Narrative Conflict Research Articles

What distinguishes conspiracy from critical narratives? A computational analysis of oppositional discourse

AbstractThe current prevalence of conspiracy theories on the internet is a significant issue, tackled by many computational approaches. However, these approaches fail to recognize the relevance of distinguishing between texts which contain a conspiracy theory and texts which are simply critical and oppose mainstream narratives. Furthermore, little attention is usually paid to the role of inter‐group conflict in oppositional narratives. We contribute by proposing a novel topic‐agnostic annotation scheme that differentiates between conspiracies and critical texts, and that defines span‐level categories of inter‐group conflict. We also contribute with the multilingual XAI‐DisInfodemics corpus (English and Spanish), which contains a high‐quality annotation of Telegram messages related to COVID‐19 (5000 messages per language). We also demonstrate the feasibility of an NLP‐based automatization by performing a range of experiments that yield strong baseline solutions. Finally, we perform an analysis which demonstrates that the promotion of intergroup conflict and the presence of violence and anger are key aspects to distinguish between the two types of oppositional narratives, that is, conspiracy versus critical.

East or West? Conflict of (hostile) narratives in Petersburg by Andrei Bely

In this article, Andrei Bely’s novel Petersburg is analyzed in terms of the clash of two hostile narratives – Eastern and Western – that have shaped Russian statehood from the rule of Tsar Peter I. The presence of solutions associated with the West, in the history of Russia, as well as in the social and political system of the Russian state, is considered to be the result of a kind of self-colonization and internal colonization. The author of the article, drawing on terminology developed in post-colonial research, highlights the tensions existing within Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century, which translate into internal divisions in the main characters of the work, in particular the senator Apollon Ableukhov and his son Nikolay. Although they both appear to belong to Western civilization and culture, they in fact pave the way for the victory of a chaos of Eastern provenance, which culminates in the Russian revolutions of the early 20th century.

Anthropology in times of escalating conflicts

Escalating conflicts often lead to the proliferation of oversimplified narratives and intense pressure to conform to them. Anthropology can play a crucial role in such situations by (1) analysing the origins and mechanisms of enforcement of these narratives across various contexts, providing a more nuanced understanding of the conflict's dynamics; (2) challenging dominant framings of specific aspects of the conflict by producing contextualized knowledge, thereby offering alternative perspectives and insights; and (3) highlighting narratives that acknowledge the responsibility of the involved actors and explore new possibilities for political co‐existence. To illustrate these points, this guest editorial applies narrative conflict theory to the violence between Israelis and Palestinians since 7 October 2023 and invites readers to reflect on the discipline's responsibilities and methods in the face of the normalization of war and annihilation.

The Civil War (1918-1922) in the historical politics of Russian political parties.

In the Soviet Union, the history of the Civil War was one of the important parts of the historical "myth", which ceased to exist shortly before the collapse of the country. Although three decades have passed since the collapse of the USSR, there has not been a unified attitude in society towards this conflict. The article presents a study of the collective memory of the Civil War in Russia based on the narratives of political parties. Modern parties, as part of the formation of their historical policy, offered their own vision of the events of the Civil War. The author of the article analyzes the attitude of parties to the parties to the conflict and personalities, highlights the key features of the image of the past formed by them. The main sources were official documents of the parties, election programs, speeches and publications of party leaders, books, materials of official websites. The results of the study are based on the use of general scientific methods and principles of scientific cognition, comparative analysis, and a systematic approach. The main conclusion of the study is the lack of a unified approach among modern political parties in assessing the events of the Civil War. Liberal and conservative-patriotic parties blamed the beginning of the conflict on the "Reds", the Communist Party – on the anti-Bolshevik camp, the rest expressed the opinion that all parties to the conflict were to blame. The parties also assessed the degree of foreign influence differently – communist and patriotic associations believe that the conflict has escalated into a large-scale war due to the intervention of the Entente countries. In modern political discussion, appeals to personalities are rare: parties resort to generalizations "Bolsheviks", "whites" and similar synonyms, the parties to the conflict in party narratives, as a rule, are faceless. From the personalities of the Civil War, they often turned to the figures of V. I. Lenin and A.V. Kolchak, evaluating them depending on their political preferences. The only conclusion common to all political parties was the unacceptability of a repeat of civil conflicts in Russia, in their opinion, the country should develop, avoiding such shocks.

