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- Volume 30, Issue 1, 2020
Narrative Inquiry - Volume 30, Issue 1, 2020
Volume 30, Issue 1, 2020
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The narrative structure of stressful interpersonal events
Author(s): Ivy K. Ho, Tamara L. Newton and Allyssa McCabepp.: 1–17 (17)More LessAbstractNarrating personal experiences helps people make sense of them and contributes to improved well-being. However, little is known about how people recount stressful experiences that are interpersonal in nature. In this study, middle-aged North American women (N = 36), with lifetime histories of victimization, provided accounts of a recent stressful interpersonal event. High Point Analysis was applied to analyze the narratives. The majority (55%) of narratives were characterized by extensive evaluative content, categorized as End at High Point. The next most common (38%) category of responses were Emotional Narratives, characterized by a concentration of evaluative statements with little or no complicating action. Thus, participants’ memories of their stressful interpersonal events were caught in an unresolved, emotionally charged, limbo. Results reveal a novel approach to analyzing narratives of interpersonal stressors, and shed light on the relationship between victimization histories and narration of interpersonal experiences.
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Storying the heartbreak
Author(s): Nicole R. Harake and William L. Dunloppp.: 18–40 (23)More LessAbstractWe examined narratives of romantic breakups (i.e., breakup accounts) in relation to romantic attachment tendencies. In Study 1, participants provided accounts of difficult breakups and indicated who in the relationship initiated its dissolution. In Study 2, participants provided breakup accounts from the perspective of the initiator and the non-initiator. Breakup accounts were coded for levels of exploration (active reflection of the narrated experience) and resolution (emotional closure and a sense of resiliency). Across studies, levels of resolution were highest in self-initiated, when compared to other-initiated, breakup accounts. In Study 2, avoidant attachment correlated negatively with levels of resolution in self-initiated, but not other-initiated, breakup accounts. These results suggest that avoidantly attached individuals narrate self-initiated breakups in a less thoroughly processed manner than their secure peers, and that these differences in transformational processing may carry implications for romantic domain functioning.
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Imaginal dialogue as a method of narrative inquiry
Author(s): Nini Fangpp.: 41–58 (18)More LessAbstractThis paper joins the discussions on imaginal dialogue with references to the relational turn in psychoanalysis. It explores imaginal dialogue as a creative, relational endeavour in evoking the unconscious materials. By describing my own imaginal dialogue with Virginia Woolf, it exemplifies the potentiality of reading as an embodied, co-constructed interplay between the reader and the text. The deepening of relational and dialogical engagement with the text not only stirs the affective depth in the reader, but also brings the reader to conjure the presence of the author as an object for relatedness in the process of narrative inquiry. Imaginal dialogue transgresses beyond the poststructuralist allowance of interpretive pluralism to relational processes of working with the encounters with the presence of the author as their imaginary co-inquirer. Imaginal dialogue, I argue, not only provides an alternative kind of narrative framing, but the imaginal relationship becomes the very locus of knowledge creation.
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Exploring autobiographical memory specificity and narrative emotional processing in alexithymia
Author(s): Christin Camia, Olivier Desmedt and Olivier Luminetpp.: 59–79 (21)More LessAbstractAlexithymia encompasses difficulties in identifying and expressing feelings along with an externally oriented cognitive style. While previous studies found that higher alexithymia scores were related to an impaired memory for emotional content, no study so far investigated how alexithymia affects autobiographical narratives. Narrating personal events, however, is impaired in emotionally disturbed patients in that they tend to recall overgeneral descriptions instead of specific episodes, which impairs their narrative emotional processing. Adopting a qualitative approach, this pilot study explored autobiographical memory specificity, cognitive, perceptual and emotional word use, and narrative closure in eight alcohol-dependent participants scoring very high or low in alexithymia. High alexithymia participants showed no reduced memory specificity but impaired emotional processing and narrative elaboration, especially when talking about negative events. Presumably because of this we found no group differences regarding narrative closure. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive and emotional processing, avoidance strategies, and narrative psychology.
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Telling stories and sharing cultures for constructing identity and solidarity
Author(s): Hakyoon Leepp.: 80–103 (24)More LessAbstractThis study investigates how immigrant workers construct their identities and social relations by telling stories in multilingual work environments. My main interest lies in naturally occurring and interactionally achieved stories, from the participants’ day-to-day interaction at a workplace. Data were collected from the informal interaction among employees at a nursing home in Honolulu. Positioning itself against studies that focus on linguistic competence of workers and potential problems of miscommunication and exclusion, this study highlights how employees draw upon shared cultural resources for a more inclusive interaction.
The analysis of multi-party storytelling shows the dynamic nature of the multilingual interaction, and how the participants achieve their interactional goals in their specific spatial contexts. It shows how the multilingualism varies in the local realization and how the participants put their efforts into finding common ground for belonging, achieving social inclusion, and negotiating mutual understanding with respect to their languages and cultures.
