Fate, Memory, and the Postcolonial Construction of the Self: The Life-Narrative of a Vietnamese Spirit Medium

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten W. Endres
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
Cultural Concepts ◽  
Dialogic Process ◽  
Multiple Discourses

Life-history and narrative research have a long tradition as insightful methods in anthropology. This article presents the life-story of an elderly Hanoian spirit medium who does not conform to dominant ideals of Vietnamese femininity, exploring how cultural concepts and religious imageries shape female notions of fate and agency. By applying Bakhtin's concept of dialogism, the analysis illustrates how the creative act of self-narrative interweaves with multiple discourses in a dialogic process that tries to make sense of historical contingencies, culturally prescribed ideals, and the lived experiences of the self.

scholarly journals Narrative therapeutic approach in the care for patients with dementia and psychosis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Thomas ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Therapeutic Approach ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Real Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Behavioral Difficulties ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right

Dementia and psychosis can arise from a trauma in patients’ life history. Behavioral difficulties of the afflicted individual can lead to bad memories triggered by an event or an encounter. Attempts to bring such patients back to reality can destroy their awareness of the self and the world. A narrative therapeutic approach can help them reconstruct their life story and enhance their sense of wellbeing. With dementia, it is necessary to open the book of the afflicted individual’s life at the right page in order to help them get back to reading it in the present. With psychosis, stories must be detached from the personal life history and from reality. An empathetic therapist allows the patient to bypass the obstacles to link their fictional and real life and to recover the necessary minimum of self.awareness.

Telling Diaspora Stories: theoretical and methodological reflections on narratives of migrancy and belongingness in the second generation

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Christou
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
The Subject

This article explores the theoretical and methodological implications of the study of second generation migration through the use of life stories, a narrative and biographical approach. It presents a theoretical contextualisation of life history research in addressing the direction it has taken in the study of migration and identity in order to problematise how the subject and subjectivities in narrative research have been framed by social categorisations such as gender, ethnicity, class as well as social experiences such as trauma, exile, memory and imagination. The paper develops the analytical contribution of researching the biographicity of everyday migrant lives. 

Becoming a Narrative Researcher in Pakistan: Reflections from the Field

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Haji Karim Khan
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Reflective Journals ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Narrative Studies ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Research In Education ◽  
Research Studies

<p><em>This reflective paper emerges from the reflections on my experience to carry out narrative studies in Pakistan —a country where narrative research in education is still very young. Field-notes, reflective journals and research memos were the key sources of triggering reflections on my learning to take the identity of a narrative researcher in a context where this approach is very young.  </em></p><em>My reflections show the learning experience in conceptualising and practicing narrative studies in the country. The paper shows that I took the roles of an insider, co-constructor of stories, and trust-builder while taking up the identity of a narrative researcher in Pakistan. In addition, becoming a gender sensitive and knowing language and culture of the research participants enabled me to take up the role smoothly.  Findings have pertinent implications for life history research studies in Pakistan and elsewhere.</em>

Models of Personality Development in Emerging Adulthood

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Pratt ◽  
M. Kyle Matsuba
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Adulthood ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Personality Development ◽  
Emerging Adult ◽  
Late Adolescence ◽  
The Self ◽  
Personal Goals ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 2 reviews research and theory on the life story and its development and relations to other aspects of personality. The authors introduce the integrative framework of McAdams and Pals, who described three levels in a broad model of personality: personality traits; personal goals, values, and projects; and the unique life story, which provides a degree of unity and purpose to the individual’s life. This narrative, which develops in late adolescence and emerging adulthood, as individuals become able to author their own stories, includes key scenes of emotional and personal importance to provide a sense of continuity, while remaining flexible and dynamic in incorporating changes in the self over time. The chapter ends with a description of Alison, an emerging adult from our Canadian Futures Study, who illustrates these levels and what they tell about personality development during this period.

Narrative constructions and the life history issue in brain–emotions relations

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 168-169
Author(s):  
Zsolt Unoka ◽  
Eszter Berán ◽  
Csaba Pléh
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
The Self ◽  
Emotion Development ◽  
Constructivist View ◽  
Pathological Conditions ◽  
Narrative Constructions ◽  
Contextual Dependency

AbstractEmotional reactions are rather flexible, due to the schema-like organization of complex socio-emotional situations. Some data on emotion development, and on certain pathological conditions such as alexithymia, give further support for the psychological constructivist view put forward by Lindquist et al. Narrative organization is a key component of this schematic organization. The self-related nature of narrative organization provides scaffolding to the contextual dependency of emotions.

Addicted to Hate: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. 1167-1187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Simi ◽  
Kathleen Blee ◽  
Matthew DeMichele ◽  
Steven Windisch
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cognitive Sociology ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
White Supremacists ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Desire To Change

The process of leaving deeply meaningful and embodied identities can be experienced as a struggle against addiction, with continuing cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses that are involuntary, unwanted, and triggered by environmental factors. Using data derived from a unique set of in-depth life history interviews with 89 former U.S. white supremacists, as well as theories derived from recent advances in cognitive sociology, we examine how a rejected identity can persist despite a desire to change. Disengagement from white supremacy is characterized by substantial lingering effects that subjects describe as addiction. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of identity residual for understanding how people leave and for theories of the self.

scholarly journals Constructing the self in later life: The life story of Selaelo Thias Kgatla (1949–)

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Church Leadership ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Life Review ◽  
The Self ◽  
Interview Schedule ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
The University

On 15 April 2014 the author conducted an interview with Selaelo Thias Kgatla (then 64) by means of a prearranged interview schedule to revaluate a life review. Kgatla’s years of academic and ecclesiastical involvement leading to his ordination as the minister of the Polokwane Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa at the age of 47 were considered. However, the focus was on the last 18 years before his retirement, which was to happen in December 2015. This period commenced with his ordination in 1997 and covered his involvement in church leadership as Assessor and later Moderator of the Northern Synod (since 1999) and as Moderator of the General Synod (since 2005), as well as his appointments as professor at the University of Limpopo in 1997 and at the University of Pretoria in 2010.In freezing this interview into the academic account given here, oral history and methodological sensitivities are considered. The interviewee’s ownership of his life review is acknowledged; his construction of the self as a coherent story of church leadership is respected; and the characteristics of remembering in later life are pointed out reverentially.The life review with Kgatla was expanded with interviews from colleagues and congregants of his choice who confirmed the construction of his life story as one of relationship and resistance. Finally, the author gives a concluding overview of aims achieved in the article in terms of oral methodology and the contents of a life review in which the interviewee constructed his life as a church leader on the interface between resistance and relationship.

scholarly journals The sacredness of the self, of society and of the human body: the case of a Finnish transgender pastor Marja-Sisko Aalto

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 13-27
Author(s):  
Veikko Anttonen
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Life Story ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Folk Biology ◽  
The Town

In 2008 the change of sex of a Finnish transgender pastor attracted media attention to Lutheran Christianity on a worldwide scale, which compared to other religious traditions seldom makes it to the world news. This article­ discusses the sex reassignment undergone by Marja-Sisko Aalto, a Lutheran pastor from the town of Imatra, in south eastern Finland, who in 2008, at the age of 54, was transformed into a woman. First some remarks on the relation between religion and the body are made and terminological issues are discussed briefly. The second part of the article presents Aalto's life story based on the author's interview with her in April 2010. In the last section the author discusses the Finnish cognitive scholar Ilkka Pyysiäinen’s reflection on folk biology as an explanation for making sense of the public image regarding a priest’s gender. The article concludes by looking at Marja-Sisko Aalto’s case from the perspective of marking boundaries between the categories of the self, the society and the human body. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document