Narrative Construction Research Articles

Research on the design of narrative space construction: a case study of the revitalization project of the Macau Lychee Bowl Shipyard

ABSTRACT This study investigates the revitalization project of the Macao Lychee Bowl Shipyard, an industrial heritage site, aiming to uncover the expressive mechanism of narrativity within public spaces and thereby forge a fresh understanding of contemporary narrative space creation. Employing qualitative research methods such as participatory observation, spatial photography, literature review, and historical data gathering, the study unveils practical approaches for crafting narrative spaces in design research. These encompass multiple aspects, including the preservation and innovation of heritage value, the integration of social issues, user engagement, symbolism and expressiveness, non-verbal narratives, cultural and skill reproduction. The findings reveal that through governmental steering, project strategizing, community involvement, design competitions, and educational initiatives, the Lychee Bowl Shipyard has undergone a successful transformation into a versatile public space. This endeavor not only ensures the preservation of industrial heritage but also rejuvenates the site’s charm and cultural dynamism. The study offers a suite of strategies and practical avenues grounded in narrative space creation for the revitalization of industrial heritage, serving as a guiding beacon for heritage conservation, urban development, and communal engagement.

Refugee Women’s Intersecting Social Locations: A Contemporary Perspective on the Process of Becoming a Refugee Woman

This article explores the convergence of narrative criminology and refugee women’s experiences, framing the intricate process of becoming a refugee woman as “Refugee women’s intersecting social locations”. Building on previous research addressing violence (Borges, in J Int Migr Integr 25:673–693. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-023-01102-z, 2023) and agency (Borges, in Comp Migr Stud, 2024), this study incorporates insights from 24 interviews with Middle Eastern and African refugee women living in Portugal, their host country. It challenges the dichotomy of violence and agency, emphasizing their interconnected nature in shaping a better life. Aligned with (Pemberton & Aarten, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 41:541–556, 2018) narrative constructs, the discussion underscores the centrality of narrative to identity, its role in emotions, and its importance in connecting individual lives to broader cultural contexts. This narrative-centric approach contributes valuable insights to migration studies, informing gender-based policies and practices for enhanced support and offering a model for future research in the field.

The Narrative Construction of Peter in the Gospel of Mark in Light of the Reports of Displacement and Exile Due to the Armed Conflict in Colombia

A scenario of conflict, as in the Colombian case, may be related to the socio-political context in which the Gospel according to Mark may have been written, and therefore offers new insights for the understanding of the narrative phenomena presented. In effect, Mark could have been a response to the traumatic experiences of the followers of Jesus to whom the Gospel was addressed. Likewise, the experience of those displaced and exiled by the Colombian armed conflict has involved a series of traumatic events, but also bears witness to processes of resilient reparation. Against this background, it is proposed that in Mark, the figure of Peter, courageous and determined at the beginning but cowardly and flighty at the end, is analogous to that of many victims in the Colombian armed conflict who, faced with the imminent danger of losing their lives, were forced to abandon their deepest convictions and even their loved ones to end up fleeing into hiding and exile. Nevertheless, both Mark and the experience of those displaced and exiled because of the conflict in Colombia suggest the possibility of vindication of these victims and their respective narratives, helping them to recognize that their flight was not a betrayal and that, thanks to it, the memory of the events can be reconstructed to guarantee the truth and the non-repetition of the facts.

The forest-water-nexus: A narrative construction of the (ir-)relevance of cooperation

Interlinkages between forest and water resources are changing with global warming, leading to an increased likelihood of severe disturbances such as floods and droughts. In order to develop responses to these changing interlinkages and their effects on local communities and ecosystems, scholars propose to increase interactions across the forest and water sectors. In Germany, however, the two respective sectors have been observed as institutionally and ideationally fragmented, showing very few signs of cross-sectoral cooperation. As local actors are most directly affected by global warming and struggle to adapt to its consequences, we argue that cross-sectoral cooperation is also relevant at the local scale. Against this background, it is our aim to investigate the local narrative constructions of the (ir)relevance of cooperation across the forest and water sectors. Based on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions in six case study areas, we identify eight narratives which range from irrelevance (4), via partial relevance (2), to relevance of cooperation (2). Additionally, we elucidate a disinterest in cooperation among local water actors, compared to a narrative of urgency and fatalism among forest actors. Disinterest and urgency, however, furthermore differ regionally: Disinterest in cooperation is predominant in water abundant regions, whereas urgency is predominantly observed in regions of water scarcity. We contribute to conceptualizing disinterest as the rejection of a (common) problem possibly related to defend one's turf, and related both the urgency and fatalism narratives to the high affectedness within the forest sector.

