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. 

NARRATIVES AND BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH. USES, SCOPE AND CHALLENGES FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (Especial) ◽  
pp. 76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Rubilar Donoso
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Social Interventions ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
Human Care

This article reviews the scope and potential of research done using a biographical approach and the role that this approach adopts in giving voice to experiences lived by the subjects. Special emphasis is placed on the use of narratives to construct life stories, histories and testimonies, incorporating elements for a discussion about their use and enhancement as an approach for research and intervention. This article is written from an interdisciplinary perspective, recognizing the strengths of this approach that can be applied to diverse disciplines within social sciences, humanities and health sciences. This paper analyzes the trends that have influenced in studies from a biographical approach, considering historical and epistemological aspects. This is particularly relevant for disciplines related to human care, such as Nursing or Social Work that deal with narratives of participants who have faced situations of pain or illness. The narrative-biographical approach allows us to retrieve these histories and to contribute to the memories of people willing to narrate their experiences. The article concludes by examining the contemporary uses of this approach both in research and in social interventions. Current challenges related to this approach are discussed and also the possibility of combining it with multimedia devices and the use of information technology.

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>

scholarly journals Voyageurs malgré eux: Silence, embodiment, and exposure in Minh Tran Huy and Doan Bui

2021 ◽  
pp. 095715582110259
Author(s):  
Caroline D. Laurent
Keyword(s):  
Second Generation ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
The Body ◽  
French Society ◽  
Dual Identity ◽  
Vietnamese Literature ◽  
Asian Descent ◽  
Vietnamese Community ◽  
Body Self ◽  
Do So

In recent Franco-Vietnamese literature written by descendants of immigrants, the liminality of exile is portrayed in all its complexity through migrant bodies – that of parents’ bodies – and through political and social bodies – linked to History and the Việt Kiều’s positionality in French society. The experience of external movement becomes an internal one, creating porosity between the outside and the body, self and others, places and times. This article argues that, in Minh Tran Huy’s Voyageur malgré lui and Doan Bui’s Le Silence de mon père, by representing their family’s migration, both authors present the silenced histories of the Vietnamese community in France. In order to do so, Tran Huy and Bui first focus on uncovering and writing the stories of their silent fathers: through their embodiment of exilic history, the fathers transmit the wound of their immigrant condition to their daughters. Consequently, daughters come to manifest similar bodily expressions of traumas they have not experienced and know little about. The fathers’ histories are eventually voiced and re-invested by the second generation. This shows how the unearthing of their fathers’ life stories is also about reappropriating a dual identity as well as making Asian diasporic perspectives and histories visible, notably to create new avenues of representation for French individuals of Asian descent.

Capturing life histories about movements into and out of poverty: A road with pits and bumps

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tineke Schiettecat ◽  
Griet Roets ◽  
Michel Vandenbroeck
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Social Work Interventions ◽  
A Current

In order to take into account the power imbalances typically implicated in knowledge production about the complex social problem of poverty, social work researchers have increasingly acknowledged the importance of grasping the viewpoints and perspectives of people in poverty situations. In this contribution, we accordingly reflect on a current life history research project that retrospectively explores the life stories of parents with young children with regard to their mobility into and out of poverty that is examined in dynamic interaction with social work interventions. In this article, we discuss methodological and ethical challenges and complexities that we unexpectedly encountered in our research venture, as illustrated by three exemplary vignettes. These examples demonstrate issues of power between the researcher and the research participants that are not only inevitable, but also generate dilemmas, struggles and ambiguities that often remain underexposed in the ways scientific insights are reported. Rather than disguising these pits and bumps, we argue for a reflexive research stance which makes these issues of power in knowledge production susceptible to contemplation and scrutiny.

scholarly journals Self-portrait of the philosopher in the context of the enlightement

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-217
Author(s):  
Vanja Radakovic
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Literary History ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

In the history of philosophy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is mainly considered as an atypical philosopher of the Enlightenment, as a pioneer of the revolutionary idea of a free civilian state and natural law; in literary history, he is considered the forerunner of Romanticism, the writer who perfected the form of an epistolary novel, as well as a sentimentalist. However, this paper focuses on the biographical approach, which was mostly excluded in observation of those works revealing Rousseau as the originator of the autobiographical novelistic genre. The subject of this paper is the issue of credibility of self-portraits, and through this problem it highlights the facts from the author?s life. This paper relies on a biographical approach, not in the positivistic sense but in the phenomenological key. This paper is mainly inspired by the works of the Geneva School theorists - Starobinski, Poulet and Rousset.

scholarly journals La transfiguración en la autobiografía como experiencia terapéutica / Transfiguration in the Autobiography as a Therapeutic Experience

