Life Story Method Research Articles

Potency Campaign Madurese Culture Through Gastronomy Diplomacy

Gastronomy is a very complex cultural product. The development of gastronomic tourism contributes to strengthening local identity, and will be an important point for the development of sustainable tourism. In gastro-tourism, the main motivation for someone to travel is to get the experience of tasting food and drinks that can provide impressions and memories throughout their life. This research aims to explain the role of gastronomy in campaigning for Madurese culture. This research was conducted using the Life Story method and a gastrodiplomacy study approach. The results of the research show that the eating tradition in Madura is almost carried out on various occasions, from human births to funeral ceremonies. The tradition of eating is a space for people to gather in various elements to exchange ideas and thoughts. The potential for gastronomy as a space for Madurese cultural campaigns is still very wide open. This is related to the unique gastronomic characteristics of Madurese food and can be an interesting topic of conversation at a meeting. This research suggests that it is applicable to hold activities such as MICE-Meeting Incentive Convention and Exhibition with a food theme to become a sustainable Madurese cultural space campaign .

Social Work and Intractable Conflict: Professional Experiences and Role Perceptions

Abstract Social workers worldwide share a common framework and mission: to provide aid to those in need and promote social justice. Yet as an international profession, both global and local realities contribute to the unique ways in which the profession is understood and practised in various locations. This article considers the broad issue of how local and global realities shape social workers’ understanding of the profession using the case of Israeli-Jewish social workers as an exemplar. Narrative and life story methods were used to understand individual life stories within collective political and professional contexts. Sixteen Jewish-Israeli social workers participated in two, individual zoom interviews each in which they described becoming a social worker and practising in the context of an intractable conflict, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Three approaches to social work practice emerged, suggesting that social work in Israel has shifted away from applying ecological perspectives, limiting both how social workers understand their roles and how they practise. Recommendations for incorporating a politically aware framework to social work practice, research and education are discussed.

Life-story method utilisation for professional development of high school counselors in Slovenia

This article researches the professional development of trained psychologists (holding a bachelor’s degree in Psychology) that work as school counsellors in Slovenia utilising the life-story method. Using the Case Study methodology on four examples, it tries to determine which factors, they deem important for their professional development and how they explain the influence of those factors on their work. The professional development factors were then categorised based on recognising similarities in school counsellors’ life-stories, dividing them into areas: (first and second phase) university education, preparation for professional work, work climate, relationships with co-workers, stress & burnout and protective factors & work motivation. Results of our study mostly correspond with previous studies and show that school counsellors work is diverse and often stressful.

De l’identité héritée à l’identité construite : récit du « je » face à la transmission

With the aim of exploring some of the mechanisms and negotiations involved in family transmission, we conducted a field study based on the life story method with a group of young Montrealers in fall 2019. Qualitative data collection and analysis followed the “family novel and social trajectory” approach, as developed in clinical sociology. Through a process of “guided recollection,” research participants were encouraged to share their family histories and put into words the sources of belonging and individuality that underpin their self-identity. The article analyzes how the resulting narratives highlight various strategies used to negotiate and reshape identity. Furthermore, genealogical imperatives emerged within various modes of relation and identification, triggering imitation mechanisms that produced both suffering and resilience.

Fifty ways to leave your treatment: First-person accounts of factors that helped actualize the choice to disengage from mental health services.

Objective: To investigate which factors and processes facilitated disengagement from mental health services (MHS). Method: The study adapted the narrative approach to the life stories method. We interviewed 13 women and 10 men who were diagnosed with a serious mental illness (SMI) for which they were hospitalized and used medication in the past but disengaged from MHS and were no longer engaged in any mental health treatment for at least a year. Results: Data analysis of the factors and processes that facilitated disengagement revealed three main factors, each overarching several subthemes: (a) Factors Related to Personal Resilience and Motivation; (b) Factors and Processes Related to Interpersonal Relationships; and (c) Using External Resources. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: Disengagement from MHS is not necessarily a problem that needs a solution but rather-in some cases-a legitimate choice that may actually represent healthy reasoning and an important step toward recovery. These findings emphasize the need for a broader and more flexible conceptualization of the potential role of MHS in the recovery process. Such an approach challenges the widespread notion that disengaging from MHS is a negative course of action and suggests that-for some-it is a significant and meaningful life choice that can empower individuals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Beards, Tattoos, and Cool Kids: Lived Religion and Postdenominational Congregations in Northwestern Mexico

This paper analyzes the everyday experiences of 20 individuals from two prominent postdenominational congregations in northwestern Mexico that branched off from Pentecostal and Evangelical transnational churches. Using the life-story method and the lived religion approach will allow for the understanding of how postdenominationalism emerged in the region and why these congregations have been undergoing a series of deinstitutionalizing innovations that ring closer to the expectations that millennials have regarding the emotional, the intellectual, the social, and the cultural aspects of their lives. This phenomenon not only echoes with the idea of the deconstructed church that Marti and Ganiel described among millennials in the US (Marti and Ganiel 2014), it also imposes a challenge for Latin American religious studies, whose trend has been to ignore the postdenominational category, favoring the continued use of Pentecostal and/or Neopentecostal/charismatic to refer to these congregations, which makes it difficult to understand the changes, the innovation, and the deconstructive processes that postdenominational churches have been undergoing in the last three decades.

