Life Narratives Research Articles

#OFW: Filipino migrant workers brokering counter narratives of overseas life on TikTok

#OFW: Filipino migrant workers brokering counter narratives of overseas life on TikTok

Incorporating lived experience narratives into interdisciplinary environmental communication projects: A technique for better environmental communication

This paper describes how lived experience research, a qualitative research method based on phenomenology, can be modified and incorporated into interdisciplinary environmental risk communication projects. Lived experience methods can give insight into stakeholders’ needs and concerns, enabling development of better communication products and potentially helping overcome disciplinary barriers on project teams. We describe the purposes and methods of lived experience research, draw upon two cases from our own experiences to outline how methods can be adapted for the contexts of interdisciplinary research projects, and describe potential barriers to and opportunities for using this research method in team communication projects, including co-production of knowledge, internal research team acceptance, and making project products more responsive to user needs.

Parent-Child Relationship: Life Narratives of Elderly Parents as Care Receiver

Parent-Child Relationship: Life Narratives of Elderly Parents as Care Receiver

Violence and hegemonic masculinities in Timor-Leste – on the challenges of using theoretical frameworks in conflict-affected societies

ABSTRACT Research on men, masculinities, and of men’s violences has multiplied recently, as have violence-prevention initiatives, especially in conflict-affected societies. Drawing on my experiences of working on violence prevention as well as of conducting research with men in violence-prone groups in post-conflict Timor-Leste, I reflect on the practical and conceptual challenges of this work. Key concepts from Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities (CSMM) were helpful in part but were challenged by the lived realities and narratives of the men I interviewed. Common conflations of violence and hegemonic masculinity proved less-than straightforward. Perhaps inevitably, this work carried with it an element of epistemic violence, of outside concepts being imposed by a privileged me upon my research subjects through my interpretation of their lives. Given how central engaging with ‘violent masculinities’ should be to gender-transformative peacebuilding, these challenges speak to broader questions of the possibilities of social change and ethical questions involved.

Toward a Natural History of Microbial Life

For most of Earth's history life was microbial, with archaeal and bacterial cells mediating biogeochemical cycles through their metabolisms and ecologies. This diversity was sufficient to maintain a habitable planet across dramatic environmental transitions during the Archean and Proterozoic Eons. However, our knowledge of the first 3 billion years of the biosphere pales in comparison to the rich narrative of complex life documented through the Phanerozoic geological record. In this review, we attempt to lay out a microbial natural history framework that highlights recent and ongoing research unifying microbiology, geochemistry, and traditional organismal evolutionary biology, and we propose six broadly applicable principles to aid in these endeavors. In this way, the evolutionary history of microbial life—once considered only a prelude to the much more storied history of complex metazoan life in the Phanerozoic—is finally coming into its own. ▪The outlines of microbial natural history are now starting to appear through the integration of genomic and geological records.▪Microorganisms drive Earth's biogeochemical cycles, and their natural history reflects a coevolution with the planet.▪Past environmental changes have induced microbial biotic transitions, marked by extinction, taxonomic shifts, and new metabolisms and ecologies.▪Microbial evolution can benefit from a historical perspective of processes and successions as established by macropaleontology.

Toward a Practice of Critical Recognition: Life Narrative in the Sociology Classroom and Beyond

The centrality of the self (including in published life narratives, social media confessionals, social movements and even our own classroom rituals), and the attendant conflation of experience, analysis, and truth, revive longstanding questions about our investment in the individual. The self and its narration continue to be messy and evolve in tandem with intense societal, technological, and economic shifts. This article grows from an interest in the tension between affirming the diverse set of experiences that gather in our classrooms, and challenging students to think systemically about the social world and our place in it. Published life-narratives—here I discuss the work of Virginia Grise and Valeria Luiselli—provide pedagogical opportunities to fortify agentic knowers by cultivating a practice of critical recognition. A practice of critical recognition in the classroom and beyond may help us all better face both what we know and what we don’t know, together.

