Applied ethnopoetics

2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Blommaert
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Potential Usefulness ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Local Patterns ◽  
Folk Stories

Ethnopoetics is a form of narrative analysis designed, initially, for the analysis of folk stories and based on an ethnographic performance-based understanding of narrative emphasizing that meaning is an effect of performance. It offers opportunities for analyzing ‘voice’. The ways in which speakers themselves organize stories along indexical patterns of emphasis, focus, super- and subordination and so on. As such, it is a potentially very useful tool for tracking ‘local’ patterns of meaning-making in narrative. I argue that ethnopoetics could be productively applied to data in which different systems of meaning-making meet — a condition that defines many important service-providing systems in globalizing contexts. Asylum applications in Western Europe are a case in point, and examples will be used from that domain, but the potential usefulness of such an applied ethnopoetics stretches into many other types of service encounters in which crosscultural storytelling is crucial.

scholarly journals Revisiting a Boy Named Jim

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 160940691880916
Author(s):  
Katherine Bischoping
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Vicarious Traumatization ◽  
Childhood Experience ◽  
Good Story ◽  
Common Criteria ◽  
Qualitative Health Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analysis Strategies

Using examples from qualitative health research and from my childhood experience of reading a poem about a boy devoured by a lion (Belloc, 1907), I expand on a framework for reflexivity developed in Bischoping and Gazso (2016). This framework is unique in first synthesizing works from multidisciplinary narrative analysis research in order to arrive at common criteria for a “good” story: reportability, liveability, coherence, and fidelity. Next, each of these criteria is used to generate questions that can prompt reflexivity among qualitative researchers, regardless of whether they use narrative data or other narrative analysis strategies. These questions pertain to a broad span of issues, including appropriation, censorship, and the power to represent, using discomfort to guide insight, addressing vicarious traumatization, accommodating diverse participant populations, decolonizing ontology, and incorporating power and the social into analyses overly focused on individual meaning-making. Finally, I reflect on the affinities between narrative – in its imaginatively constructed, expressive, and open-ended qualities – and the reflexive impulse.

scholarly journals Metodologiska val i studien av biografiskt material - metodologiska val och deras epistemologiska konsekvenser i studien av biografiskt material

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Vanessa May
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Lone Mothers ◽  
The Creation

Epistemological Questions Concerning the Study of Biographical. Material: The Consequences of Choise of Methodology Using my own research on written life stories of Finnish lone mothers as a case study, this paper examines the consequences of choice of methodology when using biographical material as data. I focus on two methodo-logical alternatives: analysing biographical material as documents of preceding events, or as meaning-making con-structs. Treating biographical material as a gateway into studying events in people’s lives reduces the heuristic value of the material, and consequently questions of truth and reliability become problematic. Nevertheless, this still seems to be the preferred methodological alternative of many sociologists. If biographical material is analysed for its own sake, focussing on the creation of meaning through story-telling, the above-mentioned problems of truth and reliability diminish considerably. Using research on lone motherhood as an example, I ex-plore arguments for the use of narrative analysis, examining what it has to offer methodologically, theoreti-cally and conceptually.

scholarly journals Geo-environmental Factors in Three Persian Folk Stories: A Preliminary Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-85
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Shafiei ◽  
Habibollah Ghassemzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Climatic Zones ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Essential Function ◽  
Mental Spaces ◽  
Folk Stories

Stories mirror the essential function of human cognitive activity. In the present preliminary study, we hypothesized that the mental spaces that make up the stories can be influenced by the environmental conditions of their creators. For this purpose, three stories from three different climatic zones in Iran were selected and a content analysis method was used to analyze their components. Results showed significant differences between the mental spaces of different geographic regions in these three stories.  This finding could be considered as a step taken to show the extent to which an individual’s cognition and cognitive processing in general and the creation of meaning in particular, is an extension and representation of embodied experience. We have discussed the subject in the framework of narrative analysis as well as cognitive semantics.

