Narrative Episodes Research Articles

Paleoindian, East Asian and Siberian components of the Eskimo oral traditions

The possibility to use analytical units extracted from traditional narratives for the study of prehistoric migrations and contacts follows from the works of Franz Boas published bet­ween 1895 and 1915. In the 1920s, the priorities of American anthropology changed, so the folklore studies missed the opportunity to become a tool of historic research. Here we try to advance a project abandoned a hundred years ago. Our database consists of more than 80,000 abstracts of texts from all over the world and helps to determine the approximate time of spread of narrative episodes and mythological ideas. The study analyzes the parallels between the narrative motives of the Eskimo and motives collected outside of the Arctic. Since the Paleo-Eskimo are associated with the Denbigh flint complex, which appeared in Alaska about 3000 BC and, which is usually believed to descend from the Eas­tern Siberian Belkachi culture, it can be assumed that Siberian links must prevail in the narratives of the Eskimo. Instead, parallels for those episodes and images that typical for the Arctic are found mostly in South America. Apparently, these motives appeared in the New World during its initial peopling around 15,000 cal. BC. The narrative analogies between the Arctic and the East Asia are less numerous and some of them are also found in South American traditions. The American parallels in Siberia are widespread among the Indians but not among the Eskimo. To date, only one episode of Eskimo tales with definite Siberian roots, namely “The Blind Hunter”, has been identified. Though possibly related to the Belkachi tradition, this motif is also typical for the Indians of the North American Northwest, one case recorded in South America. The Eskimo version is slightly different from the main one. It probably split from it in Alaska and was brought to Canada and Greenland by the Paleo-Eskimo or by the Inuit. The Eskimo oral traditions emerged in Alaska and in major part go back not to the Siberian language ancestors of the Eskimo and Aleuts but to the local substratum.

What makes proactive behaviors at work effective? Perspectives of health care executives.

Proactive behaviors at work refer to behaviors that are self-starting, future focused, and change oriented. Proactive behaviors are generally thought of as positive and desired and can benefit both the employee (e.g., job promotion) and organization (e.g., innovation). These behaviors can, however, backfire (e.g., due to unintended consequences), reflecting the "initiative paradox." The aim of this study was to investigate, through the perspectives of health care executives, how employees can be more effective when engaging in proactive behaviors. We used the episodic narrative interview method. Health care executives narrated instances of perceived effective and ineffective proactive behaviors among employees. We then performed an inductive qualitative analysis of these episodes to identify emerging themes and dimensions. The effectiveness of proactive behaviors among health care employees is shaped by three dimensions: managerial expectation (in)congruence (e.g., knowledge of expectations, engagement with chain of command), organizational priority (in)congruence (e.g., degree of alignment between individual and organizational benefits), and boundaries of action and change (e.g., nonadherence to regulatory or financial conditions). Among the dimensions, managerial expectations may be the most challenging for employees to navigate. Engaging in proactive behaviors is not a straightforward process. Navigating multiple dimensions is necessary for health care employees to be effective. Employees should be equipped with knowledge on relevant expectations, priorities, and boundaries when engaging in proactive behaviors at work. Health care leaders and managers should aim to clarify and periodically reassess these dimensions to facilitate effective proactive behaviors and to generate benefits for employees and the organization.

Exploring the GP-patient relationship: a historical narration

The relationship between patients and their doctor is a fundamental concept—particularly within general practice. Many patients and general practitioners (GPs) have a ‘common-sense’ recognition of the interpersonal connection, usually over...

Expected Versus Experienced Liveability for Amenity Migrants in Cairns, Australia: The Grass is not Always Greener in the Tropics

ABSTRACT This study explores Australian amenity migrants' experiences in Cairns, comparing expectations of a tropical paradise with lived realities. Using episodic narrative interviews and Importance-Performance Analysis of liveability indicators, it uncovers discrepancies between idealised imaginaries and actual experiences. Key concerns include housing, safety, jobs, living costs, and challenges in building community connections. The findings highlight the gap between the tropical paradise image attracting migrants and liveability challenges of a regional city. This mixed-methods approach offers a transferable tool for examining expectation-experience gaps in amenity destinations, providing insights for policymakers to address liveability issues and build communities that meet diverse residents' aspirations.