Другие способы обращаться с насилием: инструменты нарративной терапии и гонительские репрезентации

The article explores the concept of a non-essentialist view on violence related to therapeutic and social work, as well as community self-organization practices. According to the authors, the Girardian perspective on relevant ways of dealing with violence ethically and methodologically aligns with the principles of narrative therapy. The article examines such narrative concepts as deconstruction, externalization, and narrative metaphor, in relation to the concepts of scapegoat and persecution representations. The article demonstrates the tools that narrative therapy employs while working with individuals involved in violence, survivors of violence, and the community that has witnessed such incidents. It explores such ethically aligned concepts and methods as restorative justice, restorative circles, and the VASCA model that could be effectively applied to this work. Additionally, it examines the allies narrative practice could find in related approaches. The article investigates the current initiatives undertaken by communities and projects aiming to progress in this direction. Furthermore, it explores how René Girard’s ideas could complement the narrative toolkit and explains why establishing a dialogue between Girardian theory and narrative practice holds importance for us, both in terms of theory and practice. Illustrating a practical implementation, the authors of the article present the readers with insights and conclusions drawn from a reflective group’s engagement in a series of narrative conflict mediations and therapeutic interventions with individuals responsible for violence and survivors.

Objects on the memory borders: between Tilsit and Sovetsk

Sovetsk, a city in the Kaliningrad region of Russia, is the typical case of a complex interaction of locals with a “foreign” past. The dwellers of the city are living within the environment of material heritage that remained after the total change of population in World War II (including everyday objects, architecture and landscape) and are building their identity through them. Drawing on the approaches of border studies and memory studies, we show how regions of memory of pre-war Tilsit and post-war Sovetsk interact and conflict in vernacular narratives of city dwellers, and how the latter move between those regions in the course of manipulating evocative objects in daily and business practices. The article is a part of the RANEPA state assignment research program.

Mediatorship: Exploring transformational conflict narratives that elicit generative processes through interconnected continuums that cultivate conflict wisdom

AbstractNarrative inquiry, narrative conflict resolution, and auto/duoethnography can be seen as sources of agency, fostering emancipatory processes. Autoethnography is a method that can elicit constructive social change by cultivating narrative coherency. These generative methods and practices have the ability to enkindle a cultural shift. We need new stories to initiate transformational processes, resetting individual life trajectories and humanities' course. Writing Homing In: An Adopted Child's Story Mandala of Connecting, Reunion, and Belonging, provided an autoethnographic exploration that encompassed notions of the good life in an autoethnographic process akin to spiritual journey. This adoption and reunion story gave rise to concepts and transformational learning pedagogies that can be used to engender resolution processes that can be understood as “lines of flight” or flyways. The homing in mechanism that was found in cases of adopted children that were able to find their birth parents, is shown to work as a compass, guiding individual life trajectories. Auto/duoethnography are methods that elicit relational transformation while contributing to the development of conflict wisdom. Transformagram Portfolios incorporating these approaches were designed to teach courses within the Cultural and Social Department at Creighton University. Writing conflict and illness narratives elevated personal questing to art form by using future forming research methods to beautify story mandalas. Auto/duoethnography can be developed as an effective conflict resolution tool in response to current “glocal” challenges. Transformational pedagogies have facetted a holistic lens by creating reflexive space. In this context, mediatorship is a vessel of exploration that transports conflict resolution practices, while orienting experiential learning that interconnects the inner and outer journey. Transformagram Portfolios use auto/duoethnography to nurture narrative coherency, living wisdom, and generativity by scaffolding learning processes that provide an innovative pedagogical instrument for conflict resolution.

