Collective/Traditional Narrative as a Source of Fiction

Before writing there has been the oral. This orality is the collective narrative that enables the individual living in the society to comply with the rules and rituals

From campfire to coliseum: motivations for using social networks

Purpose Through a literature review, a gap has been identified regarding the role of competition as a driver of social network (SN) usage. This study aims to design to address this gap, seeking motivators for SN usage based on how SN consumption may be related to users’ experience of competition. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of competition in social media usage. Design/methodology/approach The authors used an exploratory qualitative approach, conducting a set of focus groups with young social media users. Data was analyzed with software. Findings Two new drivers for SN use are proposed, namely, competition and collective narrative. Research limitations/implications This is an exploratory study, and it does not seek to generalize results or quantify causal relationships among variables. Practical implications This paper offers SN managers a deeper understanding of key growth drivers for these media. Social implications This research can help society understand and debate the impacts of SNs on users’ lives, providing insights into drivers of excessive usage. Originality/value This paper proposes the following two SN usage drivers yet to be described in the literature: competition and collective narrative.

Chachnama Discourse: The Dichotomy of Islamic Origins in South Asia

The common narrative of the arrival of Islam in South Asia is shaping contemporary discourse on religious nationalism in the subcontinent. However, this common narrative tends to marginalise the origins of Shias in the region. The study employs the critical theory of New Historicism to trace the historiography of the text in context to the schism among Muslims and discusses the ways in which it participates with only the Sunni origins in the region which are in stark contrast to the Shia origins. Therefore, the paper introspects upon whether Chachnama exclusively a Sunni perspective of the conquest. The findings indicate the marginalisation of Shias in the collective narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia.

The Modern “Experience”

This chapter analyzes “Experience,” the popular and long-running Detroit News advice column that transformed into a vibrant virtual community. “Experience” letter writers became longtime, regular contributors, addressing their letters not just to columnist Nancy Brown but to other participants—and to readers writ large. They crafted a collective narrative around the loneliness of city life and assuaged their sadness through the anonymous comfort of strangers, with whom they fostered long-term and deeply felt virtual friendships. The column’s anonymity promised its participants freedom of expression and a space for authentic confession—even as many of the biographical details participants shared were likely embellished or altered. Columns like “Experience” established the language and practices of virtual communities decades before the emergence of the Internet.

Exploring the impact of a complex intervention for women with depression in contexts of adversity: A pilot feasibility study of COURRAGE-plus in South Africa

Background: Depression is a leading cause of disease burden worldwide but is often undertreated in low- and middle-income countries. Reasons behind the treatment gap vary, but many highlight a lack of interventions which speak to the socio-economic and structural realties that are associated to mental health problems in many settings, including South Africa. The COURRAGE-PLUS intervention responds to this gap, by combining a collective narrative therapy (9 weeks) intervention, with a social intervention promoting group-led practical action against structural determinants of poor mental health (4 weeks), for a total of 13 sessions. The overall aim is to promote mental health, while empowering communities to acknowledge, and respond in locally meaningful ways to social adversity linked to development of mental distress. Aim: To pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention – COURRAGE-PLUS on symptoms of depression as assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) among a sample of women facing contexts of adversity in Gauteng, South Africa. Methods: PHQ-9 scores were assessed at baseline, post collective narrative therapy (midline), and post social intervention (endline). Median scores and corresponding interquartile ranges were computed for all time points. Differences in scores between time points were tested with a non-parametric Friedman test. The impact across symptom severities was compared descriptively to identify potential differences in impact across categories of symptom severity within our sample. Results: Participants’ ( n = 47) median depression score at baseline was 11 (IQR = 7) and reduced to 4 at midline (IQR = 7) to 0 at endline (IQR = 2.5). The Friedman test showed a statistically significant difference between depression scores across time points, [Formula: see text](2) = 49.29, p < .001. Median depression scores were reduced to 0 or 1 Post-Intervention across all four severity groups. Conclusions: COURRAGE-PLUS was highly effective at reducing symptoms of depression across the spectrum of severities in this sample of women facing adversity, in Gauteng, South Africa. Findings supports the need for larger trials to investigate collective narrative storytelling and social interventions as community-based interventions for populations experiencing adversity and mental distress.

Creation and renunciation in Ricoeur’s political ethics of compromise

Ricoeur interpreted the work of compromise as a creative process to imagine a new world by projecting ourselves into other people. The challenge of compromise is to learn to tell our own story differently within the contours of a broader collective narrative, in compliance with the paradigm of translation. As such, Ricoeur’s political ethics of compromise is at risk of highlighting the element of creation, which refers to the social imagination of a shared vision of a better society, at the cost of recognition of the element of renunciation, which refers to the reciprocal shelving of ideas and desires that the other side considers to be truly intolerable. However, I argue that we can read a delicate connection between forgetting, forgoing and forgiving in Ricoeur’s thought. It is, then, the model of forgiveness, as part of the paradigm of translation, that gives due respect to the importance of renunciation through the emphasis on the unjustifiable, for which renunciation even cannot suffice. The ‘poetics of pardon’ brings creation and renunciation together and, by doing so, it highlights that compromise always remains an object of hope.

The contribution of peer trainers to the Tree of Life project for young people living with Type 1 Diabetes: Building community

This paper describes the involvement of peer trainers in Tree of Life groups for young people living with Type 1 Diabetes. The approach is informed by narrative therapy and collective narrative practice and principles, where people are seen as separate from problems and the focus is on creating opportunities for people to tell and witness one another’s preferred identity stories. Young people who have participated in a Tree of Life day are invited to join the project as peer trainers who help facilitate, engage group participants, witness their stories and consult to the project. Involving peer trainers also aims to create a community where preferred identity stories can be lived and witnessed. This paper describes the training for peer trainers and the building of community.

The care by obstetric nurses: the encounter between self care bodies and other woman who is cared for

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the obstetric nurses’ discourse on self-care and decisions make of their life and body, and their relation with care for other women. Method: A qualitative, post-structuralist research with 14 obstetric nurses. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews and submitted to discourse analysis, based on the concepts of Foucault. Results: The findings reveal that caring of obstetric nurses is produced in the encounter between their own body and the body of the women under their care. The nursing profession was presented not only as a means of work and support but as an essential device for the training of women as subjects. The collective narrative is marked by the attitude of compassion, by the processes of subjectivity incited by the professional practice, by indicators of critical and political care, and by the construction of an interlocking network among obstetrical nurses. Conclusions and implications for practice: Acting in obstetric nursing results in self-care and care(less) effects of other women. The study contributes to the analysis and knowledge of the life and work scenario of obstetrical nurses. It also reassures the potential of care as an art that is present in the women’s practices.