‘Where are you from?’ The affective and emotional dimensions of an ambiguous event of everyday racism

This article discusses the various affective and emotional dimensions of how racialised individuals understand and cope with the ambiguous question of ‘Where are you (really) from?’ Theoretically, the article argues that people do not necessarily ‘comprehend’ racism but sense it, and that it is through affects and being affected that they understand the nature of an encounter. Empirically, the article is based on 21 in-depth interviews conducted with Black Germans, and it analyses respondents’ reflections on and ‘emotion memories’ of being asked the question of ‘Where are you from?’ Only a few respondents said that they had consciously decided to always regard the question as ‘normal’ and thus to ‘switch off their sensitivity’. Overall, when asked this question, interviewees relied on ‘affective thinking-feeling’ to determine whether there was racism to be sensed. By analysing respondents’ narratives of particular episodes in which they were asked the question, the article proposes that a specific assemblage and affective intensities are the main conditions for immediately sensing racism in and through the question. In addition, the article discusses interviewees’ range of response options and why and when respondents may engage in ‘emotion work’ when responding to the question. The article concludes by highlighting different types of emotions associated with sensing racism through the question, particularly the emotions of unease, discomfort, and disappointment that can lead to feelings of non-belonging.

Innovation in leadership education: inquiry-based pedagogy

PurposeThe purpose of our research is to better understand inquiry-based pedagogy in the context of leadership education. Specifically, we sought to learn about how leadership learning is characterized in an immersive inquiry course, and how inquiry-based pedagogy is experienced by students engaged in interdisciplinary leadership learning.Design/methodology/approachWe used a case study approach as an overarching methodology. The research methods employed to collect data were World Cafe and episodic narrative interview. Further, we used collocation analysis and systematic text condensation as analytical strategies to interpret data.FindingsOur findings led us to four primary conclusions: (1) inquiry-based learning helps to foster an inquiry mindset amongst leadership education students; (2) the challenges and tensions associated with inquiry-based learning are worth the learning gains for leadership students; (3) the opportunity to learn in relationship is beneficial for leadership development outcomes and (4) students’ experiences of inquiry-based learning in leadership education often included instances of transformation.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations of the research were: (1) it is a case study situated within a unique, particular social and educational context; (2) demographic data were not collected from participants, so results cannot be disaggregated based on particular demographic markers and (3) the small sample size involved in the study makes it impossible to generalize across a broad population.Practical implicationsThis research has enabled a deep understanding of structural and relational supports that can enable effective inquiry-based learning in leadership education. It also offers evidence to support institutional shifts to inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education.Social implicationsOur research demonstrates that use of inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education has long-lasting positive effects on students' capacity for applied leadership practice. Consequently, participants in this type of leadership learning are better positioned to effectively lead social change that is pressing in our current global context.Originality/valueThere is scant (if any) published research that has focused on using inquiry-based pedagogies in leadership education. This research makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of leadership education.

Development of online teaching expertise in fragile and conflict-affected contexts

What we know about the development of online teaching expertise during the COVID-19 pandemic is scarce. Current research has concentrated primarily on the obstacles encountered by university teachers, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of the strategies they employ not only to survive but to flourish in online teaching. Furthermore, there is a significant bias toward Western perspectives in existing research and it remains unclear whether Western theories of expertise development are relevant in deprived, fragile, and conflict-affected contexts. The current study set out to explore how university teachers developed their online teaching expertise during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Palestinian context. Narrative episode interviews were conducted with 16 university teachers working at a Palestinian higher education institution in Gaza city. Thematic analysis revealed five themes of online teaching expertise development: domain, mechanisms, motives, consequences, and emotions. Implications for practitioners and administrators are discussed together with future research directions.

Social regulation of learning in interdisciplinary groupwork

ABSTRACT Engineering education has seen a growing interest in how students regulate their learning as a group in interdisciplinary projects. This study adds to the current literature on social regulation of learning by conducting a comparative case study of three interdisciplinary group projects addressing real-world challenges. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were synthesised into narrative episodes representing key aspects of the groups’ regulative behaviours. We found indications of co- and socially shared regulation across all groups, with noteworthy differences in the project phases that led to varying student experiences. We discuss key factors that affected regulation along four themes we identified: (1) goal setting and planning, (2) implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, (3) the role of supervisors, and (4) the impact of disciplines. We offer insights for practitioners and provide a foundation for future research on social regulation in interdisciplinary group learning.