The Sound of Good and Evil in Final Fantasy VII

Since its release in 1997, Square’s Final Fantasy VII has captivated audiences with its science fiction plot and rich characters. Like many video games, it presents a story about the forces of good and evil, played out through the protagonists and antagonists of the game. Throughout the story, musical character themes reinforce and enhance the struggle between good and evil taking place in the narrative. Drawing on Peter Brian Barry’s theory of evil known as the mirror thesis, this article views the character themes associated with Aerith and Sephiroth as representative of the moral extremes of good and evil, respectively. After framing the narrative and characters through the lens of the mirror thesis, I perform a close reading of Sephiroth and Aerith’s musical themes and backstories. The analysis demonstrates how Sephiroth represents the moral extreme of evil personhood, while Aerith represents the extreme of moral sainthood. The article concludes with a discussion of how these musical themes occur in relation to each other during significant moments of narrative conflict, particularly during Aerith’s death scene and the final cinematics of the game.

The formation system of film and television language based on drama conflict and misplacement

Dislocation conflict is an extremely important way and technique of expression in drama art through the construction of differentiated dislocation of personal image, social identity and emotional cognition. It intensifies the contradiction between the relationship between the characters and the narrative conflict of the drama, creates the dramatic tension, and further produces the abrupt beauty, all of which contribute to the generation of dramatic discourse. After vivid representations of dislocation and dramatic conflict, absurd stories often develop. These absurd narratives are motivated not by idealism that seems to float in the air, but by a desire to deconstruct realism and to stop talking about real life. Along with the cycle of "creating misunderstandings - solving misunderstandings", film and television language also forms a system in the process of inducing humor and penetrating reality.

The basics of Hadith criticism of Allameh Askari in historical narratives and biography

"Allameh Askari" is one of the prominent hadith scholars. Many works of criticism of historical narratives and his biography show attention to four types of bases. verbal basics; "The authority of the Qur'an and the Sunnah with the priority of the Qur'an, the infallibility of the Prophet and the imams, , , the divine covenant of all the prophets on the approval of the last prophet, the effect of the course Historical sectarian deviations in the distortion are "historical foundations"; "the validity of historical certainties in criticism, the need to pay attention to the cultural, economic and social data of the date of issue". scientific foundations; "The need to pay attention to the sciences of exegesis, rijal and darayya, to check the lack of narrative conflict. linguistic basics; "The necessity of paying attention to lexical and idiomatic meanings in understanding the speaker's meaning, the effectiveness of rhetorical discussions", are the support of cleaning up historical hadiths and traditions.

ПРОТЕСТЫ МАЯ 1968 ГОДА ВО ФРАНЦИИ ГЛАЗАМИ ЗАРУБЕЖНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЕЙ: КОНФЛИКТ НАРРАТИВОВ

The events of May 1968 in France are controversial both in public discussions and in the scientific literature. The article analyzes key publications in foreign literature devoted to the analysis of the conflict of narratives about the May protests in order to systematize the idea of a “conflict of memory”. The article demonstrates that already in 1968 one can see the lack of a common perception of the protests and the narratives about the May events differed significantly. The author analyzes key publications that investigate different sides of the problem of “narrative conflict”. The analysis of the works of R. Aron, K. Reeder, K. Ross, M. Seidman and K. Reynolds concludes that the publications problematize two dimensions of the conflict: the inconsistency of memory with reality and the contradiction between different memories of May. The author concludes that it is fundamentally impossible to find a consensus on the May events not only in public discourse, but also in the scientific literature.

