Problematic Narratives Research Articles

Negotiating a pathological identity in the clinical dialogue: Discourse analysis of a family therapy

Within the framework of social constructionism, psychotherapy has been re-conceptualized as a semiotic process, which consists of the creative generation of new meanings in the context of collaborative discourse. In recent years, research approaches that draw from social constructionism, such as discourse analysis, have been fruitfully employed in the study of psychotherapy processes, whilst being in line with the contemporary emphasis on language, narrative, and meaning making. This paper aims to further the exploration of the usefulness of discourse analysis in the study of psychotherapy processes, and in particular, in situations where the medical discourse is powerfully implicated in the construction of a person's identity. It is based on the analysis of a family therapy with a family whose child has a diagnosis of autism. The analysis focuses on two features of the family's talk, namely shifts in the flexibility of employment of a diverse range of discourses and subject positions, and shifts in the ways agency is constructed and discursively negotiated in the clinical conversations. It is suggested that these shifts can be used as indications of change in the family's network of meanings. The analysis suggests that an important aspect in clinical work with families with a member with a psychiatric diagnosis lies in decentring, or deconstructing, the dominant, pathology-maintaining accounts, and allowing for a wider range of less problematic narratives and subject positions to emerge.

The city as a motif in Slovene youth literature

The article presents the city as motif of Slovenian youth literature in four different periods, beginning in the first period of original Slovenian youth literature in the second half of the 19. century, second period in the first half of the 20. century third period in the second half of the 20. century and after 1950, when siginificant books were produced in the field of short modern stories, emphasising on picture books and realistic narrative prose, and the fourth period after 1990. A discernable shift can be observed in the thirties of the 20. century during the times of socialist realism. The most significant change occurred after 1960, when massive migration from rural to urban environments caused by industrialisation began. The motif of urban environment especially marked modern realistic narrative, coined problematic narrative after 1990. with its focus on issues of growing up in such environments. The city as motif or theme doesn«t appear only in realistic narrative, but since the early 20. century also in fantastic narrative, thus it dichomtomically presents the image of real world in Slovenian youth realistic narrative.

Commemorating Narratives of Violence: The Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Day in Israeli Schools

Based on an analysis of ceremonies in thirty Israeli schools, this article focuses on the way in which the Israeli educational system grappled with the problematic narrative of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, a narrative that challenged the system's basic assumptions about commemorative logic. The challenge was met by playing with the narrative's multiple frames of meaning (protagonist, act, and context). Rabin's image and biography were elevated and nearly sanctified, while the assassination itself was individualized and the context in which it occurred was de-politicized and virtually bypassed. Thus, the commemoration of even a problematic narrative of political violence could be held on school premises, where it could meet the challenge of enhancing unity and proud national identity. Even events that are not heroic, even shameful, and which do not enjoy a consensus can be reframed in a consensual manner.

The Dangerous and the Good? Developmentalism, Progress, and Public Schooling

In light of numerous critiques of developmentalism, this article examines whether developmentalism has been a dangerous way to think about human life. It traces the emergence of different kinds of developmental discourse, locates the discursive preconditions for developmentalism's dominance in education, and examines the conjuncture between developmentalism and progressivism in shaping the limits of education's discursive field since the late 19th century. The article examines some of the productive and repressive legacies of developmental reasoning and concludes by examining present efforts to destabilize and fracture developmental discourse. It suggests that the historical articulation of developmentalism to an idea of progress has not been undermined through present-day critiques that still implicitly project "progress" as the grounds for efforts to destabilize "development. "Alternatives to developmental discourse are considered in relation to how judgments of the dangerous and the good have been shaped through problematic narratives of progress and human freedom.

Executing executions: Aesthetics, identity, and the problematic narratives of capital punishment ritual

Despite some two-hundred years of debate, capital punishment remains one of the most hotly contested and widely discussed topics of both public and academic discourse. Scarcely a week goes by without a new political or legal issue, murder case, or impending execution fuelling the fires of controversy. The raging intensity of this debate testifies to the continuing centrality of the death penalty for American political and cultural life. Much like the spectacle of the scaffold in centuries past, the poison injection, electric chair and gas chamber are central to the iconography of the contemporary collective conscience. They are a mold around which popular perceptions are formed as to the morality and identity not only of criminals, but also of politicians and indeed the community itself. At the time of writing, the trial of media and sports celebrity O. J. Simpson on a double-murder count appears likely to push the volume and intensity of debate to unprecedented levels. The intense public and mass media interest in the Simpson case, like that of Gary Gilmore during the 1970s, has raised yet again the question of media coverage of executions. Many proponents of the death penalty argue that the tide of history should be turned back and that executions should be not only reported, but also seen by a wider public. They argue that the televisual coverage of executions will send a clear and unequivocal message which will both reinforce conventional moral values and deter crime. At the same time opponents of executions point to an inevitable degradation of the victim that would be reinforced by exposure to an audience as the object of a public spectacle. This article speaks to this debate using the resources of theoretical and historical sociology, and by building on recent developments in cultural and ritual theory. It suggests that the events of the past are canaries to be watched with respect to what might happen in the future and that the advocate's faith in the moral and deterrent semiosis of public executions might be misplaced. Paradoxi-

Enthymematic solutions to the Lockshin defection story: A case study in the repair of a problematic narrative

This essay examines newspaper coverage of the Arnold Lockshin family's 1986 defection to the Soviet Union. As a case study, it illustrates how the print media can enthymematically repair ideologically problematic narratives in such a way that engaged publics can maintain cognitive consistency. It is argued that the media used four premises—credibility, perversion, gullibility, and isolation—to reconstruct enthymematically the narrative in a nonthreatening, ideologically consistent manner.