Dual Narrative Research Articles

Digging into the past: critical reflections on Rwanda's pursuit for a domestic mineral economy

Since 2009, mineral development and trade strategies in the Great Lakes region of central Africa have been tied more closely to security rather than to economic development agendas. This shift has resulted largely from the emergence in 2009 of a ‘conflict minerals’ label coined by Western advocacy organizations, aimed at limiting armed groups access to mineral resources. The ‘conflict minerals’ debate perpetuates a dual single-story narrative to do with mining, namely: firstly, the single story of the region – one in which minerals, particularly those from artisanal and small-scale mining, are a source of capital for armed conflict and outside state building; and secondly, the single story of Rwanda – one in which the country compensates for its lack of significant mineral wealth by sourcing from neighbouring countries. This paper looks at Rwandan mining history prior to the genocide, and reforms since 2000, challenging the dual single-story narrative, and showing how a focus on the security imperative to delink mining from conflict poses severe limitations to the long-term growth of the these economies.

A descriptive exploration of the experiences of patients with significant functional impairment following a recent diagnosis of metastatic spinal cord compression

To explore the experiences, concerns and priorities of patients newly diagnosed with advanced malignant spinal cord compression and had significant problems with mobility at presentation. The consequences of malignant spinal cord compression can be devastating. Patients and their families are under pressure to adapt quickly to the significant functional impairment that occurs while coping with a diagnosis of advanced cancer. Much of the literature has focused on diagnosis and treatment and little is known about patients' experiences, priorities and concerns. A descriptive qualitative methodology was adopted using semi-structured interviews and Framework Analysis techniques. A semi-structured interview schedule was developed to explore patient's descriptions of their experiences leading up to diagnosis and during their admission to the cancer centre along with their thoughts and feelings about their future with malignant spinal cord compression. The interviews took place after completion of radiotherapy before discharge home. Interviews were carried out between April 2009-March 2010. Ten participants were interviewed. A dual narrative was identified in which participants talked about their concerns and emphasized their ability to cope and maintain a positive outlook. Patients' concerns and priorities were identified. Maintaining hope emerged as an important element of coping. Uncertainty was a source of hope. The study provides insights into the experience of malignant spinal cord compression from symptom occurrence to diagnosis and beyond. The findings highlight the importance of early discharge planning and family involvement in meeting patients' priorities for care.

The End of the Road

Over the last decade, the subject of dementia has been explored across a range of generically and thematically diverse mainstream English language films. That filmmakers have been prepared to engage with such challenging subject matter is arguably at least in part a reflection of the rise in global diagnosis rates and the growing public awareness around dementia. Several films have touched briefly on the subject through the development of minor characters or plotlines including Hanging Up (Keaton, 2000), It Runs in the Family (Schepisi, 2003), The Good Life (Berra, 2007), and Win Win (McCarthy, 2011). Some of these present perfunctory, illinformed, or unhelpfully nihilistic representations of the disease; some conflate all forms of dementia with Alzheimer’s or oversimplify symptoms and treatment. Others, including Friends with Benefits (Gluck, 2011) and The Descendants (Payne, 2011), offer a necessarily succinct but surprisingly sensitive treatment of dementia-related issues in a few short but compelling scenes. In both films, young men react to older characters with dementia in unconventional but not unsympathetic ways, prompting other characters and viewers alike to question their own responses. Films that have dealt more substantially with dementia over the last decade fall predominantly into the categories of drama (The Notebook [Cassavetes, 2004], Aurora Borealis [Burke, 2005], and The Savages [Jenkins, 2007]) and comedy (the unsettlingly dark Happy Tears [Lichtenstein, 2009] and the equally discomfiting Barney’s Version [Lewis, 2010]). However, rather than constituting the primary focus, the person with dementia and its ramifications functions as a catalyst in these films, triggering events and consequences for other characters. Youthful romance underpins The Notebook and Aurora Borealis, whereas the onset of dementia in a parent casts dysfunctional sibling relationships into high relief in The Savages and Happy Tears. Unlike all these films, within the burgeoning subgenre of dementia-related scenarios, there are several prominent examples where the character with dementia is situated firmly in centre stage. Iris (Eyre, 2001) and Away From Her (Polley, 2006) deal thoughtfully with a charismatic central female character, and the physical, emotional, and psychological complexities that accompany the progression of her dementia symptoms. In Richard Eyre’s biopic of the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, the dual narrative structure contrasts her life as an iconoclastic young woman with her latter years, prior to and following her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Given her verbal acuity and fierce commitment to “the life of the mind,” the film’s emotional pull lies in the particularly cruel irony of Murdoch’s intellectual decline. Writer/director Sarah Polley’s assured and visually striking debut feature Away From Her details one woman’s struggle to come to terms with her dementia diagnosis. Following admission to residential care, the woman’s growing emotional attachment to a fellow resident and rapid cognitive deterioration thereafter provokes longstanding tensions in the marriage that her husband spends most of the latter half of the film attempting to reconcile. Both films adopt a nonlinear narrative approach, with constant, almost willful temporal shifts suggestive of memory itself, in all its inherent fluidity and selectivity. And while dealing in considerable, and occasionally confronting, detail with some of the realities of advanced dementia, the constraints of a feature length film result in the disease trajectory being unrealistically condensed. Equally