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Drinking stories of emerging adults
Author(s): Kateřina Lojdovápp.: 104–121 (18)More LessAbstractThe period of emerging adulthood is seen as a period of transition from adolescence to adulthood and is associated with increased alcohol consumption. The aim of the study is to understand the meaning of alcohol for emerging adults through stories about alcohol intoxication. Eighty-two drinking stories written by emerging adults were analysed using the narrative oriented inquiry (NOI) method. The results are divided into three layers: (1) contents of the drinking stories, (2) discourses of drinking stories, (3) (re)construction of the identity of emerging adults in drinking stories. I sought to extend the current knowledge on drinking stories in two ways: (a) localization within emerging adulthood, (b) by using NOI methodology. Results show the importance of drinking stories for identity construction of emerging adults and as markers of the beginning and the end of emerging adulthood, albeit not a linear one.
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Tara Rai’s Chhapamar Yuwatiko Diary
Author(s): Khagendra Acharya, Orla T. Muldoon and Jangab Chauhanpp.: 122–141 (20)More LessAbstractThis paper examines Tara Rai’s Chhapamar Yuwatiko Diary [‘A Diary of a Young Guerrilla Girl’] (2010) – a memoir which describes a 15-year-old girl’s experience of first armed encounter, subsequent detainment, and release from the custody towards the end of the Maoist war in Nepal. We analyze the author’s narrative of adversity and distress, using thematic analysis. Three themes, namely, (1) perception of impending death, (2) severe stress reactions, and (3) gradual recovery are found in temporal succession. In a subsequent analysis, we examine using content analysis the personal, group, and socio-political factors linked to these dominant themes to understand the dynamics associated with Rai’s understanding of personal experience, and adjustment to violence. Discussion of the findings orient the readers of this narrative not only to how Rai’s perception of her trauma experience changes but also to how this account can inform the way people negotiate the trauma of war.
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Reconstructing agency using reported private thought in narratives of survivors of sex trafficking
Author(s): Sue Lockyer and Leah Wingardpp.: 142–160 (19)More LessAbstractThis project investigates narratives of survivors of sex trafficking posted on YouTube and focuses specifically on moments when the survivor started a transition from being trafficked to becoming free. Narrative analysis is used to explore recurrent narrative features and we find that the description of life or death circumstances is one common context for the decision to escape being trafficked. Furthermore, we show how speakers use reported private thoughts (RPT) to narrate the turning point in which they had a realization about their current situation. We examine how the speaker reconstructs her realization, her in-the-moment stance, and subsequent agency in her turning point narrative as she reports how and why she took action to make a change in the situation. The analysis provides insight into how survivors of sex trafficking have transitioned away from trafficking, and how they reconstruct their agency in doing so.
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“I’ll tell you later on”
Author(s): Jakub Mlynářpp.: 161–184 (24)More LessAbstractThis article investigates an interactional phenomenon in which oral history interview participants deal with temporal structure in extended storytelling. It is based on the observation that while narrating a life story, participants routinely use its temporal structure as an organizing principle of the interview. Drawing inspiration from Sacks’ notion of tying devices and Genette’s distinction of prolepsis/analepsis, I have identified two forms of practices that interrelate storytelling sequences in an interview. For the first form, I propose the term analeptic tying: in this practice, turns produced earlier are treated as a resource for the current turn. For the second form, I propose the term proleptic tying, which refers to planned turns of speech that have yet to be produced being treated as a resource. I discuss the proleptic and analeptic tying devices in relation to relevant research in ethnomethodology/conversation analysis, which is the approach taken in this article.
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Vivid elements in Dutch educational texts
Author(s): Nina L. Sangers, Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul, Ted J. M. Sanders and Hans Hoekenpp.: 185–209 (25)More LessAbstractEducational publishers often make their expository texts more vivid, by making them emotionally interesting, concrete and imagery-provoking, and proximate in a sensory, temporal, or spatial way. Previous studies have found mixed results regarding the effects of vividness on the attractiveness, comprehensibility, and memorability of educational texts. In order to be able to account for these mixed results, we chart and describe the various ways in which educational texts can be made more vivid. Drawing from the literature on narrativity, we define prototypical narrative elements in the educational domain (i.e., particularized events, experiencing character, landscape of consciousness), and demonstrate that Dutch Social Studies and Science texts apply these elements in varying combinations. Subsequently, we illustrate how texts can be given a voice by imitating a direct, “here and now” author-student interaction.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 34 (2024)
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Volume 33 (2023)
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Volume 32 (2022)
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Volume 31 (2021)
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Volume 30 (2020)
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Volume 29 (2019)
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Volume 28 (2018)
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Volume 27 (2017)
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Volume 26 (2016)
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Volume 25 (2015)
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Volume 24 (2014)
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Volume 23 (2013)
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Volume 22 (2012)
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Volume 21 (2011)
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Volume 20 (2010)
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Volume 19 (2009)
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Volume 18 (2008)
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Volume 17 (2007)
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Volume 16 (2006)
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Volume 15 (2005)
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Volume 14 (2004)
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Volume 13 (2003)
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Volume 12 (2002)
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Volume 11 (2001)
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Volume 10 (2000)
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Volume 9 (1999)
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Volume 8 (1998)
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Author(s): Jens Brockmeier
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