Local Narratives Research Articles

Mothers and their daughters’ education: a comparison of global and local aspirations

ABSTRACT Through a comparative analysis of policy texts from UN organisations and scholarly work since the 1990s this paper examines how mothers are portrayed in simplistic terms, as educated thus beneficial for their daughters’ schooling, or deprived of education causing detriment to their daughters’ future prospects. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with mothers from rural Pakistan, these global comparisons are brought into conversation with local narratives showing how mothers’ aspirations facilitate daughters’ educational opportunities. It is argued that mothers’ subjectivities have a potential to inform global policy discourses for investigating the aspirational and transformational potential of mothers in contexts of material and social constraint. The paper proposes an informed approach to educational research and policy making which seeks to understand the processes surrounding mothers’ support for their daughters’ education.

Historiography and Identity, VI: Competing Narratives of the Past in Central and Eastern Europe, c.1200–c.1600, ed. Pavlína Rychterová with David Kalhous

The book under review is the sixth volume of the Historiography and Identity sub-series published by Brepols as part of the Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages series. Just like the previous volumes, the present one, edited by Pavlína Rychterová, brings together a collection of case-studies focused on the strategies of identification and visions of community as preserved in the local historiographical narratives of the past between c.1200 and c.1600 in ‘Eastern Central Europe’. The seventeen chapters, written by scholars from Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany and Lithuania, focus on selected narrative sources from Eastern Central Europe. Royal, courtly, national, urban and monastic chronicles were chosen for scrutiny, while universal histories have been purposely left out. The editor candidly admits that it was not possible to find suitable scholars to write on some important sources (Johann of Viktring, Chronicon Aulae Regiae, Peter Eschenloer) and, therefore, these works have also been left out of the volume.

Powerful stories of local climate action: Comparing the evolution of narratives using the “narrative rate” index

AbstractThe complex relationship between local climate action and reducing global emissions is often difficult to grasp and cities might scale back their ambitions if they realize that the way is hard and rocky. We analyze local climate change narratives through the lens of the narrative policy framework (NPF). Following the NPF, policy actors use narratives to communicate information to change an existing system in order to achieve a specific goal. For our study, this implies that local climate action can be improved by using narratives to communicate information to achieve climate neutrality. We focus on the position and interplay of the most important and dominant actors and concepts in the plot of the narratives. To better analyze the main actors and content of the NPF plot in a systematic and comparable way, we offer the “narrative rate index” to dynamically trace the narratives. To include the dynamics and effects of global significant developments in the plots of the NPF narratives, we selected three phases between January 2018 and June 2021. What are the main characters and dominant actors in the plot of the narratives in the two cases? Are the narratives different depending on the context of the city, and are there general observable patterns? Our findings identify the central actors in the narratives of both cities: the science institute in Karlsruhe and the City Administration in Mannheim. Karlsruhe, a climate change pioneer, has slowed down its climate change activities somewhat, while Mannheim is a latecomer with high ambitions.

Local knowledge and unliveable narratives: How insights from family caregiving narratives can inform locally relevant ageing policy

Background and objectivesAccommodating local knowledge in national ageing policy demonstrates a country's intention to preserve local values, including cultural values of older adults' care. However, including local knowledge must provide space for nuanced and adaptive responses to it so that ageing policies can support families in adapting to changes and challenges around caregiving. Research design and methodsThis study interviewed members of 11 multigenerational households in Bali to understand the ways family carers use and resist local knowledge about multigenerational caregiving for older adults. ResultsUsing qualitative analysis of the interplay between personal and public narratives, we found that narratives of local knowledge provide moral imperatives related to care, which shape expectations and a standard for evaluating the younger generations' behaviour. While most of the participants' accounts fit comfortably with these local narratives, some described challenges in which their life circumstances prevented them from identifying themselves as a virtuous carer. Discussion and implicationsFindings provide insight into the role of local knowledge in constructing caregiving function, carers' identities, family relationships, families' adaptation, and the influence of social structure (e.g., poverty and gender) on caregiving issues in Bali. These local narratives both confirm and dispute findings from other locations.

