Narratives Of Transformation Research Articles

From Wounds to Scars: The Embodiment of a Forwarded Past through the Body Marks of Jesus in John 20

This article draws attention to the narrative development of the body marks of the resurrected Johannine Jesus and explores what these marks might signify about John’s reappropriation of Jesus’s suffering. Drawing on the work of Candida R. Moss, who has argued that the resurrection body marks of the Johannine Jesus should be understood as closed scars rather than open wounds, this article re-envisages the implications of Jesus’s textured skin in Jn 20 and examines how John’s gospel mediates and ascribes meaning to Jesus’s body as an inscription surface in response to the crucifixion. By discussing how marked skins serve as privileged facilities to convey meanings and interacting with an exemplary ancient scar narrative from Homer’s Odyssey, I argue that the crucifixion wounds of the Johannine Jesus undergo a narrative transformation in Jn 20 in which the forming of the scars signifies a process of ‘working through’ the trauma and violence of the cross.

Media Fusion and Narrative Transformation from the Perspective of Microecology

The advent of the era of media convergence has given rise to the transformation from linear to non-linear, from unidirectional to multi-directional, and from full time and space to fragmentation. Under the background of the rapid development of information technology, media integration, and narrative transformation promote each other and play an important role in solving social reality problems and disseminating cultural information. So this paper will start from the perspective of micro ecology, through the analysis of media fusion ecological narrative transformation, explore the media narrative in the information environment, value orientation and audience experience, and think in the new era about the spread of information narrative facing the new media, traditional media, and the relationship between the audience reconstruction, and the new technology, new perspective and new audience interaction that also jointly promote the spread of information and narrative in a more open and diverse direction.

Transformation of an autobiographical narrative in Russian gender-marked prose of the 1990s-2020s

An autobiographical narrative has been an integral feature of women’s writing throughout the existence of women’s literature. At the present stage, within the framework of gender-marked prose, its functional field is expanding. The transformation of the autobiographical narrative in the works of the 1990s - 20s is due to the very process of the gender-marked literature formation. In this regard, we can talk about two main options for its functioning. On the one hand, the autobiographical narrative is presented as an expression of a certain femme agenda, starting from the ideology of sisterhood, which was significant for Russian fem literature of the 1990s and early 2000s, and ending with the ideas of intersectional feminism, which are relevant for the circle of authors of the late 2010s and early 2020s. On the other hand, the dynamics of the autobiographical narrative makes it possible to trace the process of the formation of a kind of “canon” in gender-marked prose, which allows not only differentiating it in relation to the literature of the grand canon, but also identifying its specificity in the context of all female prose.In this regard, it is appropriate to talk about three variants of the autobiographical narrative transformation, coinciding with three fairly distinct periods in the formation of Russian gender-marked prose. At the first stage, the functioning of the autobiographical narrative marks the gender nature of the text, emphasizing not just the deliberate marginality and peripheralness of the narrative instance, but, mainly, its ability to convey a unique female experience. At the second stage, the autobiographical narrative participates in the formation of a gender-oriented reading model as the basis for the “crystallization” of the female narrative canon. At the third stage, the plot acting out of the narrative model takes place.

Aproximações entre infâncias, indígenas mulheres e feminismos no filme Tainá (2000)

This paper seeks to analyze the film – Tainá: uma aventura na Amazônia, directed by Tânia Lamarco e Sérgio Bloch, 2000, which has the first representation of a female child in an active and proactive role in the face of the nuances and outcomes of the plot. The film is analyzed in its sociocultural context and historical moment that brings to light the tensions that appear in this context. Through the theoretical survey, we point out some important narrative transformations that reconfigure Brazilian children's cinema and audiovisual and, in particular, we seek to highlight the important collaboration of feminist guidelines for the advancement of the field of studies related to children and childhood, as well as to the works produced and addressed to children in Brazil.