‘Look, Each Side Says Something Different’: the impact of competing history teaching approaches on Jewish and Arab adolescents’ discussions of the Jewish–Arab conflict

There is growing interest in the impact of Jewish and Arab historical narratives on intergroup relations and conflict. A randomized placement comparative study set out to examine it empirically. Conventional-Authoritative official narrative, Empathetic Dual narrative, and Critical-Disciplinary multiple-source teaching interventions were designed around the topic of the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem. Seventy-five Jewish and 85 Arab Israeli adolescents were placed in each of the three different approaches to teaching history and in a control group. Following the learning intervention, participants from both communities were paired by condition, and discussed the causes and possible solution of the refugee problem. Dominance and agreement in discussion were analyzed, revealing a significant effect of teaching approach. Findings show discussions in Empathetic Dual narrative, and Critical-Disciplinary feature a lower degree of dominating discourse by the dominant group. Conventional-Authoritative approach featured lower frequency of agreement on solution for the problems caused by the conflict, compared to control and multiple perspective teaching approaches.

‘An Argument in Paint’: Reynolds and Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy

Following the work of such important scholars as John Barrell, Stephen Copley and David Solkin, discussion of eighteenth-century art has tended to focus on a dual narrative of civic humanism and Mandevillian economics. This article argues that such a focus has been to the detriment of a third ‘Augustan’ discourse, proposed by Paul Fussell in the 1960s as being evident in the writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Through focusing anew on Reynolds’ well-known portrait of David Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, this article investigates the tensions inherent in the painting, and highlights the Augustan imagery that was visible in Reynolds’ portraits as well as his writing. The Augustan discourse becomes evident when Reynolds’ literary and artistic productions are considered in tandem and in the context of his intellectual and political milieu, influenced by his friends in ‘the Club’, especially Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke. Within this discourse man is depraved and fallen, the victim of his dual nature, split between reason and imagination. Such duality captures him between outer appearance and inner morality, and particularly vulnerable, therefore, in the eighteenth century, which prioritized ‘polite,’ fashionable concerns. In discussing the portrait of Garrick, pulled between Tragedy and Comedy, this article highlights an eighteenth-century discourse of Augustan, ‘Ancient’ moral concerns that has been obscured by our contemporary debt to the ‘Modern’ attitude, which was its enemy.

Certain Madness: Guy de Maupassant and Hypnotism

This essay explores the onset of the condition deemed madness in both versions of Guy de Maupassant’s horror story “The Horla” (1886/1887). Madness here characterizes the narrators’ belief in an invisible possessor named Horla, a being identifiable through empirical investigations yet resistant to scientific rationalization. More specifically, the twofold narrative blurs the institutional boundaries between science and the supernatural by introducing the creature Horla to an already unstable scientific history of nineteenth-century hypnotism. Through its depictions of conflict between personal affliction and scientific perception, “The Horla” explores the parameters of science’s unthinkable and unimaginable conceptions. Maupassant’s dual narrative portrays the fantastic experiences made possible by that which lies beyond science—experiences rationalizable only in terms of madness.