Analisis Wacana Stereotip Perempuan dalam Berita Kriminal di Viva.co.id

Mass media plays a significant role in shaping public perceptions of issues such as sexual and domestic violence. This study focuses on how text structure, word choice, and gender representation in news articles influence public understanding of violence. The aim of this research is to analyze how news about sexual violence and domestic violence constructs narratives and social responses through language use and text structure, and how gender representation affects public perception. The study employs critical discourse analysis based on Norman Fairclough's theory. Two news articles were selected for analysis: one about sexual violence in front of a young girl and one about domestic violence. The articles were examined for text structure, word choice, and gender representation to understand how they construct narratives. The analysis reveals that the news about sexual violence emphasizes the perpetrator's actions and the authorities' responses, using sensational language to create a negative image of the perpetrator. In contrast, the news about domestic violence focuses more on the victim's suffering and power dynamics, with detailed descriptions of physical and emotional abuse. Media shapes public perceptions of violence and gender through word choice and text structure.

‘I’m not going to feed the bailiffs’: personal bankruptcy and debtor agency in narrative accounts of struggling debtors

ABSTRACT The article uses the formal instrument of personal bankruptcy proceedings as an illuminating context to contribute to the scholarship on the lived experience of overindebtedness. Through the analysis of 29 in-depth interviews with heavy debtors living in Czechia, we provide a focus on debtor agency, exploring how bankruptcy interrelates with how struggling debtors narratively approach debt and construct their capacity to act. We show that first-hand accounts of (planned) participation in a bankruptcy proceeding contain a surprising number and variety of narratives of agency. Emphasizing the processual character of bankruptcy proceedings, we demonstrate that bankruptcy supports enactments of debtor agency by interfering in the temporal ordering of debt as performed by the struggling debtors, shaping the experiences of overindebtedness also among those debtors who have not (yet) entered the formal process. We show that the narrative constructions of agency as regards bankruptcy are often embedded in a neoliberal discourse of merit and self-responsibilization. While the respondents reproduce a largely depoliticized and individualized account of debt resistance that at times operates with a hierarchization of struggling debtors, disclosing bankruptcy (intentions) to others also evokes spontaneous and unorganized acts of solidarity within personal networks that empower debtors.

Adriana Negreiros and a Feminist Ethics of Testimonial Narrative: Reflections on Life Will Never Be the Same

I seek to analyze the narrative construction of the reporter’s book A Vida Nunca Mais Será a Mesma (Life Will Never Be the Same Again, 2021), which tells stories of sexual violence against women and also features the first-person account of the author herself, Adriana Negreiros. I try to understand (a) how journalistic fundamentals such as precision and objectivity are articulated/tensioned with lacunar and fragmentary traces of testimony; and (b) how adopting a feminist/gendered perspective on journalistic narrative can bring to light traumatic female experiences that, throughout history, have been placed in the background. To do this, I examine the book and an interview conducted with the author in 2023, concluding that a feminist approach to journalism and testimony can open up affective spaces for women’s stories to be told.