Collective Autoethnography as a Transformative Narrative Methodology

This article introduces Collective Autoethnography (CoAE), a participatory and democratic research methodology distinct from other autoethnographic methodologies in its emphasis on co-constructing narratives. We delineate a six-phase approach to conducting CoAE, which encompasses preparation, data collection, transcription, interpretation, thematic consensus, and narrative production. Each phase is explored in depth, illuminating the principles and techniques involved, and demonstrating CoAE’s potential for producing nuanced, multilayered narratives. As a demonstration of this methodology in practice, we draw from our experiences and provide a worked example that explores compassion-centric approaches to teaching in times of crisis. We underscore the significance of collaboration in CoAE, which enables a more comprehensive understanding of emergent themes and a more accurate representation of diverse experiences in the final narrative. Owing to its focus on shared meaning-making and mutual respect, CoAE is well-suited to anyone aiming to examine shared experiences within a community or group setting in a qualitative research context. This article serves as a comprehensive guide to researchers interested in leveraging this empowering methodology for explorative and collaborative narrative construction.

Norway's Climate Odyssey: Assessing Impacts, Mitigation Strategies, and Policy Responses in a Warming Arctic

Norway, a nation renowned for its dramatic landscapes, stands at the forefront of confronting the global climate crisis, particularly within the unique context of a warming Arctic. This article embarks on a comprehensive exploration of Norway's responses to the climate challenge, offering a nuanced assessment of climate change impacts, evaluation of mitigation strategies, and analysis of policy responses. The Arctic, with its iconic glaciers, fjords, and delicate ecosystems, bears witness to the unfolding narrative of climate transformation. Our assessment of climate change impacts reveals a landscape in flux, marked by melting glaciers, altered precipitation patterns, and shifting ecosystems. The article delves into the multifaceted implications of these changes, from their ecological consequences to their socio-economic effects on key sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, tourism, and infrastructure. Norway's proactive stance in mitigating climate change emerges through a rich tapestry of strategies. From the development of renewable energy sources to groundbreaking carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, the nation has harnessed innovation and sustainability to navigate the path toward a low-carbon future. Emissions reduction targets, legislative frameworks, and international collaborations align Norway's climate policies with global agreements like the Paris Agreement.

Norway's Climate Odyssey: Assessing Impacts, Mitigation Strategies, and Policy Responses in a Warming Arctic

Norway, a nation renowned for its dramatic landscapes, stands at the forefront of confronting the global climate crisis, particularly within the unique context of a warming Arctic. This article embarks on a comprehensive exploration of Norway's responses to the climate challenge, offering a nuanced assessment of climate change impacts, evaluation of mitigation strategies, and analysis of policy responses. The Arctic, with its iconic glaciers, fjords, and delicate ecosystems, bears witness to the unfolding narrative of climate transformation. Our assessment of climate change impacts reveals a landscape in flux, marked by melting glaciers, altered precipitation patterns, and shifting ecosystems. The article delves into the multifaceted implications of these changes, from their ecological consequences to their socio-economic effects on key sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, tourism, and infrastructure. Norway's proactive stance in mitigating climate change emerges through a rich tapestry of strategies. From the development of renewable energy sources to groundbreaking carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, the nation has harnessed innovation and sustainability to navigate the path toward a low-carbon future. Emissions reduction targets, legislative frameworks, and international collaborations align Norway's climate policies with global agreements like the Paris Agreement.

“Islam Is My Washing Line”

Abstract Although conversion is an ongoing religious journey, it is rarely studied as such. This article provides a longitudinal study of conversion to Islam by Dutch women. People who recently convert might firmly hold on to their new convictions, not providing space for doubts and uncertainty, whereas studying the long-term process also gives insights into moments of weak belief, doubts, and ambivalence, or growing faith and spirituality. Not only these internal contestations are important to examine, also the context of the conversion narrative can change over time. Conversion is a contested issue, yet which aspects of the conversion are contested can shift due to societal debates on Islam. This article conceptualizes the conversion experience as a contextual narrative of the ongoing religious transformation of the ‘self’ in relation to different ‘others’ over time.