Gay shorts, bisexual features: Pat Rocco’s transition to feature-length bisexual narratives

ABSTRACT Gay activist-filmmaker Pat Rocco’s feature filmography begins and ends with bisexual films. Rocco’s utopian vision of male homosexuality prevented longer exclusively gay narratives from organically emerging out of his short vignettes of same-gender affection largely lacking narrative conflict. Bisexuality became the medium for creating gay feature-length narrative films because it provided a subculturally specific conflict located within gay cultural contexts. This article unearths the thick contextual history out of which Rocco’s bisexual features, Someone (1968) and Drifter (1975), emerged. Ultimately, grassroots gay narrative cinema was, from the get-go, bisexual cinema.

Narrative Conflict and Implied Value Conflict: An Analysis of Aspects of the Implied Worldview of Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon (2002) and Hanif Kureishi’s The Body (2002)

Abstract This essay examines the narrative conflicts in the cyberpunk novel Altered Carbon and the neo-gothic novella The Body. The theoretical assumption of the analyses is that narrative conflict can serve as an indicator of aspects of a text’s implied worldview: more specifically, narrative conflict is presumed to be indicative of an implied value conflict. Resorting to a spatial conflict model based on Jurij Lotman’s concept of border crossing, the essay argues that both texts differ substantially regarding the values they negotiate despite both deploying the transhumanist concept of body swapping. Whereas Altered Carbon places a socio-economic conflict at its core, The Body negotiates a metaphysical conflict. Accordingly, Altered Carbon discusses the construction of self-worth in view of an economically and socially overpowering opponent, whereas The Body emerges as a search for a value which can fill the void created by the dwindling relevance of religious notions of eternity in a secular world.

Evaluation of Existing Indexes of Sustainable Well-Being and Propositions for Improvement

The relationship between sustainability and well-being is inconclusive in the literature, with some studies showing consonance while others show dissonance. On top of differences of scale (micro or macro) and of methods, part of this conflict in narratives is due to differences in measurement. In this paper I evaluate the quality of existing indexes linking both concepts at a macro level (Happy Planet Index (first generation and second generation), Sustainable Development Goals Index, Human Sustainable Development Index, Sustainable Development Index, Gaucher’s index). Recognizing the limits of all of them and acknowledging that the current landscape of measures is over-oriented towards cognitive measures on the well-being side and ecological footprint-oriented on the environmental side, I propose some alternatives to complete the current measures and I discuss possible implications.

Storytelling in Review Articles: Exemplars and Guidelines

Review papers are some of the most challenging, but also some of the most impactful and highly cited types of papers published in academic and practitioner-oriented outlets. Despite the popularity of such papers, guidance on how to execute an impactful, rigorous review is scattered across different outlets due to the variety of review types that can be conducted. We sought to provide a methodological process (i.e., a six-step flowchart) for writing reviews that have a critical impact on the advancement of the field. First, we highlight the need to align the choice of review type and the review’s purpose to maximize the theoretical, practical, or methodological contribution of the work. We discuss how a good review is very much like a good story and thus should employ the same elements to present a compelling review story (narrative conflict, characters, setting, plot, sequence, and narrative arc). Second, we identify several important methodological issues that authors must take into consideration when executing their review. Together, these contributions provide a methodological process for the development of rigorous and impactful reviews.

Experience and Its Discontents

Experience and Its Discontents

Modeling Conflict: Representations of Social Groups in Present-Day Dutch Literature

This essay responds to a lack of scholarly attention for conflict as a narrative mechanism since the formalist models of Vladimir Propp and Algirdas Julien Greimas. Building on recent developments within cultural analytics, the essay argues for a new understanding of narrative conflict by integrating classic narratological models with data-driven, statistical methods. It does so by (a) proposing two computational models of conflict based on theoretical insights from narratology, conflict studies, and network theory, (b) applying those models to a sample corpus of 170 present-day Dutch novels, and (c) briefly illustrating the narratological value of the results by interpreting the representation of social groups in two novels from the corpus – Bart Koubaa’s De Brooklynclub (2012) and Leon de Winter’s VSV (2012) – in light of the statistical patterns found for the corpus as a whole. The analyses of dyadic (two characters) and triadic (three characters) conflict leads to two central conclusions: 1) lower educated characters are more dominant in dyadic conflicts and 2) the majority of triadic conflicts exist in a state of social balance.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the intersection of social narratives: conflict of interpretations