The edifying body: the role of embodied practices in the social production of servicescapes

PurposeThis research aims to explore and theorize the role of embodied practices – orchestrated by service providers – in the social production of servicescapes. It is claimed that the social character of the servicescape is shaped not only by narratives and materialities but also through the body. Bodily physical behaviors like physical movements in space, gestures, facial expressions, postures and tactile engagements with the surrounding materiality constitute a body language that conveys information and expresses meanings. In this kinetic capacity, the body becomes a building agent in the social constitution of the servicescape. As the author empirically demonstrates in the context of city tourism with diverse experiential opportunities, it is due to the body’s discriminatory orientation, walking, looking, pointing and acting in selective ways that the city emerges as a servicescape of particular kind.Design/methodology/approachMarket-oriented ethnography was conducted in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where the author observed the guiding practices of tour guides leading international tourists during two-day city excursions.FindingsThis research identifies and unpacks three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers as they guide customers at the servicescape: spatializing, emplacing and regulating. The role of the body and its association with narratives and materialities is identified in each cluster.Practical implicationsA number of embodied practices are provided for use by contact employees as they guide customers in the servicescape. Specific guidelines are also offered to service providers for the strategic employment of body language, their training is navigational skills and the coordination of body, narratives and materialities.Originality/valueThis study extends current materialistic and communicative approaches on the construction of servicescapes by claiming that the servicescape in not only a physical and narrative construction but something that is also configured through the body; provides three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers; theorizes the intertwined nature of narratives, materiality and the body; defines servicescapes as dynamic socio-spatial entities emerging from the constant {narrative-material-body} arrangements orchestrated by service providers; and sheds light on the mediating role of the body in the social production of servicescapes.

Afrocentric Visual Analysis of Online Political Posters: A Case of South Africa’s July 2021 Unrest

This article argues that the social media network X (formerly known as Twitter) is a public sphere that uses different rhetorical strategies of visual political communication to set a political agenda and shape public opinion about political issues in South Africa. Visual images in the context of political communication are used to inform, persuade, and create ideological meaning. They employ different visual rhetorical strategies to construct narratives about a political issue or actor. The article employs an Afrocentric perspective as a theoretical and research method to interrogate the underlying African visual rhetoric of online political posters (OPPs) circulated on X by members of the African National Congress (ANC) faction in the KwaZulu-Natal province during the July 2021 uprising. The units of analysis were verbal and visual texts featured in the selected OPPs. The findings showed that ANC members who identified with the radical economic transformation (RET) faction deployed various styles of Afrocentric visual rhetoric to oppose the far-right faction of the ANC. This article contributes to the body of research premised on Afrocentric visual rhetorical and visual political communication, which remains under-researched, particularly in the decolonial context.

Politik Representasi Identitas Perempuan dalam Media: Wacana Kritis Pemberitaan KDRT di suara.com

Domestic violence (DV) is a complex problem with significant implications for the lives of women and children. Women's identities are often portrayed negatively and stereotypically as housewives, caregivers, weak, helpless, and submissive. Men's views tend to see women as sexual objects, sex symbols, objects that reinforce patriarchal patterns, and vulnerable to harassment and violence. This study aims to uncover the politics of women's representation in reporting domestic violence on suara.com. The politics of representation in this context refers to the way the media presents and constructs narratives about violence against women. The focus of this study is to understand how the media depicts cases of domestic violence, especially in the context of women's representation. The research method used is qualitative research with Sara Mills' critical discourse approach. Data were obtained through reading, understanding, recording, and identification using this approach. The results of the analysis show that the media still often depict women in a stereotypical framework that shows them as weak, causing problems, and emotional, for the benefit of the media company itself.

Cognitive rhetoric in super sports reporting: unveiling perspectives through multilevel analysis of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics from five international media outlets

ABSTRACT This study utilizes the Event-Domain Cognitive Model (ECM) within cognitive linguistics to analyze narrative construction in international news media coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Through qualitative analysis of 1673 news articles from five diverse media outlets, the research outlines a multilevel cognitive rhetoric framework to explore the integration of cultural, historical, and emotional factors in media discourse. At the macro level, cultural and historical contexts influence the selection of event subdomains. At the meso level, cognitive reference points shape portrayals of international diplomacy. At the micro level, rhetorical strategies, especially metaphorical language, reveal media knowledge structures and emotional responses. The study highlights the media's dual role in reinforcing shared humanistic values and exposing geopolitical rivalries. Findings indicate the Olympics as a global stage for uniting cultures through common values and manifesting political and ideological differences, with varying narratives reflecting each outlet's cultural and political context. The study underscores the importance of cross-cultural media literacy to develop a critically aware public and contributes to international media studies, cognitive linguistics, and communication by providing a comprehensive model for analyzing media narratives and encouraging further research into global media events.