I am the psychiatric patient and the psychiatric patient is me: Retelling a lived experience narrative of professional sexual misconduct.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Professional sexual misconduct is the name given to the phenomenon of healthcare providers crossing sexual boundaries with their patients. It is comprised of a range of behaviors from comments to unwanted touching and even rape. The exact incidence is unknown, but estimates have been made. These abuses are thought to be underreported. The applicable reporting processes are problematic. Trauma-informed care presupposes knowledge of various types of trauma, and this is one type. Traua-informed care places emphasis on healthcare systems and healthcare providers' avoidance of retraumatizing patients who disclose any type of trauma, including sexual violence. WHAT THE PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: This paper adds one narrative experience of a sexual assault perpetrated by the writer's colleague psychiatrist. It can be viewed as a cautionary tale about horizontal violence against nurses. This narrative discusses how one traumatic event can mushroom into chronic traumatic sequelae when disclosure re-traumatizes. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: Increased knowledge of this type of sexual violence may help those who have suffered it. As psychiatry is among the healthcare fields who regularly screen patients for trauma, it is imperative that the psychiatric workforce gain familiarity with trauma-informed responses to avoid re-traumatizing patients who disclose sexual violence.

Transforming provisioning systems to enable 1.5° lifestyles in Europe? Expert and stakeholder views on overcoming structural barriers

This article explores the urgent need for transformative change toward provisioning systems that align with staying as close as possible to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C limit for climate change. Despite historical awareness of the need for change, current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption persist, prompting an examination of the role of societal structures in hindering transformative change. Using the framework of provisioning systems, this study analyses expert and stakeholder views on structural barriers and steps to overcome them. Based on 36 expert interviews and Stakeholder Thinking Labs with 113 participants in five European Union case countries, the study identifies and discusses seven key structural barriers that affect the sustainability of provisioning systems for food, mobility, housing, and leisure. These barriers include the economic growth paradigm, policy incoherence, vested interests, the externalization of environmental costs, dominant narratives of the good life, inequality, and an insufficient integration of environmental concerns in educational systems. When considering the actualization of these structures in concrete provisioning systems, stakeholders emphasize the need for welfare provision with improved resource efficiency; argue for radical measures such as bans, limits, and taxes to address these challenges; and highlight governance challenges related to participation and power. The analysis underlines the complexity of promoting transformative structural change and the interplay of structures in different provisioning systems, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to achieve sustainable provisioning systems and 1.5° lifestyles.

Witnessing Con/Text(s) and Narrativizing Subjectivities: Rhetorical Questions in Atef Abu Saif’s The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary

ABSTRACT This paper studies the rhetorical questions posed by Atef Abu Saif in his work The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary (2016). By engaging the theoretical position of Paul John Eakin’s witnessing eye and narrative ‘I’, a framework that emphasises the role of the author as a witness and narrative ‘I’ as a tool for expression, this article analyses witnessing, the consequent development of rhetorical questions, and their impact and interplay. It argues that Eakin’s take on witnessing eye and narrative ‘I’ helps foreground the importance of such questions through the generic scope of life narratives, amplifying its representational range in the recent socio-political and literary landscape. The rhetorical questions in the Diary become performative speech acts that communicate the larger contextual significance beyond the textual world. The situatedness of the narrator, Abu Saif, in Gaza and the position of questions in the text instigate a complex interplay of texts and contexts. The autobiographical efficacy of the respective text, contexts, and the symbolic potential of individual and collective bodies are examined in this article to study these questions. Consequently, this analysis significantly contributes to the fields of witnessing and rhetorical questioning in life narratives, thereby enriching wider academic discussions.