Turbulent Ecodramaturgy: The Winds of Pericles

ABSTRACT In encountering Pericles as a written and performed text, we are struck immediately by the intricate currents that wind through the episodic narrative – currents of action and breath-guided dialogue mingling, twining through and above and under and about the fictive breezes of an imagined Mediterranean, as well perhaps as through and around the actual draughts of an open-air venue. We offer our ecodramaturgical reading of the winds of Pericles in the hope that it might likewise suggest the possibilities offered by an awareness of how a play’s aerial currents can affect the liveness of audience experience, the nuances of reception, and the related apprehension of environment – even, or perhaps especially, when it comes to works that are difficult to encounter in performance.

Disability Dates as Microgenre: 1990s Sitcoms and Backlash to the Americans with Disabilities Act

This article performs a historical corrective, documenting representations of disability in popular U.S. television sitcoms of the 1990s. While these shows did not center disability, they often featured strikingly similar episodic narratives involving disability, using the framework of romantic dates with a main character. This article analyzes these episodes as a microgenre, referred to as “disability dates.” This microgenre represents a fleeting subgenre of the sitcom that used similar strategies to represent disability and to reproduce popular discourses that opposed or undermined the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

ПРОСТОРОВІ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКИ ХУДОЖНЬОГО СВІТУ ЗБІРКИ ВАСИЛЯ СТУСА “ВЕСЕЛИЙ ЦВИНТАР”

The article deals in problem with constructing of space of fictional world in texts of collective poems Jolly Cemetery by Vasyl Stus (1971), and some parameters of poetics of the space modeling (imagenary, genre, composition). Radical points of interest to topography of space and local specifics of territories are: total elimination of space markers for creating mythical universal (here and everywhere) and detailed presentation of landscape or interier in some autobiographycal poems. As result of research three types of space modeling are describes. The first model is one-dimensional cosmos of absurd soviet every-day life described in narrative poetry. The second ones proposes two-dimensional world in texts of accumulative composition: physical space of human existence (as variant of it: human body/soul) and inner space of meditation, or memoirs of bygone days, or visions and dreams. Sometimes accumulative fragments are constructed to be a separate locus full of things and inhabitants (subterranian reservuar). Their forms are allegorical emblems or narrative episodes on private, political or hystorical motifs. The third model is metaphysical poetic proposition of configuration of three locis planis (three worlds) and man’s ability to move from one to another. Symbol of jolly cemetery and status of dead person is correspondent with one-dimentional world of soviet peoples’ life; and overcoming repressions and control by power authority, preserving of self and human reactions are related with two other space models.

Can Public Spaces Alleviate Poverty-Related Feelings? Content Analysis of Vision 2030 and Egyptian Residents’ Storytelling

This study argues that Vision 2030 and social housing should consider the elements of the sociocultural dimension of urban design (SDUD) to alleviate urban poverty-induced feelings. By examining public spaces in the context of Vision 2030 and the implementation of social housing projects, this study aims to provide a theoretical framework that may assist city policymakers in rethinking the role of public spaces in alleviating poverty-related feelings. A review of the relevant literature explores the SDUD elements and builds an index to measure poverty through bibliometric and content analysis. This index was used to analyze the gaps in Vision 2030 in South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt, which we randomly chose. It focused on SDUD elements, social housing, and public spaces. We empirically examined the role of public spaces in alleviating poverty-related feelings using the SDUD index. We applied episodic narrative and interview-based storytelling techniques to a limited group of poor residents in the Al Asmarat Housing Project in Mokattam, Cairo, Egypt. This interview discusses the role of public spaces in reducing poverty-related feelings. The results focus on exploring the four SDUD elements of poverty and examining how public spaces alleviate poverty-induced feelings. Vision 2030 revolves around SDUD elements, social housing, and public spaces. Urban design policies can alleviate poverty in development projects for the poor. Integrating urban design policies into Vision 2030 makes city dwellers in developing countries feel less inferior.