Impacts of Change: Analysing the Perception of Industrial Heritage in the Vogtland Region

Beyond metropolitan areas, many peripheral regions and their cities in Europe have, in manifold ways, been significantly shaped by industrialisation. In the context of the relocation of industrial production to other countries over the last decades, the question has been raised as to the role this heritage can play in futural regional development as well as the potential local identification with this history. Hence, this article seeks to analyse the perception of the industrial heritage in the Vogtland region, located alongside the border of three German federal states and the Czech Republic. It inquires as to the perception of the industrial heritage by the local population and related potential future narrations. Based on spontaneous and explorative interviews with local people as an empirical base, a discrepancy between the perception of the tangible and intangible dimensions of the industrial heritage can be observed. On the one hand, the tangible heritage like older factories and production complexes are seen as a functional legacy and an “eyesore” narrative is attributed to them. On the other hand, people often reference the personal and familial connection to the industry and highlight its importance for the historical development and the wealth of the region. But these positive associations are mainly limited to the intangible dimension and are disconnected from the material artefacts of industrial production.

Vernacular Radio and the Practice of Resistance: Community Radio as a Cultural Tool to Engage on Health and Social Identities among Marginalized Communities in Ghana

ABSTRACT This article explores how local values and social identities can be integrated into Ghana’s formal COVID-19 public health communication interventions using community radio. The study adopted a qualitative approach using focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and reflexive thematic analysis. The ten-step participatory planning and action model to involve the community in the social change process is employed as the theoretical framework for this article. The study found that Radio Peace’s COVID-19 communication intervention is participatory due to the involvement of listeners in its programming. Also, local narratives and values were considered in designing locally relevant COVID-19 interventions through the audience’s access to the station’s activities. We suggest that dominant narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic be adapted to local realities by recognizing marginalized voices through listener involvement and access to local community radio stations.

The thematic paradigm of local knowledge content of the Ternopil region district press of the early 21st century

The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the issue of studying local texts and modeling regional-historical problems in media discourse is becoming increasingly important in journalism today. The article aims to analyze the thematic specificity of the local narrative of the district periodical of the Ternopil region at the beginning of the 21st century. The subject of the study is the thematic features of the local content of district newspapers and their narrative specificity. The research uses a complex-analytical approach, which combines systematic-chronological, historical-descriptive, genre, analytical, problem-thematic, and bibliographic methods. The chronological limits of monitoring are from January 2000 to December 2015. As a result of the research, a holistic view of the main trends of local processes in the narrative reception of district printed periodicals of the Ternopil Region at the beginning of the 21st century was formed, a comprehensive analysis of its problem-thematic direction, features of local history content in the context of the functioning of regional publications of Ukraine was carried out. The local newspaper narratives were systemized into geographic, economic, historical, artistic, and ethnographic problem-thematic groups. We have found out that historic themes are the most popular among local narratives (27.4 %), while others showcase the following results: geographical group (24.4 %), economic group (17.8 %), artistic group (16 %), and ethnographic group (14.5 %). Local narratives of natural and geographical topics reveal the potential of local objects. Publications on economic topics, highlighting the achievements of industries, show readers positive examples of successful compatriots. Historical topics include materials about princely times, the Liberation War, the Sich riflemen and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Holodomor, World War II, in particular the activities of the OUN and the UPA, as well as political repression and emigration. Artistic publications reflect creative processes in the region, and ethnographic publications are represented by descriptions of the folk material and culture of the region. The content core of the geographical group is the territorial description of the area; economic themes in the narrative form reflect the problems of the modern social and economic life of the region; historical narratives uncover the past of the district; the artistic group represents literary and fine arts processes of the region; the ethnographic group promotes folk material and spiritual culture of the land.

Heritage Policies and Public Memory between Continuity and Rupture: The Treatment of the Ottoman-era Architecture in Greece in the Aftermath of the Population Exchange

This paper examines the heritagization of Ottoman-era architecture in Greece from the Balkan Wars until the interwar years. Investigating the impact of the Lausanne Treaty, it explores continuities and ruptures in the dominant ideological motifs, policies and social practice of treating Ottoman-era architectural vestiges. Public debates on the meanings and roles of these vestiges are analyzed at the intersection of ideology with material stakes pertaining to spatial management. Moreover, attempts to include Ottoman-era architecture in national and local heritage narratives are seen as a means of claiming the consolidating state’s cultural sovereignty, and as indicators of an ambivalent public affect towards the Ottoman past and official institutions. The paper thus elucidates understudied aspects of making the Ottoman heritage in the light of structural geopolitical rearrangements in the Eastern Mediterranean.