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-64
Author(s):  
Yenny Patricia López Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Therapeutic Experience ◽  
Deep Knowledge

ABSTRACTThis text presents the phenomenon of transfiguration that has been revealed during the development of a biographical-narrative research with Colombian and Spanish teachers. It has been observed that this change occurs in the person when he narrates his experiences, shaping the memory and altering a lived reality. This alteration in the perception of the memories can profoundly transform the person and give the possibility to rewrite the life history. The purpose of the research is the deep knowledge of significant experiences of a group of participants through autobiography and biography. Autobiographical development process and simultaneously exposed the underlying phenomenon of transformation that occurs when narrates the life and remembers the experiences that have been significant throughout its existence. The research uses a qualitative methodology through written autobiographies, interviews and biographical conversations.RESUMENNuestra investigación principal se propone el profundo conocimiento de las experiencias vitales significativas de un grupo de participantes colombianos y españoles mediante la autobiografía y la biografía. Durante su desarrollo se desveló un fenómeno simultáneo de transformación que se origina cuando narramos nuestra vida y repasamos las experiencias que han sido significativas a lo largo de nuestra existencia. Hacemos uso de una metodología cualitativa con enfoque biográfico-narrativo para acercarnos al fenómeno autobiográfico, en la cual realizamos entrevistas y conversaciones en profundidad con nuestros participantes. Esto nos ha permitido observar el fenómeno que se produce en la persona cuando narra su propia vida, el cual hace referencia a la trasformación del recuerdo y altera una realidad vivida que puede llegar moldear la forma de ver o interpretar la realidad. Esta alteración en la percepción de nuestros recuerdos puede transformarnos profundamente y brindarnos la posibilidad de reescribir nuestra historia vital.

Tell me your story about the Chilean dictatorship: When doing memory is taking positions

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela Cornejo ◽  
Carolina Rocha ◽  
Nicolás Villarroel ◽  
Enzo Cáceres ◽  
Anastassia Vivanco
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Chilean Dictatorship ◽  
The Right

The current memory struggles about the Chilean dictatorship makes it increasingly relevant to hear a diverse range of voices on the subject. One way of addressing this is to study autobiographical narratives, in which people construct a character to present themselves as the protagonists of a story by taking multiple positions regarding what is remembered. This article presents a study that analyzed the life stories of Chilean people (diverse in their generations, cities, experiences of political repression, political orientations and socio-economic levels) and that distinguished between the positions that they take when presenting themselves as the protagonists of an autobiographical story about the Chilean dictatorship. The results point to salient and recurrent positions that allow people to earn the right to be considered part of the social history of the dictatorship, that involve different definitions regarding those responsible and the victims of what happened, and that unveil a strong family and filial logic of remembering.

Learning Languages Abroad

2018 ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Alex Pinar
Keyword(s):  
Study Abroad ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Japanese Student ◽  
Oral Expression

This chapter presents research on language learning abroad and its influence on the development of oral expression. By using biographical-narrative research methods, specifically linguistic life stories, this work examines the experiences and beliefs of a Japanese student of Spanish who has studied this language in Spain on several occasions. This study attempts to determine how study abroad has influenced his language training and the development of his communicative competence, in particular oral expression. At the same time, it describes how the length of each stay abroad has helped or hindered the language learning process, the interaction with native speakers, and the practice of speaking skills.

Influence of a reservoir with surface release on the life history of the mayfly Heterocloeon curiosum (McDunnough) (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae)

1981 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris C. Kondratieff ◽  
J. Reese Voshell Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Benthic Macroinvertebrates ◽  
Temperature Regime ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Larval Instars ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lake Anna

The life history of Heterocloeon curiosum was compared in the impounded North Anna River (NAR) and the free-flowing South Anna River (SAR) in Virginia, U.S.A. The study site on the NAR was 32 km below Lake Anna, a surface-release reservoir. Heterocloeon curiosum was bivoltine in both rivers with two summer generations and probable overwintering in the egg stage. It passed through 10 larval instars (range 9–12) in both rivers. The density of larvae was twice as great in the SAR as the NAR. Factors which may have contributed to the lesser success of H. curiosum in the NAR included bottom scouring produced by sudden increases in discharge, absence of the macrophyte Podostemum, quality of available food, and alterations of the temperature regime. Of these four factors, temperature probably had the most significant effect. The emergence of the second generation was 1 month later in the NAR because the reservoir delayed the normal seasonal cooling of the river. The nonoptimal temperature regime appeared to significantly reduce the fecundity of H. curiosum in the NAR. Our data indicate that surface-release reservoirs may have subtle but significant effects on the life histories of benthic macroinvertebrates.

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