives about social reality in providing an initial platform for polarization in a technologically networked world. In particular, we highlight the importance of online media in facilitating and enhancing polarization between ideologically opposed camps. As a theoretical contribution, the review provides a more functional conceptualization of polarization that can explain how polarization may occur across partisan fault lines and in domains outside of politics. We conclude with a discussion of new pathways to the study of polarization which this integrative conceptualization opens.

The couple's tree of life: Promoting and protecting relational identity.

We present The Couple's Tree of Life (CTOL) as a new collective narrative methodology to strengthen couple relationships and prevent conflicts. The CTOL, based on the tree of life methodology (Ncube & Denborough, Tree of Life, mainstreaming psychosocial care and support: a manual for facilitators, REPSSI, 2007), aims to reinforce the identity and strengths of the couple. We explain the CTOL implementation process and illustrate it step by step with a group of 14 adult heterosexual Caucasian couples who belonged to Protestant churches in Madrid (Spain). As a way to assess its usefulness before applying the CTOL to other groups of couples, we conducted a pre-post evaluation using the Dyadic Adjustment Scale of Spanier(1976). We found an improvement in dyadic adjustment, quality, understanding of, and satisfaction with, the relationship. The results, though not generalizable at this stage, suggest that the CTOL could reinforce the couple'sidentity while maintaining individual identities. We also discuss the possible applications of couples therapy.

Kurmaca Metinlerde Bir Kaynak Olarak Kolektif/Geleneksel Anlatı

Before writing, there has been the oral. This orality is a collective narrative that enables the individual living in the society to comply with the rules and rituals. Trying to stay within the obvious patterns, people begin to question their environment and the universe with the concept of "mind". As he asks questions about existence, life, death and even after death, he finds answers to the unknown that he encounters according to the cultural values he has created. These answers have the purpose of keeping the mind at a “normal” level. Because man needs a power that controls the order around him. The gods of the sun-sea-fire, immortals, demigod- half-human characters struggle for problems that ordinary people cannot solve. The magical properties of princesses, the virtuous powers of kings, the courage of a hero fight against evil. The text comes later. Collective narratives that define social boundaries can now be recorded. In this process, the dominance of the mind rises rapidly and begins to solve what it sees around it in its own limitations. As the problems of ordinary people replace the "adult/limitless" beings and "utopian" spaces in the narratives, the space also becomes familiar. When the machines produced by the mind in the industrialization process begin to make people ordinary, a "new search" is needed. Words are added to the text. The collective narrative that takes its place in the social memory begins to show itself this time through fictional texts. The novel, which is quite new according to oral narration, returns to its old source. The aim of this study is to provide an explanation for the underlying elements of the surreal, fantastic and science fiction concepts that are frequently encountered in recent novels.

Web-Based Behavioral Intervention Utilizing Narrative Persuasion for HIV Prevention Among Chinese Men Who Have Sex With Men (HeHe Talks Project): Intervention Development.

BackgroundIn the era of potent antiretroviral therapy, a high level of condomless anal intercourse continues to drive increases in HIV incidence in recent years among men who have sex with men. Effective behavior change strategies for promoting HIV-preventive behaviors are warranted. Narrative persuasion is a novel health communication approach that has demonstrated its persuasive advantages in overcoming resistance to counterattitudinal messages. The efficacy of narrative persuasion in promoting health behavior changes has been well documented, but critical research gaps exist for its application to HIV prevention.ObjectiveIn this study, we aimed to (1) capitalize on narrative persuasion to design a web-based multisession intervention for reducing condomless anal intercourse among men who have sex with men in Hong Kong (the HeHe Talks Project) by following a systematic development process; and (2) describe the main components of the narrative intervention that potentially determine its persuasiveness.MethodsPersuasive themes and subtopics related to reducing condomless anal intercourse were initially proposed based on epidemiological evidence. The biographic narrative interview method was used to elicit firsthand experiential stories from a maximum variation sample of local men who have sex with men with diverse backgrounds and experiences related to HIV prevention; different types of role models were established accordingly. Framework analysis was used to aggregate the original quotations from narrators into collective narratives under 6 intervention themes. A dedicated website was finally developed for intervention delivery.ResultsA series of video-based intervention messages in biographic narrative format (firsthand experiential stories shared by men who have sex with men) combined with topic-equivalent argumentative messages were produced and programmed into 6 intervention sessions. The 6-week intervention program can be automatically delivered and monitored online.ConclusionsWe systematically created a web-based HIV prevention intervention derived from peer-generated stories. Strategies used to enhance the efficacy of the narrative intervention have been discussed within basic communication components. This paper describes the methods and experiences of the rigorous development of a narrative communication intervention for HIV prevention, which enables replication of the intervention in the future.

Competing collective narratives in intergroup rapprochement: A transgenerational perspective

In the context of an ethnically divided community, we explored the role of competing group narratives for intergroup rapprochement after violent conflict. In Study 1, data from a community survey conducted in Vukovar, Croatia, among 198 Croats, the local majority, and 119 Serbs, the local minority, were analysed to gain perspective on different narratives about the recent war and effects they may have on intergroup relations. In Study 2, focus groups with Croat and Serb children provided data to explore how these narratives were transmitted and transformed in living experience within the second generation. The quantitative results confirm the existence of opposing narratives of war among local Croats and Serbs. Multiple regression analyses show that, after controlling for exposure to war event and their personal impact, different factors predict rapprochement within the two groups. In the minority status group, that displayed higher overall levels of readiness for rapprochement, perceived ingroup victimization and outgroup stereotypes appeared more predictive than the outgroup affect. In contrast, within the majority group, variations in readiness for intergroup rapprochement were primarily predicted by outgroup affect, followed by perceived ingroup victimization. The qualitative inquiry complemented the findings from the survey. Despite the overwhelming dominant narrative, some alternative positions exist, but not consistent enough to be declared publicly. Perception of one’s own group as the primary victim of the war influences not only interpretations of the past, but also shapes identity, everyday life and future expectations. Mechanisms of perpetuating opposed narratives, as well as possible interventions, are discussed.

Long Covid – The illness narratives

Callard and Perego depict long Covid as the first illness to be defined by patients who came together on social media. Responding to their call to address why patients were so effective in making long Covid visible and igniting action to improve its care, we use narrative inquiry – a field of research that investigates the place and power of stories and storytelling. We analyse a large dataset of narrative interviews and focus groups with 114 people with long Covid (45 of whom were healthcare professionals) from the United Kingdom, drawing on socio-narratology (Frank), therapeutic emplotment (Mattingly) and polyphonia (Bakhtin). We describe how storytelling devices including chronology, metaphor, characterisation, suspense and imagination were used to create persuasive accounts of a strange and frightening new condition that was beset with setbacks and overlooked or dismissed by health professionals. The most unique feature of long Covid narratives (in most but not all cases) was the absence, for various pandemic-related reasons, of a professional witness to them. Instead of sharing their narratives in therapeutic dialogue with their own clinician, people struggled with a fragmented inner monologue before finding an empathetic audience and other resonant narratives in the online community. Individually, the stories seemed to make little sense. Collectively, they provided a rich description of the diverse manifestations of a grave new illness, a shared account of rejection by the healthcare system, and a powerful call for action to fix the broken story. Evolving from individual narrative postings to collective narrative drama, long Covid communities challenged the prevailing model of Covid-19 as a short-lived respiratory illness which invariably delivers a classic triad of symptoms; undertook and published peer-reviewed research to substantiate its diverse and protracted manifestations; and gained positions as experts by experience on guideline development groups and policy taskforces.

Transformative or Tokenistic?

Transformative or Tokenistic?