The Process of Becoming an Activist: Identity Transformations in Autobiographical Narratives of Women with Disabilities in Poland

This article reconstructs identity transformations that manifest themselves in the biographies of female activists with disabilities. The empirical material was collected through autobiographical narrative interviews. The author identifies key stages and turning points for these identity transformations. She also analyzes the role of significant others in the process of identity transformations and becoming an activist. The analysis of narratives of women with congenital disabilities demonstrates that the incorporation of disability as an element of individual self-definition is an important factor contributing to identity transformations. In the analyzed narratives, disability represents a biographical resource and, like identity, is processual in nature. Although it accompanies the individual from birth, it undergoes rein­terpretations at different stages of life.

Consumer Anxiety and Coping in COVID Times: Towards a Sociological Understanding of Consumer Resilience

This article develops a sociological understanding of consumer resilience across three national contexts during a prolonged, global health crisis – COVID-19. We asked 112 individuals from the UK, China and Malaysia to diarise their consumption during the initial lockdowns of 2020. We found that when social subjects were confronted with material, socio-relational and symbolic restrictions, two types of anxieties emerged – health, safety and wellbeing and social alienation – along with three coping-response strategies, consumer purification, consumer policing and consumer sociality. At this anxiety–coping interface, we identify reflexive, emotive and transformative narratives that are productive of consumer resilience. In this era of ‘Permacrisis’ relating to war, health, climate and cost-of-living, it is essential to examine consumer behaviour under conditions of deep uncertainty to comprehend how (resilient) social subjects use the (non-)market domain to cope with anxieties caused by multifaceted restrictions placed on everyday life.

Constructive journalism and its effects on environmental discourses

Concerning the existence of all living beings, environmental issues take a crucial standpoint in the area of constructive journalism. Through positive psychology and solution-based approaches, it moves from the rigid ethical tenets of objectivity and impartiality, and employs practices based on reflexivity and advocacy for social concerns including pressing environmental issues. Can this change of journalistic narrative be considered significant? If so, does it imply any shifts in existing media culture that embodies a new set of ethics? This paper studies the ethics emerging out of constructive journalism based on environmental discourses and reviews 25 global environmental stories with constructive attributes through content analysis. With non-alarmist headlines, solutions-based and restorative approaches, and comprehensive narratives, it was found that these articles did not flout any ethical principles besides environmental advocacy. A shift in ethical code is recommended to entirely accommodate reflexive and transformative narratives in the field of journalism.

Transformative learning in the online classroom: A marketing educator’s autoethnographic account

This autoethnographic account is a critical reflection on my experience teaching online classes during the pandemic. It is a narrative of my transformation through the 28 months of teaching events marketing courses through the online distance learning modality. I learned that as a marketing educator, my role is to help students develop positive perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors about learning by providing the conditions conducive for a meaningful learning experience. However, as an educator, a student’s learning experience is not my sole responsibility because the learning experience is co-created with the student. My role is an educator is to provide them with opportunities, tools, and knowledge to help them make the most out of their learning experience.

Revealing diversity among narratives of agricultural transformation: insights from smallholder farmers in the Northern Kilombero Valley, Tanzania