Narrative reconstruction in deaf and hearing children: A comparative study in the context of Arabic diglossia

This study explores the narrative skills of deaf and hearing children within the context of Arabic diglossia, a linguistic environment characterised by significant differences between spoken dialects and formal written language. Using Stein and Glenn's (1979) and Bruner's (1991) frameworks, the research analyses the narrative constructions of 13 hearing and 13 deaf children in Kuwait. The findings reveal that hearing children, benefiting from consistent exposure to spoken and formal Arabic, produced more coherent and detailed narratives compared to deaf children. Hearing participants also demonstrated greater vocabulary diversity. Age-related improvements in narrative skills were more pronounced among hearing children, while the impact of sign language exposure on narrative abilities was significant among deaf children. The study underscores the critical role of early language exposure and educational support in fostering narrative development, particularly in a diglossic context. These findings highlight the need for specialised educational strategies to support the unique narrative development needs of deaf children.

A Convincing Narrative to Control the Crisis Response? The Role of the President of the European Commission During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

AbstractSense‐making and meaning‐making are fundamental tasks of crisis management. They entail the construction of a persuasive crisis narrative for guaranteeing that the public understands and supports crisis responses. Building on a combination of literature on crisis management and policy narratives, we analysed von der Leyen's speeches on the pandemic (March 2020–December 2022) to answer one central research question: was the President of the Commission able to construct a compelling narrative to support the crisis response at the supranational level? Our findings suggest that she was able to create a convincing crisis narrative that helped to back the Commission's co‐ordination role and the crisis response devised at the supranational level.

Narration across time and media: Narrative framing in radio adaptations of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine

Radio drama presents unique challenges for narrative construction, particularly with regard to the incorporation of a narrator. The illusion of immediacy in radio drama often makes it difficult to identify a narrator, disrupting the traditional narrative structure found in novels. This article explores two American radio adaptations of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, with a particular focus on the use of narrative techniques that move beyond the possibilities of the original novel’s textual medium. This comparison emphasizes the unique narrative structures present in the radio adaptations and deepens our understanding of the distinct affordances as well as limitations of the audio medium in realizing Wells’s visionary tale. The analysis considers the concepts of narrator, focalizer and mediator and their application in radio drama. By exploring the distinctive characteristics of auditory signification and multimodal strategies utilized in audio drama, a deeper comprehension of narrative theory can be achieved.

Modernity of Women Subject in Eka Kurniawan’ Cantik Itu Luka (2002): A Study of Post-Colonial Feminist Literary Criticism

This study aims to dismantle the narrative of the female subject’s modernity which was built by the author as a representative of a social group or class. In order to achieve this objective, the researchers used qualitative approach, which prioritizes data quality to data size. The data in this study is the novel Cantik Itu Luka by Eka Kurniawan, and other information related to the research topic. Then, the data were analyzed using binary opposition deconstruction and postcolonial feminism theory. Data analysis focuses on the narrative structure of the text and its ideas regarding colonial discourse and the narrative construction of the modernity of female subjects, as well as the author's historical and sociological context in relation to the text. The results show that the construction of the female subject presented in the text Cantik Itu Luka (2002) is a woman who is resistant to the discourse of modernity. In the context of colonial discourse, the female subject is a woman who participates in the rebellion against patriarchal cultural oppression and globalization. The discourse of modernity built by Eka Kurniawan is that women are required to maintain their national identity amidst the commotion of global culture. The construction of the female subject in the text is an ideal formed by male critical intellectual groups to represent and advocate women who have difficulty getting space and position in the social order.

Mediator Narration of Memory: US Presidents’ Autobiographies and the Narration of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1993–2012

The main argument of the paper is that we should examine mediator-narrative as an agency in narrative construction of memory during conflict. It demonstrates how despite the differences between the US presidents’ personal world views, their strategic narrations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are strikingly similar. These selective narratives strengthen the image of the US as a peacemaker and benevolent global leader. This narration is achieved by sidelining the detrimental role of the Israeli settlements and security threats, especially the increasing influence of Hamas in the Gaza-Strip. Therefore, this resilient mediator-narrative prevents critical thinking on the conflict and encourages a duplication of such policies.