Exploring the metaphoric nature of programming teachers’ reflections on action - a case study with teaching in mind

In recent years, subject content such as programming and digital literacy has become an integral part of technology education. However, research shows that many programming teachers lack sufficient formal education to teach programming and show disparate educational and professional experiences. This study investigates how three teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about their teaching practices are enacted in their classroom practice. The data for the study consist of videoed classroom observations and subsequent episodic narrative interviews with the teachers. Metaphor analysis have been used to uncover central relations between the teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about their practice and their classroom actions. The result of the study reveals that the teachers describe their roles as teachers differently. Despite the differences, the teachers still share the idea that programming is an activity where small pieces of code is intertwined so that they can achieve a purpose. However, none of the teachers speak about code as being essential for learning programming. The teachers all seem to view themselves as assets for the students’ achievements, nevertheless, they do not share the idea of why. Altogether, the result of the study suggests that even though the curriculum is the same, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about their teaching plays a big role in students’ education. Also, the study show, that it is reasonable to suggest that conceptual metaphors affect not only our language, but also our actions in the classroom.

Moved by Another Life: Altered Sentience and Historical Poiesis in the Peyote Craze

Abstract This article follows the transsensory pathways opened by peyote, a mood-altering entheogen, as it diffused among Native peoples living under and along the edges of colonial occupation around the turn of the twentieth century. It traces that movement through the pulsions of temporal and sensorial animacy created in the episodic narration of The Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian (1920), the life story of a Ho-Chunk man named Sam Blowsnake. Apprehended by settler governance as a “craze,” anti-assimilationist currents of the Peyote movement met with intensifying attempts to constrain the biochemical flux of “intoxication” through Native bodies. Modern campaigns against “peyote worship” mounted by government agents, progressive reformers, and sensationalist press in the early twentieth century exploited scripts of revulsion and prurient fascination to target the border-crossing “mind poison” for prohibition. Just beneath the scenes of psychotoxicity and sexual disorder projected by the antinarcotic imaginary of the craze, this article posits, there ran an ongoing struggle over the restrictive capacitation of property and personhood within the settler-capitalist regime of allotment. Against the norms enforced by that policy, in peyote meetings the alteration of sentience could unbind the day-to-day reproduction of property-bearing personhood. Lines of collective transport opening from the passage of ecstasy thus composed a historical moment in refusal of allotment drives for schizochronic individuation.

To Pause With a Cliffhanger or a Temporary Closure? The Differential Impact of Serial Versus Episodic Narratives on Children’s Physical Activity Behaviors

Research has supported the effectiveness of narratives for promoting health behavior, but different narrative presentation formats (serial vs. episodic) have seldom been compared. Suspense theories suggest that serial narratives, which do not provide a full resolution at the end of an episode, may create higher motivation for continued engagement with a story. Forty-four 8 to 12-year-old children were randomly assigned to watch an animation series designed for an existing active video game in which the plot was delivered either continuously across multiple episodes (serial) or in multiple yet relatively independent self-contained episodes (episodic). Controlling for social desirability, children who watched the serial narrative had significantly more moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and step counts while the episodic group’s gameplay duration decreased, especially during later visits. There was no difference in self-reported narrative immersion or physical activity intention. Serial narratives can result in more time spent in MVPA behaviors than episodic narratives.

Contextual incongruency triggers memory reinstatement and the disruption of neural stability

Schemas, or internal representation models of the environment, are thought to be central in organising our everyday life behaviour by giving stability and predictiveness to the structure of the world. However, when an element from an unfolding event mismatches the schema-derived expectations, the coherent narrative is interrupted and an update to the current event model representation is required. Here, we asked whether the perceived incongruence of an item from an unfolding event and its impact on memory relied on the disruption of neural stability patterns preceded by the neural reactivation of the memory representations of the just-encoded event. Our study includes data from two different experiments whereby human participants (N=33, 26 females and N=18, 16 females, respectively) encoded images of objects preceded by trial-unique sequences of events depicting daily routine. We found that neural stability patterns gradually increased throughout the ongoing exposure to a schema-consistent episode, which was corroborated by the re-analysis of data from two other experiments, and that the brain stability pattern was interrupted when the encoding of an object of the event was incongruent with the ongoing schema. We found that the decrease in neural stability for low-congruence items was seen at ∼1000ms from object encoding onset and that it was preceded by an enhanced N400 ERP and an increased degree of neural reactivation of the just-encoded episode. Current results offer new insights into the neural mechanisms and their temporal orchestration that are engaged during online encoding of schema-consistent episodic narratives and the detection of incongruencies.

