scholarly journals The existential imperative in narrating experience

COMPASS ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55
Author(s):  
Thea Luig

The idea that the act of narrating one’s experience, in particular reorganizing disruptive experiences into a coherent story, is conducive to well-being has become popular in the social sciences and in therapeutic practice. Ways of remembering and narrating draw on templates of the larger societal, historical, and cultural context and thus situate the memory of one’s particular experience within a collectively shared world. However, other voices argue that the driving force of storytelling is less the need for coherence or continuity, but rather the reconstruction of a sense of agency in intersubjective relationships. This paper will explore the question of what is at stake, what is existentially imperative, in the human practice of narrating experience. Using a phenomenological framework that pays attention to the intersubjective space of perception and experience, I will apply narrative approaches drawing on medical anthropolog y, linguistics, and psychology to my conversations with Mary, a long-time caregiver for chronically ill family members.

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110051
Author(s):  
Annekatrin Skeide

Unlike sonographic examinations, sonic fetal heartbeat monitoring has received relatively little attention from scholars in the social sciences. Using the case of fetal heartbeat monitoring as part of midwifery prenatal care in Germany, this contribution introduces music as an analytical tool for exploring the aesthetic dimensions of obstetrical surveillance practices. Based on ethnographic stories, three orchestrations are compared in which three different instruments help audiences to listen to what becomes fetal heartbeat music and to qualify fetal and pregnant lives in relation to each other. In the Doppler-based orchestration, audible heartbeat music is taken as a sign of a child in need of parental love and care cultivated to listen. The Pinard horn makes esoteric fetal music that can be appreciated by the midwife as a skilled instrumentalist alone and helps to enact a child hidden in the belly. The cardiotocograph brings about soothing music and a reassuring relationship with a child but also durable scripts of juridical beauty. This material-semiotic analysis amplifies how well-being is shaped in midwifery prenatal care practices.


Author(s):  
Genevieve R Cox ◽  
Paula FireMoon ◽  
Michael P Anastario ◽  
Adriann Ricker ◽  
Ramey Escarcega-Growing Thunder ◽  
...  

Theoretical frameworks rooted in Western knowledge claims utilized for public health research in the social sciences are not inclusive of American Indian communities. Developed by Indigenous researchers, Indigenous standpoint theory builds from and moves beyond Western theoretical frameworks. We argue that using Indigenous standpoint theory in partnership with American Indian communities works to decolonize research related to American Indian health in the social sciences and combats the effects of colonization in three ways. First, Indigenous standpoint theory aids in interpreting how the intersections unique to American Indians including the effects of colonization, tribal and other identities, and cultural context are linked to structural inequalities for American Indian communities. Second, Indigenous standpoint theory integrates Indigenous ways of knowing with Western research orientations and methodologies in a collaborative process that works to decolonize social science research for American Indians. Third, Indigenous standpoint theory promotes direct application of research benefits to American Indian communities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Tudor Irimiaș ◽  
Giuseppe Carbone ◽  
Adrian Pîslă

The essence of social sciences is well encompassed in Green’s (2006) quote “People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used. ” For this reason, social sciences are important, as major research paradigm on how and why individuals interrelate. The aim of the actual research is to look for a conceptual approach activity, as part of a larger project focused on individual rehabilitation. The brain is trained to react to the stimulus and command a behavior. The premise, for the considered approach, is understanding the social sciences as revealing the individuals interests for self conscience, well being and moral values and drawing the line to it’s importance for governments authorities, policymakers or NGO’s.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Drance Elias da Silva

This Article may be situated within the rapport field between Philosophy and Social Sciences, at the search regarding to the concept concerning the Representation. Regarding to Philosophy, under a general view, the concept, concerning Representation, has been, since a long time, understood as a trail which one would get througl reaching to the real and true ones. Representation, as the thought contents expression form had not been known departing from Philosophy as a barrier against the objectivity concerning the knowledge. Representation, in its source, has been constituting itself a cognictive, inmanent reflection, related to the conscience inner subjectivity. But departing from the episthemological point of view, it has been not so easy for the campus concerning the Culture Sciences as a totality. In the theory regarding to knowledge, the Social Sciences campus and, more specifically, in the human life Symbolic dimension constitutive aspects, it has been, often, accepted negatively as an entry door for the histotical social reality. Nowadays, one may conclude that the contents concerning the Culture are deeply rooted within the histotical reality, which may present new dimension the reading regarding to the Symbolical side concerning the human life, under the view regarding to the unseen aspect, such as the intellectualistic Western dominant Culture allows understanding the way which could be in.