Identity, Representation, and Agency: Narrative Constructs of Filipino Teachers in Taiwan’s Bilingual Nation 2030 Policy

Identity, Representation, and Agency: Narrative Constructs of Filipino Teachers in Taiwan’s Bilingual Nation 2030 Policy

Witnessing the Shared Story of Intergenerational Trauma in a Chinese Canadian Family: An Autoethnographic Narrative

This article presents the narrative of the first author witnessing the process of sharing intergenerational trauma (IGT) stories between a parent-offspring dyad. The narrative described in this paper is part of a study that involved the construction of IGT narratives in Chinese Canadian families (Chou et al., 2023). Arvay’s (2003) Collaborative Narrative Method was utilized to develop participant narratives, while autoethnographic data was used to construct the researcher’s narrative. The paper introduces an intergenerational family dyad (father-daughter) engaging in a facilitated process that involved sharing their IGT stories with one another and presented from the researcher’s perspective. The study has implications for researchers and practitioners working with IGT in the Chinese diasporic community as well as other ethnocultural groups. It provides insight into a scarcely studied phenomenon and illustrates how IGT narratives can be shared in a facilitated and supportive manner and has implications for research and clinical practice.

Causal Relations and Cohesive Strategies in the Narratives of Heritage Speakers of Russian in Their Two Languages

Causal relations allow a very detailed insight into the narrative skills of children from various backgrounds; however, their contribution has not been sufficiently studied in bilingual populations. The present study examines the expression of causal relations and the linguistic forms used to encode them in narratives of bilingual children speaking Russian as the Heritage Language (HL) and Hebrew as the Societal Language (SL). Narratives were collected from 21 typically developing Russian–Hebrew bilingual children using the Frog story picture book and were coded for frequency and type of episodic components, and for causal relations focusing on enabling and motivational relations. Results showed that the number of episodic components was higher in Hebrew than in Russian. An in-depth analysis showed that more components were mentioned in the first five episodes, particularly at the onset of the story. Causal relations were similar in both languages but were differently distributed across the languages—more enabling relations in Russian stories and more motivational relations in Hebrew stories. Production of episodic components and causal relations was affected by language proficiency but not by age of onset of bilingualism (AoB). In terms of language forms, lexical chains (e.g., search~find) were the most frequent means for inferring relations. Syntactic and referential cohesion were used in dedicated episodes to convey relations in both languages. Finally, a higher number of significant correlations between narrative productivity measures, episodic components, and causal relations were found in SL/Hebrew than in HL/Russian. The study results underscore the need to understand how language-specific abilities interact with knowledge of narrative discourse construction.

Morphology of Pornography: Magical and Fairy-Tale Roots of Modern Porn Discourse

In this article, the author analyzes visual discourses of physicality in modern porn discourse through the prism of structuralist theory proposed by Russian researcher Vladimir Propp. The article is one of the first attempts in modern historiography to transplant the methods and principles proposed by Vladimir Propp to analyze the current state of porn in popular culture. The purpose of the article is to analyze the relationships and interdependencies between modern porn culture, presented in visual forms, and its historical predecessors. It is assumed that the origins of pornographic discourse, which operates in visual forms, can be localized in folk traditional culture. Forms and dimensions of physicality and actions of the heroes of modern pornographic discourse are perceived as structural elements of mass culture. The results of the study can be summarized in the following way: 1) the visual structure of modern porn has lost its uniqueness and originality in the consumer society; 2) the plots and sequence of actions of the heroes of modern pornographic discourse can be compared with similar plots and behavioral strategies of folk discourse; 3) porn in modern society plays roles that are similar to ones played by fairy tales in the traditional culture of pre-modern societies. The author believes that modern porn discourse imitates reality, although initially the behavior of the characters and the plots are fantastic and unrealistic in their nature. It is shown that the development of porn became a reaction to the demand of consumer society for visualized narrative constructions based on the archetypes of traditional folk culture.