scholarly journals In Dialogue: How Writing to the Dead and the Living Can Increase Self-Awareness in Those Bereaved by Addiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 003022282097627
Author(s):  
Christina Thatcher
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Disenfranchised Grief ◽  
Positive Health ◽  
Negative Behaviors ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Socially Isolated

This article examines how writing can increase the self-awareness of a socially isolated and often stigmatized population: those bereaved by addiction. Writing about a traumatic event has been shown to increase self-awareness which can improve health and regulate negative behaviors. Using narrative analysis on the writing of individuals bereaved by addiction, this study found that participants were able to increase their self-awareness through writing to the dead, the living and themselves. Participants’ writing also demonstrated their attempts to make sense and make meaning out of their loss which are both strong predictors of positive health outcomes. All participants in this study demonstrated increased self-awareness as well as sense-making and/or meaning-making which can lead to improvements in behavior regulation, psychological health and physical heath. This suggests that writing may be a uniquely beneficial therapeutic intervention for those experiencing disenfranchised grief as a result of bereavement by addiction.

Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation adapted as a method for narrative analysis to capture the existential realities expressed in stories from people living with Multiple Sclerosis

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 649-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Hardwick
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Sclerosis ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Chronic Conditions ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Living Well ◽  
The North ◽  
Insight Into

This paper draws on Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation to highlight aspects of the existential realities that emerge woven within the narratives of people living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). It aims to give social workers and other professionals involved in inter-disciplinary care insight into the meaning-making process and the existential realities interwoven in accounts of lived experience, thereby validating this aspect of experience. To support this approach it also aims to make explicit the method used and interpretation applied to elicit these features. Ten adults with MS from across the North of England were recruited to tell their story related to the onset of, and adjustment to MS. Two of the narratives are presented, and through these, the method used for interpretation derived from the theory of Paul Ricoeur is demonstrated. What emerge, threaded within the events told in a triptych of past, present and future life envisaged, are glimpses of existential realities that evoke universal recognition such as abandonment, loss, acceptance; solidarity, aloneness, suffering and finally calm. The paper concludes that, given chronic conditions like MS often predispose existential deliberation, it is important that these dimensions of lived experience are acknowledged in professional encounters that seek to manage the condition and support people living well with it.

Queer narratives and minority stress: Stories from lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals in Norway

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-114
Author(s):  
Oddgeir Synnes ◽  
Kirsti Malterud
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Minority Stress ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
National Archive ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
And Bisexual

Aims: This study aims to explore how minority stress related to sexual orientation is reflected in narratives from lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals in Norway, with an impact for national public health policy. Methods: Arthur Frank’s dialogical narrative analysis was applied to personal stories from 65 persons self-referring to different categories of queer identities, submitted online anonymously to a Norwegian national archive for queer history. A purposive sample of three different stories were selected due to their capacity to illuminate how various aspects of minority stress are narrated in diverse interplays between individual voices and resources, and cultural scripts and societal influences. Results: Our analysis highlighted how stories may offer significant glimpses into the dynamic and complex fashioning of sexual identities, giving precious clues to the vulnerabilities and strengths of the narrator. Contemporary queer narratives from Norway reflect meaning-making related to sexual orientation that are influenced by, and expand upon, the classical scripts dominated by tragedy and tristesse, personal progress or simply no particular tension. LGB individuals of different ages and backgrounds had experienced aspects of minority stress related to their sexual orientation, with a substantial impact on identity, even when significant others were encouraging. Conclusions: The stories indicate that positive proximal processes, such as personal resilience and sympathetic environments, can support mental health and counteract negative effects of distal processes contributing to minority stress, such as heteronormativity and subtle microaggression. Public health strategies addressing attitudes to sexual orientation among the general population may contribute to diverse affirmative cultural scripts about queer lives, thereby enhancing queer mental health.