Kisah Perempuan Pekerja Migran Indonesia di Hong Kong: Perjuangan untuk Keluarga dan Pendidikan Anak

This study aims to describe struggle of Nurdiana and Tira, two Indonesian female migrant workers who work in domestic sector in Hong Kong. They are part of thousands of Indonesian migrant workers in this country. Data from BNP2TKI shows that in 2019 only, there were 70,840 migrant workers placed in Hong Kong. Most of them are women. These women work in informal sectors, particularly domestic works. Using life story method, this research is able to find out that the main reason for both Nurdiana and Tira to work in Hong Kong is to fulfill their family needs and support education of their children. Their children are studying in Pesantren. Life story gives chances to both informants to talk more about their work, their relation with employers, family, friends, and challenges they face, including that of COVID-19. Their stories provide an understanding of the real situation faced by these two family heroes.

“¡Somos escaladoras!” Historias de vida de mujeres ciclistas en equipos internacionales

Recientemente, la psicología del deporte ha centrado su atención en la carrera de deportistas mi-grantes transnacionales, quienes transitan entre diversos contextos culturales y experimentan transi-ciones culturales. Sin embargo, son pocos los estudios sobre esta transición con mujeres deportistas. Por ello, mediante la metodología de historias de vida, este artículo explora las experiencias de dos mujeres ciclistas latinoamericanas al transitar hacia equipos profesionales internacionales. El análi-sis temático permitió construir cuatro temas: (a) “el sueño olímpico”, (b) “enfrentándose a lo des-conocido”, (c) “redes que sostienen” y (d) “mujeres y escaladoras”. Se identificó que uno de los motivos para migrar es ayudar a mejorar la calidad de vida de sus familias. Además, durante esta transición, las ciclistas relataron experimentar cambios en las dinámicas de comunicación con su familia y el papel significativo de sus parejas como fuentes de apoyo emocional. En la Discusión, proponemos estrategias para asesorar a ciclistas transnacionales latinoamericanas durante esta tran-sición.

The Education-to-Work Transition of Young Rural\u2013Urban Migrants in Kathmandu, Nepal

This article examines the experiences of youth transitioning from education to work, within the specific context of rural–urban migration in Nepal. This context is chosen as, compared to developed countries, experiences in developing ones have remained under-researched in the transition studies literature. The study is informed by a biographical research approach, using qualitative longitudinal life (hi)story methods, with a view to revealing local transition patterns and the life events influencing these. The study identifies four different patterns reflecting the education-to-work transitions of young rural–urban migrants in Nepal. These patterns encompass different pathways involving education, migration, work, and mandatory waiting periods. The analysis of these transition patterns highlights how migration for education and work from rural to urban settings, taken together with mandatory waiting periods, exerts key influence on the overall life trajectories of young rural–urban migrants in Nepal’s capital.

Trauma, violence and recovery in the life stories of people who have injected drugs

This paper reports qualitative data about violence and trauma amongst drug injectors in Scotland, collected using a life story method with 55 drug injectors currently in recovery. It focusses on different types of violence and trauma that occurred whilst using drugs. Stories told of very severe and repeated traumas often involving extreme violence. One motive for escalating and continuing drug use was avoidant coping to deaden the emotions and thoughts regarding these traumas. Many traumas were due partly to the criminal drug milieu, so respondents were in a vicious cycle of using opiates and other sedative drugs to cope with the consequences of being involved in a lifestyle of using, supplying and obtaining illegal sedative drugs. Drugs were used as a dynamic method of self-medication or avoidant coping to cope with life in a criminal milieu. Traumatic events were more often described as worsening the lifestyle than as being motives for quitting. Amongst the traumas recounted were many incidents of extreme violence. Using drugs to block the psychological effects of such traumas may help explain why people persist using opiates despite experiencing evident serious harms. Interventions need to recognise this, be trauma-aware and appreciate that violence and trauma have severe adverse effects on drug injectors even when they are themselves hardened and violent.