From LiLLes to lilies: an autoethnography of coming out and coming in to a later in life queer eco-spiritual identity

ABSTRACT Most of my life I both pressed against social constructions of gender and sexuality and tried to fit within those same social constructions. After being married for twenty-six years as a cis-gender woman in a heterosexual relationship, raising three children, and serving as a pastor and faith-based nonprofit director in a conservative religious tradition and community, I leaned into and authentically claimed my sexual identity as a queer lesbian womxn. When I decided to pursue a PhD and research the intersections of gender, sexuality, spirituality, and religion, I discovered a large community of later in life lesbian womxn with stories like mine where I could belong. My spiritual journey into an authentic gender and sexual identity has also been a journey into belonging with the more than human world. Using a framework of queer ecofeminism and the method of critical autoethnography to engage my coming out later in life narrative offers the opportunity to explore how individual intersectional experiences of gender and sexuality can inform and impact collective social justice and environmental justice efforts in the work to dismantle oppressive binary systems.

Life narratives in the context of war trauma

The article is devoted to the analysis of life narratives in the context of war trauma. One of the most important tasks of social cognition is to predict the intentions of others towards us and people we care about, this information is best conveyed by a person's moral character, not sociability, and it is also important to predict the probability that a person will do what he is going to do, especially as it relates to the trauma of war and suicidal intentions common in our time. However, we assume that sociability and memories of the self before the war or before the traumatic event determine how effectively a person uses his skills to support his moral or immoral intentions, in fact this information is important from the point of view of adaptation. The purpose of the research is to study the peculiarities of life narratives, in particular those determined by morality, positive or negative attitude towards oneself in the context of war trauma. The objectives of the study are to define the concept of moral trauma, its connection with positive or negative self-attitude, PTSD, autobiographical memories of the events preceding the trauma, including the war in general. Research results: A positive attitude towards morality promotes the emergence of such phenomena as mutual altruism, encouraging cooperation for the common good. A negative attitude toward immorality promotes phenomena such as punishment, discouraging destructive behavior such as cheating, stealing, and free-riding. Therefore, it is critical to determine whether the influence of moral traits on liking and positive attitudes toward self and others is dominant and how it is related to positive autobiographical memories and life narratives, particularly in wartime, when immoral and moral actions are often closely related. and moral trauma has become a common phenomenon not only for the military, but also for civilians in Ukraine.

Speaking in Two Tongues:

The Philippines comprises 7, 641 islands and with it, an approximately 170 languages spoken by almost 104 million Filipinos. Because of this, Filipinos are naturally bi/multilingual. Bilingualism is also a widely studied topic in the field of language education. In this study, however, a narrative inquiry is used to determine the advantages, disadvantages, strategies and views of the subject towards bilingualism. The subject’s life narrative being bilingual was written based on the result of the interview and an unstructured questionnaire. From the data, codes were extracted and were discussed in the paper. The experience of the participant is a mirror of the linguistic experience of Filipinos where children acquire their mother tongue used in their communities. Then at a very young age, they also learn another language, almost always Filipino because this is what is used in Philippine schools. A conscious effort is then used to learn English, the second language of the country. Other languages learned are either for personal or practical reasons. It is indeed very difficult for the general public to get by without knowing English these days.

Tracing the Digital Plant Humanities: Narratives of Botanical Life and Human‐Flora Relations

AbstractIn this paper, we trace the emergence of what we term the digital plant humanities (DPH) as an evolution of burgeoning botanical interest among environmental and digital humanists. We argue that DPH coalesces the theoretical and methodological frameworks of the three research areas of plant humanities, environmental humanities, and digital humanities. After conceptualising DPH, we analyse three projects representative of the emergent field—the Native American Ethnobotany Database; Herbaria 3.0; and Microcosms: A Homage to Sacred Plants of America—while referring to a broader range of formative projects including the Plant Humanities Lab.