The discourse of transformation, as currently adopted in policy arenas, has given scarce attention to diverse knowledges, plural pathways, and politics. Narratives about change and agricultural transformation in African landscapes are diverse. However, failure to recognise diversity among narratives of the predominant food producers—smallholder farmers—in planning and policy processes limits potential to achieve just agricultural transformation. To progress understanding on diverse knowledges, plural pathways, and politics of agricultural transformation in this paper we present smallholder visions of future farms and their narratives of agricultural transformation in an African landscape subject to rapid ecological and livelihood change. We present smallholder narratives of transformation alongside those promoted by national and private-sector blueprints, and critically reflect on the social justice of transformation. From nine participatory workshops conducted with smallholder farmers in the northern Kilombero Valley of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), four main narratives of transformation were identified: (1) land ownership, (2) expansion of agricultural activities, (3) diversification, and (4) access to water for irrigation. The view of transformation presented by smallholders appears incompatible with national blueprint policies and plans. Despite “win-win” narratives of transformation and the outgrower scheme approach to expansion of sugarcane cultivation promoted by SAGCOT, the national government and the Kilombero Sugar Company, we found that land ownership and expansion remains challenging for smallholders in the present and represents a key aspiration for the future, along with diversification and access to adequate amounts of water for irrigation. These visions of bigger, more diverse farms with access to water, are not necessarily compatible with the expansion of sugarcane cultivation in the area and does not appear, as yet, to be sufficiently recognised in sugarcane expansion plans, creating potential to exacerbate injustice. Given this lack of recognition, smallholders advocate for a stronger role in protecting their interests as citizens in relation to the SAGCOT private-public partners. We demonstrate the need for greater effort among actors in rural African landscapes to realise and recognise the diversity and contextuality of envisaged desirable futures in plans and polices, and the importance of progressing understanding on inclusive planning and policy-making processes to achieve inclusive negotiation leading to more just transformation pathways.

René Girard’s Mimetic Theory and Its Value in Understanding Sura Maryam: A Mimetic Analysis of Mythical, Biblical, and Apocryphal Transformations

This article examines the transformation of mythical, biblical and apocryphal narratives in the Surah Maryam (Surah 19) from the perspective of René Girard’s mimetic theory. It postulates that this theory adds value to the interpretation of the aforementioned surah. From a mimetic perspective, it can be shown that the new, nascent, early Islamic community tried to read the religious narratives structuring its environment in terms of a nonviolent relationship between creator and creature, and thus to distance itself from a sacrificial understanding of God.

“Go Home and Sin No More!” Reimagining Faith that Changes the Lives of Offenders to New Narratives of Rebirth and Transformation

The justice system in South Africa used prisons as punitive instruments before the dawn of democracy. New developments focus mainly on restorative justice that seeks to rehabilitate, reintegrate, and restore offenders to their communities. This system has allowed space for chaplaincy and spiritual work in South African incarceration centers. This article uses the missional reading of John 8:1–11 and the narrative of David Heritage to demonstrate that faith, not religion, can change ex-offenders’ lives into narratives of rebirth and transformation. Ex-offenders are given a second opportunity to serve the missio Dei as agents of missional conversion and transformation.

Violence against a backdrop of colours? Ethnographic insights into tensions between urban transformation and ongoing violence in marginalised neighbourhoods

Since the early 2000s, the two largest cities in Colombia have been lauded as success stories of urban transformation. However, there is a tension between urban transformation narratives disseminated in international media and political discourse, and the realities of ongoing violence and insecurity. Drawing on ethnographic research following creative arts projects, this article offers empirical detail on how people negotiate this tension in marginalised urban neighbourhoods, which are often the most affected by overlapping forms of violence while being key sites of transformation policies. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation in Bogotá and Medellín, we show the complexities of how grassroots creative projects both mobilise transformation politics and negotiate violence in everyday life. By focusing on the local scale, we consider both the important gains that have been made since urban transformation became a key tenet of local government policy, particularly around challenging stigma, and the challenges that local populations continue to face. Ultimately, we argue that the experiences of the creative organisations we speak to reflect the need to negotiate ongoing structural violence and fluctuating support from the state. In contrast to depoliticised transformation narratives, this has implications for understanding the state’s role in the reproduction of violence in everyday life and appreciating the limitations of aesthetic transformation in marginalised urban communities.

Subtractive Awareness

This paper is foremost about experiments in embodying a transformative narrative of a self that makes possible mutual collaborative practice with others. The focus is less on what we ought to think or do, but rather on subtracting, letting go, self-identities that are no longer fit for collaborative purpose. We refer to this as subtractive awareness by which we mean becoming aware of obstacles that inhibit creative action with others. In a time when dominant narratives call for endless growth, accumulation and addition, there is perhaps an overlooked value in subtraction practiced in support of collaboration. We align with writers such as Jason Hickel (2020), and practitioners in the degrowth movement to argue that in an era of perpetual expansion, “less is more.”