Necessary connections: ‘Feelings photographs’ in criminal justice research

Visual representations of prisons and their inmates are common in the news and social media, with stories about riots, squalor, drugs, self-harm and suicide hitting the headlines. Prisoners’ families are left to worry about the implications of such events on their kin, while those incarcerated and less able to understand social cues, norms and rules, are vulnerable to deteriorating mental health at best, to death at worst. As part of the life-story method in my research with offenders who are on the autism spectrum, have mental health problems and/or have learning difficulties, and prisoner’s mothers, I asked participants to take photographs, reflecting upon their experiences. Photographs, in this case, were primarily used to help respondents consider and articulate their feelings in follow-up interviews. Notably, seeing (and imagining) is often how we make a connection to something (object or feeling), or someone (relationships), such that images in fiction, news/social media, drama, art, film and photographs can shape the way people think and behave – indeed feel about things and people. Images and representations ought to be taken seriously in researching social life, as how we interpret photographs, paintings, stories and television shows is based on our own imaginings, biography, culture and history. Therefore, we look at and process an image before words escape, by ‘seeing’ and imagining. How my participants and I ‘collaborate’ in doing visual methods and then how we make meaning of the photographs in storying their feelings, is insightful. As it is, I wanted to enable my participants to make and create their own stories via their photographs and narratives, while connecting to them, along with my own interpretation and subjectivities.

Stuffing down feelings: Bereavement, anxiety and emotional detachment in the life stories of people with eating disorders.

This study aimed to explore the life stories of people with eating disorders (EDs) in order to better understand possible contributing factors to their development. It used a qualitative Life Story method, in order to reduce the tendency to focus on the negative in the lives of people with EDs. Sixteen people in contact with an EDs charity participated. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis. Despite the attempt to elicit both positive and negative information, most themes from the life stories were negative. Here, the focus is on the three most common themes reported, which are less often reported in previous research: (a) substantial bereavement and loss; (b) major issues with anxiety and (c) difficulties coping with emotions. A model is proposed whereby major losses and the resultant anxiety can lead to emotional deadening and 'stuffing down feelings' with food, leading on to an ED. This model implies that interventions need to consider psychological factors in an ED, especially the use of it as a dysfunctional coping strategy, as well as the behavioural and physiological aspects of an ED.

Exploring underexposed stories: the experienced lifecourse of financially excluded older adults

AbstractTo gain insights into vulnerable lifecourses and give a voice to those often underrepresented in quantitative research, this study examines the life stories (past, present and future) of 19 financially excluded older adults using an adapted version of McAdams’ life-story interview scheme. Although these life stories demonstrate an accumulation of many disadvantages and an uncertain future because of current financial situations, the stories also reflect the generativity, resilience, coping strategies and agency of financially excluded older adults. We demonstrate how the experienced lifecourse is built around both negative and positive turning points and transitions which go beyond the classical education–work–retirement triumvirate, and how socio-cultural life scripts are used as a framework to build one's own life story in order to achieve continuity. The discussion highlights the potential for deploying the life-story method as a qualitative resource for providing individualised care.

Imagens que (nos) devoram: reflexões sobre tigres, jornalismo cidadão e coberturas jornalísticas

Esse estudo propõe reflexões acerca da imagem e dos relatos jornalísticos a partir da comparação do conteúdo de um vídeo gravado com um celular por um anônimo indiano sobre um ataque fatal feito por um tigre, no dia 23 de setembro de 2014, no National Zoological Park, de Nova Delhi, Índia, e a reportagem publicada no dia seguinte no The Times of India, maior jornal de língua inglesa daquele país. A hipótese é a de que ambas formas de captação produzem uma apreensão simbólica e relatos diferenciados do fato. O método de análise empregado foi o fenomenológico. O resultado sugere que o vídeo pode ser portador de conteúdos relacionados às imagens arquetípicas e, portanto, ligados à percepção do tempo profundo. Já o relato jornalístico, nesse caso ligado à abordagem das histórias de vida, registraria uma camada mais superficial e imediata do fato.

Life Trajectories of Suicide Attempt Survivors

The aim of this study is to perform a qualitative analysis of selected life trajectories of patients with a history of attempted suicide with the purpose of identifying personal and psychosocial factors that favor suicidal behavior and those that ground resilience. Five suicide attempt survivors from a community mental health service were interviewed for about 6 hours over a period of 12 months by means of a semistructured guide consisting of 10 domains and 86 cue questions. Qualitative analysis was performed by means of the parallel life stories method, and relevant biographical issues were identified. This analysis was conducted using the software package ATLAS.ti. The qualitative analysis of life stories yielded six categories and 62 items as follows: (i) broken childhood (15 items), (ii) education (9 items), (iii) employment as a promoter of health and social inclusion (9 items), (iv) family and current social network (5 items), (v) mental health and mental disorder (10 items), and (vi) experiences around attempted suicide (14 items). These categories are illustrated with matching quotations from the life stories. Childhood trauma appears to be the cornerstone on which all participants’ stories are based. Reliable carers are essential for making traumatic histories comprehensible.