The Curse of Historical Recurrence in Geoffrey Nyarota's Against the Grain : Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman

ABSTRACT: Geoffrey Nyarota, a Zimbabwean journalist of note, is renowned for his investigative journalistic skills and numerous conflicts with political authorities. He is probably the most hired and fired newspaper editor in post independence Zimbabwe. In this paper, I put forward the argument that in his memoir, Nyarota uses historical recurrence as a motif and narrative strategy to recreate a personal life story that is fraught with events that keep repeating themselves in his life. By tracing his life story from the colonial period to post independence Zimbabwe, and the near tragic events that continually trouble his life, Nyarota reconstructs a life narrative that is haunted by the curse of historical recurrence in a way that makes a personal curse become the curse of the nation of Zimbabwe.

We are all ordinary: the shared visual narratives of daily life promote the patients’ positive attitudes toward doctors

BackgroundCurrent research on the doctor-patient relationship primarily focuses on the responsibilities of doctors, with relatively less emphasis on examining the contributions patients can make. As a result, there is an urgent demand for exploring innovative approaches that highlight the active role patients play in cultivating a robust doctor-patient relationship. The purpose of this study was to devise an intervention strategy centered around patients to enhance the doctor-patient relationship. Comics were developed to depict shared narratives encompassing challenging daily life experiences between doctors and ordinary individuals. The study aimed to assess the efficacy of this approach in cultivating positive attitudes toward doctors.MethodA 3-group design trial was conducted in Shanghai, China. A total of 152 participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: the parallel presenting group (n = 51), where narratives about a doctor and an ordinary employee were presented side by side in comics; the single presenting group (n = 50), where only narratives about a doctor were presented; and the control group (n = 51). The outcomes assessed in this study encompassed changes in identification with the doctor portrayed in the comics, perceived intimacy between doctors and patients in reality, and appraisal of the doctor in a prepared doctor-patient interaction situation.ResultsThe parallel presenting group exhibited significantly larger increases in identification with the doctor portrayed in the comics, perceived intimacy between doctors and patients in reality, and appraisal of the doctor in a prepared doctor-patient interaction scenario compared to the single presenting group. The observed enhancements in the appraisal of the doctor in a prepared doctor-patient interaction scenario can be attributed to the changes in identification with the doctor portrayed in the comics experienced by the participants.ConclusionOur study responds to the doctor-centric focus in existing research by exploring patients’ contributions to the doctor-patient relationship. Using comics to depict shared narratives, the parallel presenting group demonstrated significantly increased identification with the depicted doctor, perceived intimacy, and positive appraisal in prepared scenarios compared to the single presenting group. This underscores the effectiveness of patient-centered interventions in shaping positive attitudes toward doctors, highlighting the pivotal role patients play in fostering a resilient doctor-patient relationship.Trial registrationChinese Clinical Trail Registry: ChiCTR2400080999 (registered 20 February 2024; retrospectively registered).

Participatory mapping of tree equity, preferences, and environmental justice in Portland, Oregon

In this study, we examine community lived experiences, preferences, and narratives about tree equity in Portland, Oregon. Using an environmental justice framework combined with participatory mapping, focus group discussions, and semi-structured interviews, we examine values, perceptions of canopy cover, and everyday relationships with trees across different racial and socio-economic backgrounds. Results show that participants from neighborhoods with histories of investment and privilege had different lived experiences compared to those with histories of disinvestment and marginalization. While participants overall valued trees, concerns about tree-related risk and safety varied in ways that reflected racial and class identities. Furthermore, memories and historic knowledge shaped perceived tree equity but contemporary problems such as tree removal, maintenance policies, and gentrification were viewed as barriers to achieving more equitable outcomes. Our study underscores the importance of centering community experiences, values, and needs along with tree programs that can alleviate barriers to tree care and maintenance.