Developing a model of narrative analysis to investigate the role of social support in coping with traumatic war memories

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Burnell ◽  
Nigel Hunt ◽  
Peter G. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Male Veterans ◽  
The Social ◽  
War Memories

Within clinical and health psychology, narrative is used to understand how people make meaning of events that challenge one’s believes about the self and the world e.g. the diagnosis of an illness or the experience of a traumatic event. This paper introduces a model of narrative analysis that can provide insight into the ways in which people make meaning of traumatic events and the types of resources that aid or hinder this process. The model, an adaptation of grounded narrative analysis (Murray, 2003), was applied at two levels (narrative form and narrative content) to the narratives of British male veterans of World War II (WWII) and post WWII veterans up to and including the Iraq war (2003– ). Narrative form concerned the coherence of the narrative, which was defined as an oriented, structured, affectively consistent, and integrated narrative, indicative of the reconciliation. Narrative content focused on the social support experiences of the veterans. Through this two level analysis, it was possible to make theoretical links between the types of social support that aid the meaning making process and help veterans to reconcile their experiences.

scholarly journals Translating Semiotic “Polyphony” of Texts as a Culture-Formative Creation

Tertium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-169
Author(s):  
Caterina Squillace
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
The Social ◽  
Roman Jakobson ◽  
The Master And Margarita

“The Master and Margarita” is generally considered Mikhail Bulgakov’s literary masterpiece. It is a “melting pot” of literary genres, motives, themes, imagery and intertextual references. All these elements cooperate in creating a “polyphonic” novel, in Bakhtin’s sense of the word, not only when it comes to the different nature and “voice” of single characters but also with reference to the “poly-structured” construction of the text itself. The paper will illustrate the peculiarity of Bulgakov’s novel and the semiotic and semiosic character of his creation. The adjective “semiosic” derives from “semiosis” as defined, among others, by C.S. Peirce, who stresses the meaning-making “power” of some semiotic processes. The paper aims also at answering the question why this novel has been translated several times into Polish and Italian since 1967 (when the first edition of the novel was published in Western Europe). Due to the very specific construction of the plot and of the formal aspects of the novel, translators had to deal with a significant number of problems of “untranslatability” that they could solve only by using their creative potential. It was Roman Jakobson who through his linguistic analysis reached the conclusion that for the untranslatable—poetry for example—“Only creative transposition is possible”. Using creativity translators were also able to discover further interpretations of Bulgakov’s literary work and to perform a culture-formative act as their efforts offer new points of view on reality and its perception, wider knowledge of the social life not only in Soviet times but in a more universal perspective as well as new models of text and literariness. That’s why a novel like Bulgakov’s masterpiece has been translated so many times and it is still translated in the two languages selected for the purposes of this research and all over the world. And this is also the reason why it can be considered a meaning-generative and culture-formative text even if its first edition appeared in 1940.  

scholarly journals Comparative Ethnographic Narrative Analysis Method: Comparing Culture in Narratives

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 233339362110207
Author(s):  
Denise Saint Arnault ◽  
Laura Sinko
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Meta Level ◽  
Beliefs And Values ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Methodological Paper

Narrative data analysis aims to understand the stories’ content, structure, or function. However narrative data can also be used to examine how context influences self-concepts, relationship dynamics, and meaning-making. This methodological paper explores the potential of narrative analysis to discover and compare the processes by which culture shapes selfhood and meaning making. We describe the development of the Comparative Ethnographic Narrative Analysis Method as an analytic procedure to systematically compare narrators’ experiences, meaning making, decisions, and actions across cultures. This analytic strategy seeks to discover shared themes, examine culturally distinct themes, and illuminate meta-level cultural beliefs and values that link shared themes. We emphasize the need for a shared research question, comparable samples, shared non-biased instruments, and high-fidelity training if one uses this qualitative method for cross-cultural research. Finally, specific issues, trouble-shooting practices, and implications are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document