The Poetics of the Unconscious in The Idiot and Hegel’s Subject of Philosophical History

Abstract The present paper reads The Idiot in the context of Hegel’s philosophy of history and subjectivity and finds that Dostoevsky’s avowed interest in Hegel led to a substantial absorption of Hegel’s thought in his own aesthetics. Dostoevsky’s educated readers of the 1860s saw the novel as a moral history of the age, represented through an eccentric « new subject » (or the « new people »), embodied in marionette-like characters. The present paper explores this view further and finds that these marionette-like characters function as agents of the unconscious (and pre-empt the aesthetics of the theatre of the Absurd), which is the source of all subjectivity. Expressivity is the defining feature of subjectivity and is represented by means of pathological states – lying and self-destructive tendencies of the characters who display a pathological demeanour. Caprice (will power) is the prime mover of this subjectivity, which, in the context of Hegel’s philosophy of history, is the driver of the historical process and a direct expression of « Geist » or spirit of the people. This spirit comes to expression in different types of Russian national discourses, embodied in the myriad of embedded stories narrated by the characters on stage and off stage, and in stories within stories of episodic characters. These embedded episodic narratives, consisting of verbal pictures (or ekphrases), tell the story of Russia’s historical development from Peter Great’s time to Dostoevsky’s present of the 1860s. This is the story of the demise of the old « estate culture » of traditional Russia, with a « new Russia » emerging into history, which is grounded in an indeterminate subject of history, whose « pochva » (« soil ») is the groundless ground of language and an ethics of individual freedom. Both of these elements of subjectivity, which define the « new people », are negativities shaping a new dialectics, which is both form and content of the new self-conscious “world-historical individual” – Hegelian Man - through which spirit (Geist) manifests itself in the “present moment” of Dostoevsky’s Russia.

Narrative-Based Visual Feedback to Encourage Sustained Physical Activity

Stories are a core way human beings make meaning and sense of the world and our lived experiences, including our behaviors, desires, and goals. Narrative structures, both visual and textual, help us understand and act on information, while also evoking strong emotions. Focusing on the health context, this research examines the effectiveness of narrative-based feedback in motivating physical activity behaviors and underlying attitudes over longitudinal periods. After collecting two weeks of baseline physical activity levels, N=39 participants installed our smartphone application, WhoIsZuki. The WhoIsZuki app supports goal setting and semi-automated activity tracking, and it provides an ambient display that visually encodes these tracked activities as well as progress toward goals. Half of participants received a version of the interface that supplied behavioral feedback in the form of a multi-chapter episodic narrative, while the other half received a control condition version that provided an aesthetically-similar visualization but without any characterization, episodic structure, dramatic effect, or other narrative elements. After interacting with these versions for four months, our analysis showed that participants receiving the multi-chapter narrative feedback performed more physical activity, achieved more goals, experienced more positive psychological shifts, and overall engaged more meaningfully with the digital intervention.

The relationship between "Eating" and "Mind" revealed by episodic narrative

The relationship between "Eating" and "Mind" revealed by episodic narrative

Reprezentacija ratnih iskustava u romanu blockbuster zorana žmirića

Representation of war experiences in Zoran Žmirić’s novel Blockbuster The paper analyzes the representation of the war experiences of a group of soldiers on the front line of the battlefield during the Homeland War, depicted in the novel Blockbuster (2009) by the writer Zoran Žmirić. The thematization of warrior activities is based on the intertwining of military operations and scouting actions with the presentation of personal moral doubts, psychological traumas of individuals and collectives. In the novel, the characters specific to contemporary Croatian war prose are shaped in an interesting way (figures of warriorsdefenders, enemies, victims, traitors, war invalids). Relying on the theoreticalmethodological assumptions of selected narratological concepts, literary studies of memory and theories of disability, the paper will analyze the narrative strategies used to thematize the war experience in Žmirić's action war novel; the role of retrospective narrative episodes will be investigated, the hint of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the role of amputation metaphors, and the design and purpose of warrior instruments will be also investigated.