Genetic hauntings: Mediating pre-patienthood and haunted health on TV

Through the development of a “health hauntological” approach, this article investigates how pre-patient illness narratives are mediated and negotiated in and around the DR documentary series Gentesten ændrede mit liv (2020) [The gene test changed my life]. We argue that this documentary format attests to how the expansion of genetic testing technologies alters experiences, genres, and narratives of illness that increasingly move to a pre-diagnostic and pre-symptomatic domain. The analysis shows how the use of genetic testing technologies creates hauntological situations in which pre-patients – through the mapping of family pathologies of the past and possible future diagnoses – encounter the complex temporalities and entanglements inherent to genetic bonds. Furthermore, we claim that these haunting encounters with mortality, vulnerability, and potential loss can be acted on – or listened to – in various responsive ways. Mediating pre-patient illness narratives thus entails an ethical balancing between care for participants and the desire for tellable, transformational narratives.

Beyond the Brochure: The Role of Diversity and Inclusion in Shaping the Future of American Tourism Industry

This paper investigated the critical role of diversity and inclusion (D&I) in shaping the future trajectory of the American tourism industry. As global demographics shift and cultural interchanges expand, the need for a more inclusive and diverse representation in tourism becomes increasingly significant. The industry’s potential for growth hinges on its capacity to mirror this diversity, and to inclusively represent the array of experiences, identities, and backgrounds that constitute contemporary society. The research emphasizes the necessity of moving beyond the traditional brochure-style of advertising a model often laden with stereotypes and narrow perspectives. It proposes a new model that embraces diverse narratives and perspectives, reflecting the multifaceted nature of American society and the global community at large. The paper explored how this inclusive approach not only broadens market appeal but also fosters a sense of connection and belonging among underrepresented groups, thus promoting more sustainable tourism practices. Furthermore, the paper underscores the potential economic benefits of D&I in the tourism industry. It elucidates how a commitment to D&I can translate into increased revenues by attracting a broader audience base, fostering loyalty, and enabling the industry to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving global context. The study also investigated the role of technology and digital transformation in facilitating D&I, highlighting innovative solutions such as virtual reality, AI-based personalized travel experiences, and social media platforms that democratize information sharing and representation. Ultimately, this research underscores the imperative to shift from a tourism model dominated by homogeneous narratives to one that celebrates diversity and fosters inclusivity. It posits that in doing so, the American tourism industry will not only contribute to a more equitable society but also secure its own sustainable and prosperous future. Keywords: Diversity and Inclusion, American Tourism Industry, Sustainable Tourism Practices, Digital Transformation in Tourism, Representation and Narratives

Soul, Myth and Cosmovision in a Changing World: Essentials of Analytical Psychology and the Descendent Path.

This essay addresses the key role of analytical psychology amid our changing world: to work towards an expansion of Humanity's worldview. In current times of utmost transformation, it becomes imperative that we embrace a total cosmovision, one that includes the 360 degrees of existence: not only the 180 diurnal degrees of ascent, light and order, yet also the descendent sphere, incorporating what is unconscious, nocturnal and mysterious. Integrating this lower realm in our psychic life, however, contrasts our Western worldview, in which these two domains are seemingly opposed and mutually excluding. Mythopoetic language, and the mythologems that manifest in different myths, provide the means of delving into the profound paradoxes at the core of the total cosmovision. Myths such as Añañuca (Chile), Osiris (Egypt), Dionysus (Greece) and Innana (Sumer), highlight the descending path, providing a symbolic narrative of an archetypical transformation or spin, a key moment of "turning on its own axis" that merges the realms of Life and Death, ascent and descent, birth and decay. To live this paradoxical and generative path of transformation, individuals must seek their personal myth not outside but within themselves, where springs the Suprasense.