Trauma and resistance in Niger's emergency transit mechanism: A life narrative study

This qualitative exploratory research delves into the intricate life narratives of forcibly displaced individuals residing within the Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niger, employing a methodology grounded in life narrative analysis. The primary objective is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the potential stressors and traumatic experiences encountered by these individuals, encompassing both psychological and physiological dimensions, while also examining the dynamics of resilience and elements contributing to their overall well-being. The findings, derived through thematic content analysis, underscore the cumulative nature of traumatic events experienced by migrants throughout their lifetimes and across various stages of the migration continuum. The study, in alignment with extant scholarly literature, identifies thematic categories such as “A scenario of conflict and mourning, " everyday experience of violence and discrimination,” “health at risk”, and " Seeking security.” Refugees recount enduring multiple traumas, including familial bereavements and losses resulting from conflicts and militarized violence. Furthermore, the analysis elucidates a profound interplay between traumatic occurrences, subjective well-being, and resilience among the studied population. Despite confronting adverse living circumstances, refugees demonstrate indicators of subjective well-being, hinting at the potential for resilience and recovery. This challenges conventional diagnostic frameworks such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and underscores the necessity for a nuanced understanding of trauma's multifaceted impacts. Nevertheless, the study underscores the urgent need for a more robust and contextually attuned mental health support infrastructure, advocating for a deeper exploration of the socio-political determinants underpinning forced migration. By comprehending the root causes of displacement through a socio-political lens, policymakers and practitioners can devise comprehensive strategies and interventions aimed at both prevention and mitigation of factors precipitating forced migration. This approach seeks to foster a global landscape wherein compassionate and well-informed interventions proactively address the underlying drivers of displacement.

Vulnerability and narrative inlater life.

Narrative gerontology considers how people age biographically as well as socially and biologically. Vulnerability as aprocess category and state of being remains undertheorized in the context of narratives of later life. It is argued that the narrative space for stories from old age privilege backward-looking stories that focus on positive milestones and support cultural narratives of a"life well lived." Sad, emotionally laden or uncertain/unfinished stories that reveal vulnerabilities are rejected and potentially viewed as problematic. Using an illustrative case example of astudy of resilience narratives and aging, this paper considers how the study authors position and identify resilience. Some interpretative judgements used in the research regarding who is resilient based on expressions of vulnerability are highlighted. Overall, the tensions between cultural and personal narratives that position older people as vulnerable subjects are considered and it is argued that vulnerability can be agreat source of strength and meaning in later life.

The Rhetoric of the Body in BP Koirala’s Life Narratives

This paper examines the rhetorical significance of representing body in BP Koirala’s life narrative published in the form of an interview taken between 1979 to 1981. Using Kenneth Burke’s rhetoric of identification and Michel Foucault’s notion of body as the theoretical framework, the paper explores the motif of the narrator behind representing his body through his narrative among the contemporary intended audience. Koirala identifies with the public by means of the rhetoric of his body narrative. His motif behind the narrative is to showcase his national ethos through the pains and torments he had sustained in his body and to identify with the ethos of the general public thereby evoking civic national ethos. The study reveals that body can work as a powerful instrument in writing the life narrative that evokes the author’s sense of shared ethos.

Narrative Care and Engagement in Social and Health Care: Enhancing Identity with a Small Story Approach

<p>Narrative care, an approach developed from the larger concept of narrative gerontology, considers the importance of stories as a source of identity. A type of person-centered care, narrative care in care settings encourages care workers to elicit stories to gain a more wholistic understanding of the person. Drawing on personal experience in the field, I argue that although “big” story approaches (e.g., grand life narratives) have typically been used in social and healthcare settings, “small” story approaches (e.g., snippets or moments) are more practical for care workers. The expansion of the concept of narrative care to include “narrative engagement” will be explored, which if applied in meaningful ways can promote citizenship, shift power dynamics, generate empowerment, and create systemic change in social and health care settings. Finally, newly developed train-the-trainer narrative care training will be discussed, which is designed to meet the needs of diverse social/health care workers, with a focus on meaningful methods of adopting narrative care and engagement in practice.</p>