The article explores the semantic potential of social narratives associated with the creation and constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which caused a interpretations conflict, marked by conflicting interpretations and differences in meanings that are applied in different contexts. The narrative arranges events in a certain time sequence, accumulates and translates meanings, individual and social experience. The presence of meanings in the interpretation of the narrative depends on the perspective, interpretation horizons and the subject's ability to analyze information and its correct application. The social narrative accumulates a set of stories and messages that are fragmentary and disordered, constructs a coherent plot aimed at finding and defining meanings, and forming social discourse. Social narratives materialized in social structures, orientations, expectations, and stereotypes of their bearers due to everyday modification in the form of simple images, attitudes, and principles. Since each social narrative claims to be exclusive and correct in its own way of understanding events, a clash of narratives and their interpretations is inevitable. A large-scale event determines the modification of social structures, standards, and evaluation criteria, is accompanied by the transformation of everyday life, reveals deep mental layers, and opens up new perspectives. The extraordinary event that was marked by the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is accompanied by diametrically opposite assessments from the clergy, believers, politicians, experts – from the statement about autocephaly as the only opportunity to achieve unity and recognition of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to the political subtext justification of the new religious organization creation. Church circles represented by representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate claim that the state interferes in the internal Affairs of the Church. The Constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine takes place in the context of the confrontation of two social narratives – the «ukrainian world» and the «russian world». The social narrative «ukrainian world» is based on values rooted in the national soil, but the social narrative «russian world» denies the existence of the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state. Under the patronage of the Russian Orthodox Church, the expression of the ideas of the «russian world» is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which enshrines in the minds of believers ideologies about «the common origin of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples», «the common baptismal font», «the unity of the historical space of Holy Rus», «the identity of the East Slavic Orthodox civilization». The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate did not support the decision of patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Metropolitan Onufriy did not give his blessing to the hierarchs to participate in the Unification Council, which is called «a non-canonical assembly of schismatic groups». The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, according to its primate, has de facto autocephaly, so it is the only canonical local Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In the face of the conflict of public narratives, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, along with meeting the spiritual needs of believers, contributes to the formation of national identity, the formation of a worldview matrix that will determine the vision of the future development of the country.

JESUS AND HIS ENEMIES: NARRATIVE CONFLICT IN THE FOUR GOSPELS. By Robert R.Beck. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2017. Pp. v + 237. Paper, $35.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 46, Issue 1 p. 88-89 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: Christian Origins JESUS AND HIS ENEMIES: NARRATIVE CONFLICT IN THE FOUR GOSPELS. By Beck, Robert R.. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2017. Pp. v + 237. Paper, $35.00. First published: 25 April 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.14440Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume46, Issue1March 2020Pages 88-89 RelatedInformation

Models of Integration of Ukrainian Migrants in Poland in the Context of the Conflict of Historical Narratives

The paper studies the integration models used by Ukrainian migrants living in Poland and the resulting problems associated with the rivalry between historical narratives of the Ukrainians and the host community. The author’s work is based on the concept of cultural memory (Maurice Halbwachs, Aleida Assman) and the idea of the dynamic character of images of the past (Jeffrey K. Olik). The data for the study was collected during 30 in-depth interviews with the Ukrainian migrants and also from social networks, forums and open Internet resources. The study has revealed that the majority of the Ukrainian migrants seek to avoid the rivalry between historical narratives, arguing that they personally are not involved in it and events of the past are no longer actual in modern life. Close contacts with representatives of the host community contribute to the assimilation of the Ukrainians. Only a few of the interviewed respondents choose the Ukrainian historical narrative, however they are not going to throw their lot in with Poland. The paper also thoroughly discussed the factors contributing to the choice of one or another position