93 research outputs found
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Responding to the honor of the festschrift, I name and honour those who guided me, especially my mentor, Elliot Mishler. I describe a path from initial fascination with the idea of a âstoryâ to my subsequent work that expanded the study of narrative in the human sciences. Efforts to understand how individuals interpretedâmade sense ofâevents and situations that had interrupted their lives led me to discoveries about narrative form, apparent only after close textual interactional analysis. Recently, the appeal of narrative has mushroomed; I urge scholars not to lose sight of features that distinguish it from other forms of discourse
Topic Modeling and Text Analysis for Qualitative Policy Research
This paper contributes to a critical methodological discussion that has direct ramifications for policy studies: how computational methods can be concretely incorporated into existing processes of textual analysis and interpretation without compromising scientific integrity. We focus on the computational method of topic modeling and investigate how it interacts with two larger families of qualitative methods: content and classification methods characterized by interest in words as communication units and discourse and representation methods characterized by interest in the meaning of communicative acts. Based on analysis of recent academic publications that have used topic modeling for textual analysis, our findings show that different mixedâmethod research designs are appropriate when combining topic modeling with the two groups of methods. Our main concluding argument is that topic modeling enables scholars to apply policy theories and concepts to much larger sets of data. That said, the use of computational methods requires genuine understanding of these techniques to obtain substantially meaningful results. We encourage policy scholars to reflect carefully on methodological issues, and offer a simple heuristic to help identify and address critical points when designing a study using topic modeling.Peer reviewe
Giving an Account of Oneâs Pain in the Anthropological Interview
In this paper, I analyze the illness stories narrated by a mother and her 13-year-old son as part of an ethnographic study of child chronic pain sufferers and their families. In examining some of the moral, relational and communicative challenges of giving an account of oneâs pain, I focus on what is left out of some accounts of illness and suffering and explore some possible reasons for these elisions. Drawing on recent work by Judith Butler (Giving an Account of Oneself, 2005), I investigate how the pragmatic context of interviews can introduce a form of symbolic violence to narrative accounts. Specifically, I use the term âgenre of complaintâ to highlight how anthropological research interviews in biomedical settings invoke certain typified forms of suffering that call for the rectification of perceived injustices. Interview narratives articulated in the genre of complaint privilege specific types of pain and suffering and cast others into the background. Giving an account of oneâs pain is thus a strategic and selective process, creating interruptions and silences as much as moments of clarity. Therefore, I argue that medical anthropologists ought to attend more closely to the institutional structures and relations that shape the production of illness narratives in interview encounters
Virology Experts in the Boundary Zone Between Science, Policy and the Public: A Biographical Analysis
This article aims to open up the biographical black box of three experts working in the boundary zone between science, policy and public debate. A biographical-narrative approach is used to analyse the roles played by the virologists Albert Osterhaus, Roel Coutinho and Jaap Goudsmit in policy and public debate. These figures were among the few leading virologists visibly active in the Netherlands during the revival of infectious diseases in the 1980s. Osterhaus and Coutinho in particular are still the key figures today, as demonstrated during the outbreak of novel influenza A (H1N1). This article studies the various political and communicative challenges and dilemmas encountered by these three virologists, and discusses the way in which, strategically or not, they handled those challenges and dilemmas during the various stages of the fieldâs recent history. Important in this respect is their pursuit of a public role that is both effective and credible. We will conclude with a reflection on the H1N1 pandemic, and the historical and biographical ties between emerging governance arrangements and the experts involved in the development of such arrangements
What Might Have Been Lost
This article examines the role of âindependentâ folk music (indie-folk) in personal identity formation. It builds upon Paul Ricoeurâs theory of narrative identity, which argues (i) that it is through the mechanism of narrative that people build a more or less coherent life-story, and (ii) emphasizes the role of art (most notably literary fiction and poetry) as a mediator in the comprehension and regulation of transitory life experiences. This article aims to apply these insights to studying the role of indie-folk, a narrative art form adhering to the traditional understanding of folk music as a genre rooted in oral tradition, in the construction of personal identity. Studying the daily use of indie-folk songs by audience members through in-depth interviewing, it shows that (i) the reception of indie-folk music results in ritualistic listening behavior aimed at coping with the experience of accelerating social time; (ii) that respondents use indie-folk narratives as resources for reading the self, and (iii) that indie-folk songs provide healing images that are effective in coping with the experience of narrated time as discordant. In arguing for the central role of narrative in identity formation, this article aims to contribute to existing research on music as a âtechnology of the selfâ (DeNora). It specifically emphasizes how narrative particles are tools and building blocks in identity construction, a process characterized by the oscillation between narrative coherence and disruption
Aprendendo com as narrativas num estudo sobre reflexividade e articulação empreendedora
Navigating a river by its bends. A study on transnational social networks as resources for the transformation of Cambodia
This article explores in what ways first generation Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees create and employ the social capital available in their transnational social networks upon their return to Cambodia. The triangular interdependence between the returnees, their overseas immigrant communities and homeland society is taken as a starting point. The central argument is that Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees build different relationships to Cambodia due to: (1) the influence of their immigrant communities in the countries of resettlement; and (2) the contexts of their exit from Cambodia. Regarding debates on the contribution of returnees to an emergent nation, findings in this multisited casestudy bring forward that ideas of return held by the three parties involved may force remigrants into transnationalism in both host and home countries. Findings also demonstrate that social capital may be seen as a resource or a restraint in the lives of returnees
Painting the Body: Feminist Musings on Visual Autographies
In this paper I look at autographical depictions of the body in the work of Mato Ioannidou, a Greek woman artist, who participated in a wider narrative-based project on visual and textual entanglements between life and art. The paper unfolds in three parts: first, I give an overview of Ioannidouâs artwork, making connections with significant events in her life; then I discuss feminist theorizations of embodiment and visual auto/biography; and finally I draw on insights from Spinozist feminist philosophers to discuss the artistâs portrayal of womenâs bodies in three cycles of her work. What I argue is that the body becomes a centerpiece in the attempt to perceive connections between life and art through expressionism rather than representation
Narrative Analysis
Narrative analysis in the human sciences refers to a family of approaches to
diverse kinds of texts, which have in common a storied form. As nations and
governments construct preferred narratives about history, so do social
movements, organisations, scientists, other professionals, ethnic/racial groups,
and individuals in stories of experience. What makes such diverse texts
ânarrativeâ is sequence and consequence: events are selected, organised,
connected, and evaluated as meaningful for a particular audience. Storytellers
interpret the world and experience in it; they sometimes create moral tales â
how the world should be. Narratives represent storied ways of knowing and
communicating (Hinchman and Hinchman, 1997). I focus here on oral
narratives of personal experience
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