Author(s):  
О. О. Стрельнікова

The present article is devoted to the problems of inclusion in modern Ukrainian society. The concept and essence of inclusion are studied from the point of view of the theory of social comprehension (of the essence of inclusive group), dynamics of social structure and social interactions. The inclusion is divided into social and educational forms according to the modern approaches to considering types of inclusion. The main forms of inclusion are analyzed from the point of view of pedagogical and social sciences. Special attention is given to the social inclusion in modern Ukrainian society. The comparative analysis of the categories «integration» and «inclusion» is carried out and the main common and distinctive features of these categories are determined in the article. It is said that social inclusion can be analyzed only in context of social exclusion, because they are both parts of the same social process. The potential of such further analysis are researched. The peculiarities of the process of social inclusion in modern Ukrainian society are analyzed. The main characteristics of social inclusion are described in the article on the basis of analysis of modern scientific literature. Special attention is given to the social inclusion in social work and social science. From the point of view of socio-pedagogical science social inclusion is analyzed as democratic action about comprehension somebody or the whole social group into some activity or cultural process. Social inclusion in modern Ukrainian society becomes social mechanism, some kind of an instrument, aimed at overcoming the barriers and constraints on the path to social well-being, which radically changes the existing state social politics. The results of the research are used in the social work, pedagogical and social sciences.


Author(s):  
Francisco Guzmán Castillo

ABSTRACTDisease and disability are two concepts closely linked for a long time, so that the second seems to be merely a consequence of the first. Even today both realities are treated as if they were the same thing in many public contexts and legal documents. However, this link between disease and disability is not as unavoidable as is often implied. According to the approach outlined in this paper it comes to different realities that are interpreted as part of the same thing under the code of the medical gaze. This paper presents and critically analyzes the archaeological origin of the interpretation of the person with disabilities and chronically ill in the discourse called «medical rehabilitation». Under this paradigm is imposed on the person with disabilities the social mandate to rehabilitate and/or cure to, so, be reintegrated and contribute to society. Otherwise, will be doomed to exclusion.RESUMENEnfermedad y discapacidad son dos conceptos estrechamente vinculados entre sí desde hace mucho tiempo, de manera que la segunda no parece más que una consecuencia de la primera. Aún hoy se tratan ambas realidades como si fueran la misma cosa en multitud de contextos públicos y documentos jurídicos. Sin embargo, este vínculo entre enfermedad y discapacidad no es tan ineludible como a menudo se da a entender. Según el planteamiento expuesto en este trabajo, se trata de realidades distintas que son interpretadas como parte de una misma cosa bajo el código de la mirada médica. Este trabajo presenta y analiza de forma crítica el origen arqueológico de la interpretación de la persona con discapacidad como un enfermo crónico dentro del discurso que se denomina «médico-rehabilitador». Bajo este paradigma se impone a la persona con discapacidad el mandato social de que se rehabilite y/o se cure para, de esta manera, poder reinsertarse y aportar a la sociedad. De lo contrario, quedará condenado a la exclusión.


Author(s):  
Anthony Scime ◽  
Gregg R. Murray ◽  
Wan Huang ◽  
Carol Brownstein-Evans

Immense public resources are expended to collect large stores of social data, but often these data are under-examined thereby missing potential opportunities to shed light on some of society’s pressing problems. This chapter proposes and demonstrates data mining in general and an iterative attribute-elimination process in particular as important analytical tools to exploit more fully these important data from the social sciences. We use an iterative domain-expert and data mining process to identify attributes that are useful for addressing distinct and nontrivial research issues in social science—presidential vote choice and living arrangement outcomes for maltreated children—using the American National Election Studies (ANES) from political science and the National Survey on Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) from social work. We conclude that data mining is useful for more fully exploiting important but under-evaluated data collections for the purpose of addressing some important questions in the social sciences.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Copestake

This paper contributes to an ongoing conversation between development studies (DS) and social policy (SP) as academic fields, particularly in the UK. Using Andrew Abbott's analysis of the social sciences as an evolving system of knowledge lineages (KLs), it reflects on the status of DS and its relationship with SP. Defining DS as a distinctive KL centred on critical analysis of ideas and projects for advancing human well-being, I suggest that it has lost coherence even as research into international development thrives. Indeed it is easy to envisage its gradual assimilation into other KLs, including SP. The two increasingly overlap in their analysis of the causes of relative poverty and injustice, and what can be done to address them, within countries and globally. Strengthening links between the two fields can be justified as a political project, even at the risk of some loss of plurality and plenitude across the social sciences.


1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Van den Berg ◽  
T. F.J. Dreyer

An introductory study to identify and classify theories of learning with regard to the task of preaching Learning is a lifelong process in which man must be what he can be, namely a being interacting with his world in a creative problem-solving manner for the well-being of himself and others. In a similar sense the church has always seen her task in preaching, supported by all the other domains of churchlife, as that of teaching people to come to terms with the gospel of Jesus Christ in their daily existence. This article proposes to identify, categorize and integrate the acknowledged theories underlying the learning process, as they exist in the social sciences, into an allencompassing model for learning; a model from which conclusions are drawn in the hope that further studies can spell out the implications of these conclusions as they are applicable to the task of preaching within the church.


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