РЕЛІГІЙНІ ОБРАЗИ У ВІЗУАЛЬНОМУ ПОЛІ ВІЙНИ: НОВІ РЕФЕРЕНЦІЇ ДО ТРАДИЦІЇ

The paper looks at the works of modern Ukrainian graphics (both printed and digital), which dealt with the events of the war in Ukraine from 2022 onwards. It focuses on the artworks, which use Christian symbolism and iconography and looks at how these symbols were reinterpreted in the context of modern visual culture and the current expectations of Ukrainian society. The study is structured around the categories of cultural memory and representation, in particular the visual and narrative strategies when dealing with the wartime events. It, too, is informed by approaches of visual studies, developed in the works of W.T.J. Mitchell, D. Freedberg, and T. Wright, which helped to determine the primary message of the artworks, secondary elements, and to treat them as a very specific visual message. To systematise the graphic material collected after the full scale invasion 2022, a topical approach was chosen, which means that the focus was not on the chronology of the war, but on the crucial categories in the subject matter of the religious imagery: images of the Mother of God, holy warriors, motifs of the Passions, martyrology, etc. The artworks in question demonstrated a shift from conventional patterns of religious iconography to updated ones. For example, the theme of Christ’s Passion and the tools for torture was altered to become an image of Ukraine's suffering in the course of history with all the struggles and losses of political independence and constant resistance through these centuries. Obviously, the photos and videos from the war omnipresent in the mass and social media became an important visual basis for most graphic works. The article reveals the process of transforming the local war narrative into a universal one, by virtue of the mental imagery fixed in the Ukrainian public consciousness. Analysing the graphic artists’ responses and their use Christian imagery demonstrated how the war stimulated the creation of a new mythology, a new pantheon of heroes, designed to motivate, resist and , ultimately, lead to victory. The images of Christian saints, whose iconography was reinterpreted in several graphic works, gained particular importance for forming this new mythology.

Pozharskii's Grave and the Search for the Russian Nation in the Nineteenth Century

Prince D.M. Pozharskii, who together with Kuz΄ma Minin helped to end the Time of Troubles in 1612-13, has been the focus of commemoration for centuries and has come to symbolize the defense of the Russian nation. This article focuses on three moments of his commemoration in the nineteenth century: the classical Pozharskii, as seen in the monument on Red Square, the nationalist Pozharskii, which reimagined him almost as a saint of the nation, and the regionalist Pozharskii, which presented him as a heroic forerunner of the zemstvo and the self-directed action of the Russian people. Using a wide variety of sources, the article shows how Pozharskii's grave and its commemoration were the focus of contention over what the Russian nation was and ought to be: composed of loyal and unquestioning subjects of the tsars, saint-like warriors, or a people that was self-governing at the local level. It also argues for the importance of including local narratives and sources in the historical narrative, as this was where the demand for self-government was most clearly made. Dead bodies can spark lively discussions, and when the body is Pozharskii's, the stakes can be as high as the meaning of the Russian nation itself.

In the Name of Conservation

This thesis investigates the introduction, adaption, and implementation of the modern concept of heritage conservation in modern China after the opening of its treaty ports. Through an analysis of the different layers of disseminating and receiving knowledge in transnational exchanges, it explicitly points out the divergence between the Eurocentric concept of conservation and the Chinese tradition of treating historic buildings and sites. As a result of the complexity of understanding and adapting an imported idea, the heritage discourse in China is characterised by its own ambiguity. Conservation of modern heritage, in particular those built under colonial power, has seen conflicts of perceptions between conservation planning and interest-led practice. A progressive legislative framework for heritage conservation has had a limited binding effect on stakeholders’ actions to protect listed immovable built cultural heritage sites from artificial damage in China’s contemporary urban practices. By analysing various actors’ interpretations and expressions of the concept of “conservation” (known as “保护” in Chinese) derived from different temporalities, it explores the causes and effects of heritage strategies and approaches created by individuals, groups, and the state apparatus. Theoretically, it challenges the local acceptability of classic conservation principles that are primarily based on European thoughts and cultural background. Practically, it provides adequate clues for a multi-faceted consideration of listed heritage sites in future development. It highlights the significance of creating a powerful local narrative under the authoritative heritage discourse at a crossroads of ongoing globalisation and growing nationalism.