“What a story it could be”: Identity and Narrative Strategy in Ali Smith’s Like

Remarking upon its dual narrative structure, muddled chronology and conflicting accounts of past events, Ali Smith described her debut novel Like as “a nasty warring book, a book of two sides” (qtd. in Murray 222). The connection made here between the “warring” nature of the novel and the opposing narratives that constitute its “two sides” is crucial, and reveals that the conflict described by Smith relates as much to Like’s fragmented structure as it does its content. Indeed, the “warring” that takes place in Like occurs not only in its various settings – the bedrooms, dormitories and theatres in which its protagonists, Amy and Ash, witness their carefully concealed relationship bloom and wither – but also between its contrasting sections, each narrated from a different point in time. What is at stake in this war of words is the memory and legacy of the love once shared between the novel’s now estranged protagonists: a love which is brought proudly to the forefront of Ash’s personal account of the past, yet is largely absent from the third person, present tense narrative that constitutes Amy’s section of the text. Offering the reader a series of readings (and re-readings) of events and encounters in this way, Like reveals itself to be a novel concerned with the strategies behind storytelling, with the memories one might artfully preserve, discard, embellish or invent when fashioning a version of one’s history and, in turn, of oneself.

Modernity and Postcolonial Ambivalence

There is a dual narrative that is often taken to be characteristic of modernity: the first is the idea of its unique Europeanness, and the second is its translatability into non-European cultures. This narrative argues for the mutability of modernity, thus permitting its export and enhancing its universal character while putting a European epistemological stamp on its subsequent reception. The traveling character of this dimension of modernity as export understands modernity as emerging from Europe, say, from the mid-fifteenth century, and slowly spreading outward like a million points of light into the patches of darkness that lie outside its foundational center. Modernity in this guise was projected as an instrument of progress. The guiding concepts often associated with it—instrumental rationality, the development of capitalism—emerged in the debate between theological and scientific reason. These concepts also provided the foundation for the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, in which feudalism and theological absolutism—two structures of power and domination that marked the Middle Ages—collapsed. Scientific rationality and individual property, which formed the basis of capital accumulation, were triumphant. The collapse of feudalism and theological absolutism shifted the scales of sovereign power from the theological to the secular.

Focusing the Gaze: The Role of Music in Film Adaptations of Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" <br> doi:10.5429/2079-3871(2010)v1i1.6en

The role of music takes on a dual identity in the context of filming the Regency era, with modern composers fusing old and new in order to reach contemporary audiences. This article will illustrate how the musical scoring serves to focus the romantic gaze in filmed versions of Pride and Prejudice from 1940 to 2005 through a dual-gendered perspective. The musical gaze is fourfold, split by gender and by circumstance; male, joined, female, and societal. The dual narrative, one verbal, one musical, provides interplay between the male and female perspective.

The Inner Conflict

This article addresses the Dual Narrative Approach (DNA) as applied to a sample group of Palestinian students in Israel. This approach is implemented in the dual narrative textbook developed by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). The textbook was originally developed for history teaching in both the state of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. The particular situation of Palestinians living in Israel raises an important question of the implementation of this approach in Palestinian-Israeli schools. This sample group is particularly interesting as within the State of Israel only the Jewish-Israeli historical narrative is officially taught in schools, even in the Arab-Palestinian schools. For many of the students tested in this study, this textbook was their first exposure to their own narrative. This article is an empirical study that uses the "mixed methods approach," investigating the students' reactions to the dual narrative textbook with specific regard to the narrative of the events of 1948, one of the most contentious periods for these two nations.

Birmingham: whose urban renaissance? Regeneration as a response to economic restructuring

This paper draws together two traditionally distinct discourses that have dominated debates over urban policy responses to economic restructuring, deindustrialisation, major plant closures and the rise of the service and knowledge-based economy over the past 20 years. It investigates the case of Birmingham, where the policy drive of city centre regeneration, flagship development and the re-making of central urban space for new economic activities has been accompanied by much acclaim and ‘boosterist’ hype. At the same time, the socio-spatial impact of economic restructuring and the resulting policy response has been extremely uneven. The economic difficulties and wider disadvantage experienced by much of the city's population and many of its neighbourhoods, especially those inner city areas with large ethnic minority populations, have endured and even deepened since the early 1990s despite the efforts of numerous area-based regeneration programmes funded by central government. The paper reflects upon this dual narrative by asking the question whose urban renaissance? From this study it clear that the dominance of the ‘boosterist’ discourse is significantly tempered by the uneven and enduring socio-economic divides within the city and the partial nature of the city's overall recovery, particularly in terms of providing employment for its residents. In this sense, significant policy challenges remain despite the clear achievements of the past 20 years. The paper concludes by considering new spatial policy approaches that could bind together the dual imperatives of creating new economic opportunities, and addressing aspects of acute need among the local population.

