Temporal structures in Occitan and French oral narrative

This article explores the temporal structuring of Occitan and French oral narratives. Using contemporary linguistic theory and through a corpus-based analysis, it aims to explore the relationship between language and orality, with a specific focus on two key temporal features of oral narrative, i.e. frames and connectives. The authors create a digitised corpus involving three sub-corpora demonstrating different degrees of orality in Occitan and these are also compared with a French oral corpus. The analysis shows that there is quantitative evidence to support the idea that frames and connectives have complementary roles in narrative, with inverse proportions of frames and connectives in the four sub-corpora. In terms of degrees of orality, the results suggest that not only is the use of particular connectives strongly associated with oral as opposed to written narratives but also that factors relating to sources, transmission and storytelling practice are highly influential and interact with each other in complex ways. Frames are generally ‘primarily structural’ in function rather than ‘temporal and structural’ and certain frame introducers recur in all the sub-corpora but there are complex differences between the different sub-corpora and a clear link with story-type. Questions of sources, transmission and narrative practice are central to our argumentation throughout and are particularly striking in the case of the contemporary Occitan sub-corpus.

Reflexivity in research teams through narrative practice and textile-making

This article discusses narrative practice and textile-making as two techniques of researcher reflexivity in diverse teams conducting qualitative-interpretive research. Specifically, it suggests definitional ceremonies—a collective structured method of storytelling and group resonances—as a useful tool to interweave diverse researchers as a team, while maintaining the plurivocity that enables deeper reflexivity. Additionally, textile-making is introduced as a material and embodied way of expression, which complements narrative practice where words fail or need a non-linguistic form of elicitation. We illustrate the two techniques with examples from our international, collaborative qualitative-interpretive research project with demobilized guerrilla fighters in Colombia.

Pedagogy in Theory and Practice

Pedagogy can be understood as methods and practices of teaching, and/or a way of being with children. In this paper, I use critical exposition and narrative to reflect on Max van Manen’s (2012) theory of pedagogy as a relationship between adults and children. My writing is organized into alternating sections of exposition (theory) and narrative (practice) to illustrate the interplay between thinking and doing that typifies pedagogical relationships, and to demonstrate how pedagogy unfolds in the unpredictable, unexpected, unprecedented, and unique actions each of us perform in the relational events of our being with children.

Using Narrative Practices in Diverse Indian Contexts

The use of narrative practice within mental health contexts in India is relatively new. This qualitative thematic study reports on how narrative practices are being used by mental health practitioners within and outside of the therapy setting in Mumbai, India. Eleven mental health therapists were interviewed regarding their use of narrative ideas in practice. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and revealed three themes: (1) “Doing It Together” reflected the need to work in partnership, (2) “Quest for Possibility” revealed ways in which therapists were positioned and used narrative ideas to advocate for change within and beyond the therapy room, and (3) “An Evolving Journey” highlighted the personal and professional growth of therapists. Findings reveal that narrative practices have positively impacted the lives of therapists, clients, and the wider community, making it a valuable modality for promoting well-being and mental health in India.

Digital storytelling and the narrative turn in psychology: Creating spaces for collective empowerment

In this article, we propose a model that combines digital storytelling with narrative practice to create a facilitated peer-to-peer experiential learning space for collective empowerment. This model was inspired by an educational intervention that utilized participatory digital comic strip making to raise students’ awareness of bullying and its consequences. The makerspace involved allows for the creation of digital artifacts representing participants’ personal narratives. Narrative practice is grounded in the idea that there are no problematic people but rather not effective narratives about how people are supposed to act. Making digital stories, getting constructive peers feedback, and then releasing more polyphonic and adaptive sequel versions is proposed here as an effective way to raise participants’ awareness and help them integrate different points of view, as well as enrich their narratives on critical social phenomena. A significant advantage of the digital storytelling genre employed is that the digital artifacts produced have a concrete material presence: they can be shared, performed, or modified. Participants, with the help of their peers, participate in a group process facilitated by their teacher, aiming to locate and change problematic elements in their stories, and by doing so they materialize and consolidate the improvement in their personal narratives.

Testimonio and Counterstorytelling by Immigrant-Origin Children and Youth: Insights That Amplify Immigrant Subjectivities

This article seeks to amplify our scholarly view of immigrant identity by centering the first-person narratives of immigrant-origin children and youth. Our theoretical and methodological framework centers on testimonio—a narrative practice popularized in Latin American social movements in which an individual recounts a lived experience that is intended to be representative of a collective struggle. Our goal is to foreground first-person narratives of childhood as told by immigrant-origin children and youth in order to gain insight into what they believe we should know about them. We argue for the power of testimonio to communicate both extraordinary hardship and everyday experiences and that—through this storytelling—immigrant-origin children and youth also express imagined futures for themselves and their loved ones. Through our analysis of ethnographic recordings of testimonio shared by Latin American immigrant children and multimedia testimonios created by immigrant-origin adolescents with roots in the Caribbean and West Africa, we gain a fuller understanding of immigrant subjectivities and push the boundaries of “the immigrant experience” still prevalent in mainstream discussions today.