Whose Knowledge Counts? A Reflection on the Field Narratives of Indigenous Health Knowledge and Practices

Today's world is increasingly recognizing the value of indigenous knowledge and expressing concern over its erosion. The protection of indigenous knowledge has been a global policy priority. This paper draws from a qualitative study conducted in a village setting in South-West Nepal and aims to reflect on the local narratives of the erosion of indigenous health knowledge and practices (IHKPs). Data were collected from healers, patients, and key informants using interview and observation methods and analyzed thematically. The findings are organized in five broad themes: (i) The context of socio-economic change, (ii) Existing health knowledge and practices, (iii) A decline in herbal literacy and home remedy, (iv) Market influence, increased healthcare options, and the shrinking role of traditional healers, and (v) Value perceptions of indigenous knowledge. Though IHKPs remain an inseparable part of community life, the field narratives strongly indicate a decline in home and community-based health practices and an intergenerational loss of herbal knowledge. Taking insight from the critical medical anthropological perspective, this paper discusses the micro-experience and macro-influence and argues for recognizing the health knowledge of indigenous communities. The recognition of knowledge should be a political and policy decision in protecting and promoting IHKPs.

‘No Human Skeletons, No Shackles’: Revisiting Local Interpretations of Mtumbei Kitambi Site in Matumbi Hills, Southern Tanzania

Mtumbei Kitambi site in Matumbi Hills, southern Tanzania, has generated contradictory interpretations among the locals. Its famous alternate name, Kwa Akida Mwidau, literally means a settlement of Akida Mwidau in Swahili language. Yet, much more mystery is attached to the place than the name suggests. The local people hold that it was a place where troublesome Africans were hanged to death during the nineteenth-century colonial incursions. Some reported seeing human skeletal remains, chains and shackles at the site. In the present, the locals avoid conducting any activity at the site to for fear of disturbing human remains. Using historical archaeology, this article examines the local narratives to disentangle myths from the historical reality of the site. It scrutinises both oral accounts and nineteenth-century European documents against on-site material evidence to determine the historical facts. The article concludes by establishing that the bones interpreted by the local people as human skeletal remains are, in fact, donkey bones and metal objects—the latter hitherto mistaken for chains and shackles.

A Mordovian settlement as a site and community of historical memory: collective narratives and representations

Introduction. The article summarizes the results of a study of social practices and narratives of the commemoration of the victims of mass political repression in the village of Kruglyi (the Republic of Mordovia) that was established as a permanent settlement in the period of collectivization. Materials and Methods. The theoretical framework of the study consists of social theories of “memory sites” and collective trauma. The method of collecting empirical data corresponded to case study, including observation, in-depth interviews and discourse analysis of media publications. The data were analyzed using the methods of thick ethnographic description and narrative discourse analysis. Results and Discussion. The article reviews the social context of local commemoration; identifies the main stages and practices of creating a “place of memory” in the village of Kruglyi by constructing a self-made monument of stained oak with a memorial plaque, and its subsequent mediatization. The authors analyze local discourses and narratives of social memory and material aspects of commemoration; regional, identify national and international mnemonic actors, acting as agents of the process of cultural trauma. They reveal and interpret the content of competing narratives of victimization and devictimization of the local community. Conclusion. Based on the data obtained in the course of fieldwork, the authors deconstruct media of the history of the village and identify two different models of its description. They conclude that these models are conditioned by various models of commemorating social trauma: one is “therapeutic”, focused more on deprivation and the loss of group identity; another one is “macrohistoric”, or in other words based on interpreting trauma as an aspect of social transformation seen as a process containing prerequisites for working the trauma out.

Samara the fantastic

The article discusses three novels, where events take place in Samara (Kuibyshev). These are "Metro-2033: Bezymyanka [Underground-2033: Bezymyanka] (2010) by Sergey Paliy, "Bezymyanlag" (2016) by Andrey Olekh and "Pischeblock [Food Unit] (2018) by Alexey Ivanov. The work reveals the reasons for this localization of events that is identical for all the authors. In all the three cases, the location plays an important narrative role, which is explained in the article by both the authors' hope to get the Samara readers sympathetic attention, and the need to have specific recognizable details that is characteristic of mass literature, which give force to generally sketchy narration. Urban history facts, geographical marks, well-known loci local mythological narratives associated with them play the role of such details. The Samara portrait is constructed taking into account the tradition of depicting provincial existence as an alternative to metropolitan life, developed in the literature of the XIX century. The province could be idealized as a world of harmony, lost by the city, or ridiculed as a centre of savagery and backwardness. But these novels show Samara, surprisingly combining both the terror of urban life and the salutariness of suburbs. The heroes are tasked to escape to move from urban space to country one, facing unbelievable difficulties. Samara is a convenient locus for genre works: this city is not tagged with the characteristics firmly fixed in the mass consciousness, so anything can happen there. Such Samara absorbs all the worst and all the best that can be told about any city. The sharp polarization of its features enables to create a semantic field where events take place in a very way - that increases the dynamics of the described actions and makes them especially impressive in the readers eyes.