Resignation and Rebellion: The Dual Narrative of Johanna Schopenhauer's Gabriele

(1819,1821), Johanna Schopenhauer's (17661838) first novel, and wrote to his son August: Es ist gut, gut.' In Kunst und Altertum he describes the style as sehr anmutig verarbeitet, the descriptions and the plot as alles [...] nach dem Wirklichen gezeichnet, and the implementation of tragic form as sehr wohl gelungen (WA 41: 5-7). Profitable in the marketplace and beloved by its readers, the novel inspired a new genre in German literature, the feminine novel of resignation or Entsagungsroman.2 Thematically, Gabriele resonates with Goethe's own ruminations about Entsagung central to many of his later works (Wahlverwandtschaften, W M. Wanderjahre), and it also corresponds to his expectations of female protagonists: Epische, halbepische Dichtung verlangt eine Hauptfigur, die bei vorwaltender Thiitigkeit durch den Mann, bei fiberwiegendem Leiden durch die Frau vorgestellt wird (WA 41: 5). Indeed, Gabriele, considered to be a paradigmatic novel of feminine resignation, seems to endorse the most traditional views of women and patriarchy because the idealized heroine submits, sacrifices, and suffers all for the sake of duty. Yet, despite Goethe's plaudits for the novel, his praise of Gabriele's moral character and her seeming conformity to the societal expectations of women, he nevertheless cautions against using the novel as an educational model for young women. He writes: Eine sorgsame Mutter [fragte]: ob sie dieses Buch mit ihren Tbchtern lesen k6nne? Dabei kam Folgendes zur Sprache: Erziehung heiBt: die Jugend an die Bedingungen gewbhnen, zu den Bedingungen bilden, unter denen man in der Welt uberhaupt, sodann aber in besondern Kreisen existiren kann. Der Roman hingegen stellt das Unbedingte als das interessanteste vor, gerade das griinzenlose Streben, was uns aus der menschlichen Gesellschaft, was uns aus der Welt treibt, unbedingte Leidenschaft; fiir die dann bei untibersteiglichen Hindernissen nur Befriedigung im Verzweifeln bleibt, Ruhe nur im Tod. Dieser eigenthiimliche Charakter des tragischen Romans ist der Verfasserin wohl gelungen. (WA 41.2, 7)

The Dual Narrative of “Good Governance”: Lessons for Understanding Political and Cultural Change in Malaysia and Singapore

The Dual Narrative of “Good Governance”: Lessons for Understanding Political and Cultural Change in Malaysia and Singapore

The Dual Narrative of “Good Governance”: Lessons for Understanding Political and Cultural Change in Malaysia and Singapore