The voices that should be heard: A qualitative and content analysis to explore resilience and psychological health in victims of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW)

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) implicates various psychological health problems in women who suffer from it, often associated with the consumption of drugs. To date, studies mainly focus on quantitate data about psychopathological disorders. However, there are factors (i.e. resilience) preventing women from suffering and also helping to overcome certain psychological alterations and trauma. To analyze how resilient (or not) women face this gender violence situation and how their past events influence their current situation, 60 women from Spain (mean age = 37.03; SD = 10.02; range = 21–61) were in-depth interviewed following the life stories method. Furthermore, once the interviews were processed, we content analyzed data to categorize responses into high and low resilience. Thus, we could analyze the relationship among variables. In particular, women with a higher level of resilience show a less development of psychopathologies and drug consumption. As a result resilience proves to be a key aspect to improve and promote the reduction of mental health problems in victims of gender violence.

Retrospective Accounts of the Process of Using and Discontinuing Psychiatric Medication.

Refusal to take psychiatric medication as prescribed is often considered negative, harmful, and even reflective of a sign of one's illness. However, recent research from diverse sources has challenged this axiom. The current study investigated the reasons, processes, experiences, and perceived impacts of medication discontinuation. The study was carried out using the narrative approach to life stories method. Participants were 12 women and 9 men who had discontinued their prescribed medication following psychiatric hospitalization. Four main themes were revealed in the data analysis: (a) the experience with medication, (b) the process of discontinuing medication, (c) elements that helped achieve successful medication discontinuation, and (d) the perceived impact of medication discontinuation. Our findings challenge the widespread notion that discontinuing psychiatric medication is necessarily negative and suggest that, for some, it is a legitimate and meaningful life choice.

My Path Towards Living on My Own: Voices of Youth Leaving Dutch Secure Residential Care

Youth departing from secure youth care are often not well prepared for living on their own. This study aims to provide more insight into youth’s perspectives on what they need to improve their chances for successful return to and participation in Dutch society. The study is a first necessary step on a journey to develop a tool for these youth to evaluate the development of autonomy and participation. We chose for a participatory research methodology. Youth participated as co-researchers in all steps of the research. Sixteen adolescents aged 15–20 years participated in open in-depth interviews using an autobiographical life story method. They were treated as partners and future owners of the tool to be developed. The interviews were transcribed and analysed. Realizing trustworthy social bonds appeared essential for developing autonomy. Youth started to move when they were socially connected and had found out what they value. Then they started “to do their thing” and “to find their own path”, which was their language for experiencing autonomy. An interesting new finding was the importance of rest for youth to enable them to develop self-insight and to find their own path. The findings imply that staff in secure residential care should invite youth to develop their own ideas about their life and future, stimulate exploration and reflection, and a dialogue with people around them. Opportunity for acting, trying and doing is also needed, so that youth can discover in practice what works for them.

Desert land reclamation programs and family land dynamics in the Western Desert of the Nile Delta (Egypt), 1960–2010

The agricultural development on newly reclaimed lands has led to many national debates about food security and budget deficits, and the living conditions of the new settlers at the local level. This debate is still crucial for present day Egypt, a country facing major challenges, including food security, agriculture modernization, employment generation, and land fragmentation due to dramatic population growth. In this context, policy makers are always seeking the best land allocation system for these new lands. This paper analyzes the land tenure and land use dynamics of farmers’ settlements during a program of land reclamation (from 1960 to 2010) in the Western Desert of the Nile Delta. The objective is to describe the land development paths of farm settlement and to identify promising dynamics by cross-referencing the farmers’ stories and their livelihood achievements. To accomplish that, we conducted household surveys and interviews to learn the life stories’ of 175 family farms. Our study finds that, beyond the rules and institutions that fixed the land tenure regimes and its distribution in these new lands, settlers have found different ways to hold on and secure their land farm, even if the unequal land distribution still structure the population. The results highlight also the dynamism of small-scale settlers, regarding livelihood diversification, to face the challenges of these desert environments. In addition, the dual-purpose system embedded in mixed crop-livestock systems can contribute to settlers’ livelihood security. These realities confound the unchanged rhetoric of government and this calls for more social consideration of these new rural spaces based on a combination of heterogeneous networks off relationships and knowledge. The apparent gap between the macro- and micro-perspectives analyses also requires multi-scale assessments. Finally, the life-story method proves to be a complementary and useful approach to integrate the livelihood representation and dynamic.

A Study on International Students Searching for Work in Japan (Utilizing Life-Story Method for International Students Who Belong to an English-Taught Course)

A Study on International Students Searching for Work in Japan (Utilizing Life-Story Method for International Students Who Belong to an English-Taught Course)