The Invention of the Maghreb: Between Africa and the Middle East

The Invention of the Maghreb: Between Africa and the Middle East

Systematic Review of Narrative Therapy Publications in Hong Kong

Purpose: This article reviews narrative therapy (NT) publications specific to Hong Kong over a period of 20 years. Methods: Three search strategies are adopted: using the Hong Kong Baptist University OneSearch database and Google Books index, and sending soliciting emails to local scholars and practitioners. Four research questions are asked: (a) how many related publications? (b) who are the targets? (c) who are the authors? (d) what is the type of publication? Results: In total, there are 127 publications identified. The first NT publication is dated 1996. The most common target group is “People with Problem” (48.8%). Most authors are academics (78.7%). The publications are mostly Journal Articles (68.5%). Conclusions: Co-construction between academics and practitioners, co-researching as the landscape for co-constructing an NT community, and finally, the co-deconstruction process of local narratives are recommended as future tasks for Hong Kong related NT publications.

Workers, Neighbours, or Something Else? Local Policies and Policy Narratives of Technical Intern Training Program Participants

Abstract Local governments at the prefectural and municipal levels across Japan have begun to allocate discretionary public funds to educate employers about the recruitment process for foreign Technical Training Internship Program (TITP) workers and subsidize the paperwork fees associated with it. This article investigates this phenomenon by drawing upon data collected from correspondence with municipal officials and analysis of policy documents, as well as a broader mailed survey of municipal governments conducted in 2019–2020. This article introduces two broad types of local-level policies towards TITP employers and workers, employment-supporting and social-supporting policies. Using a policy narrative framework, the article moves on to discuss how local governments position their policies to supplement the TITP migration regime. The language used reveals competing, sometimes seemingly contradictory, narratives of who TITP workers are and what they offer to local communities across Japan. These narratives are reflected in the different approaches to local policymaking regarding the TITP, from subsidizing local employers to creating cultural spaces and resources for TITP workers.

Industrial forever? Narratives, place identity, and the development path of the city of Zeitz, Germany

Abstract There is a growing interest in understanding development processes and opportunities in small and medium-sized towns that so far did not attract much attention in mainstream urban theory. Conventional growth-oriented approaches fail to capture the complexity of local development and policy-making processes because they prioritise production factors and underrate the role of discourse and place-based identity. This paper aims to explore the linkages between narratives, place identity, and local development. As local actors try to make sense of a place’s past and future, they select, contribute to, and mobilise various local narratives. Multiple narratives feed into and are part of a place’s identity that defines a frame for possible development options. The paper uses the case of Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) to analyse the evolution of local development narratives from the 1970s until today. The paper concludes that: i) narrative-making is not a linear process; narratives, spatial imaginaries and local identity are complex, dynamic, and interconnected with each other; ii) local narratives help to construct a coherent imaginary of a place and are mutually intertwined with local development and policies; and iii) local narratives are interdependent with external events and strategies requiring a multiscalar relational perspective on local development processes.

Narrative curation and stewardship in contested marketspaces.

We identify value narratives as stories that promote certain product or service attributes as benefits within the marketplace. We show how value narratives reflect benefit attributes that align with alternative versus mainstream market settings. Our empirical focus is local food value narratives within a common local food system with alternative settings being farmers' markets and mainstream settings being supermarkets. Farmers' market and supermarket purveyors choose which benefit characteristics to emphasize throughout narrative curation, enabling us to witness strategic narrative use, or what we term narrative stewardship. We find that multiple value narratives express an array of 'local food' benefits in ways that create a contested marketplace. Narrative deployment at farmers' markets is guided by an amalgam of institutional perspectives, while narrative use at supermarkets is dominated by a market institutional perspective. We identify a continuum of value narrative stewardship (promotion-neglect) within farmers' markets that leaves the meaning and value of 'local food' vulnerable to mainstream market appropriation via narrative voidance, dilution, and replacement. We propose strategies for better value narrative stewardship.