The narrative of good governance has become particularly relevant in understanding political and cultural change in Malaysia and Singapore. This study shows that the narrative of good governance is a double-edged sword -- that is, it can be used in rather contradictory ways. In the case of Malaysia, good governance assumes the role of a reformist discourse adopted by opposition forces to pressure the ruling regime into introducing liberal democratic reforms. In the case of Singapore, good governance plays the role of a dominant discourse employed by the ruling elite as a defence against liberal democratic reforms. Not only does this seem to suggest that the relationship between democracy and good governance is a complex one, it also puts some of the recent political and cultural developments in both these cases in a new context. Introduction Prior to the Asian financial crisis, scholars were intrigued with the question of whether Southeast Asian societies that had developed the economic requisites for liberal democratic reforms would actually follow through with these political reforms. [1] With the political changes that have swept through Southeast Asia in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, it seems less justifiable now for scholars to label this region as being recalcitrant to liberal democratic reforms. Nevertheless, two cases in this region continue to stand out as puzzles of political development -- Malaysia and Singapore. In the case of the former, while there have been some signs in the past two years of a democratic awakening, it is still too premature to conclude based on these developments that these forces for political change will lead to any sustained liberal democratic reforms. In the case of the latter, the prospects of change towards a more liberal democratic system seem even less so. Malaysia As is well known by now, the Asian financial crisis precipitated a series of fundamental changes to the Malaysian political landscape. This article will focus less on the actual sequence of events and more on the implications of some of the main political developments in this period. [2] The economic excesses and abuses that had accompanied Malaysia's rapid growth in the early 1990s have been well documented by scholars. [3] It was not until the financial crisis of 1997, however, that some of the real costs to Malaysian society of the illicit nexus between political patronage and wealth creation were realized. During the period of accelerated growth in the early 1990s, the middle class was by and large willing to go along with the trade-off between civil and political freedoms and economic goods since the overall economic pie was clearly expanding even though a small minority was benefiting disproportionately. Scholars who were studying this phenomenon at the time had concluded that as long as the middle clas s was still benefiting from the economic policies of the government, they would largely be compliant with the political structure. [4] Yet, when the opposition forces, with the help of the Internet, brought into the full glare of public scrutiny some of the exploitative practices of corruption, collusion, and nepotism at the highest levels of the political and economic elite, the public opposition to the ruling coalition began to grow. [5] Indeed, when the economy showed signs of a slowdown (and even a collapse), the excesses of the government were no longer tolerated as willingly. To make matters worse, in their desperate attempts to contain the economic fallout from the financial crisis, the ruling elite had taken some bold and reckless steps, which included moves perceived by many to be aimed at rescuing some of their closest economic beneficiaries. [6] We will perhaps not know for some time to come all the reasons behind the sudden fall from grace of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's deputy, Anwar Ibrahim. However, it does seem clear that overt attempts by some in the ruling elite to shelter failing beneficiaries from the full thrust of market forces in the wake of the financial crisis largely contributed to the friction between the two leaders, with Anwar commonly believed to have been less willing to acquiesce to the government's financial bail-outs of these cronies. …

Across Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader

Across Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader, by Mamphela Ramphele. New York: Feminist Press at City University of New York, 1997. 241 pp. $19.95, cloth. The first book in a series from the Feminist Press on African women's lives, Across Boundaries is the public document of South African educator-activist Mamphela Ramphele's private life. In it, Ramphele traces her education and career path from the 1940s as a young girl in missionary school in the Northern Transvaal to her position as chancellor of the University of the Western Cape. She addresses social issues and personal struggles in a writing style that ranges from political essay to intimate conversation. The text is not lyrical or poetic, but is filled with details that provide a rich context for understanding in apartheid-era South Africa. Ramphele's commitment to family, education, community service, and career are the major themes that tie the book's chapters together. The first chapter, entitled My Roots, places the author in historical context within her family and community. Education played a crucial role in Ramphele's ability to survive in an oppressive system. One of the smartest young girls in her region, she dreamed very early in of becoming a physician. Though her parents were teachers, she had to move away from home at a relatively young age to obtain a high school education. Ramphele writes that Bantu education was designed to train and teach people in accordance with their opportunities in life (p. 232). For Black South Africans, this did not include becoming doctors. The book includes only a few details of the author's early educational journey, instead it emphasizes how she moved beyond the many roadblocks placed in her path and describes the important ways her family intervened to ensure her education. In the chapter, An Unlikely Career Choice, Ramphele details her struggle to become a physician. The descriptions of her work as founder of two health clinics and her interactions with clinic staff and the surrounding communities make for some of the most interesting reading in the book, and help to explain why Ramphele's achievements as a physician and humanitarian have been recognized in South Africa and throughout the international community. The chapter entitled Initiation into Activism is a dual narrative of her relationship with student activist Steve Biko and her involvement in the Black consciousness movement. Ramphele recounts in detail her unconventional romance with Biko, describing it as a political and intellectual partnership: He [Biko] realized that one could not sustain a marriage on the basis of guilt about wrong decisions he had made in the choice of a partner. Attempts to protect his wife from the pain occasioned by his continued love for me has not been successful anyway: all three of us were constantly hurt by the tensions inherent in the triangular relationship. (p. 117) Ramphele writes with openness and candor about her relationship with Biko and the impact that his death had on her and public persona. She also presents a frank discussion about the status of widowhood and her reaction to being publicly defined solely on the basis of her relations with men rather than her accomplishments. Although Ramphele cherishes and protects Biko's legacy, she fights for public recognition as more than his lover and the mother of two of his children. This book addresses many public myths and presents the private truths according to Ramphele regarding her relationship with Biko. The chapter entitled Surviving in the Wilderness is a metaphoric and geographic description of Ramphele's in Tickeyline Village, where for over 10 years she endured banishment, a type of internal exile, for her activism. …