A Suspicion of Testimony and the Tradition of Institutional Contexts: An Exploration of Translative Practice for Conducting Ethically Responsible Research

If we consider the claim made by Dr. Theodore George at the 15th annual Canadian Hermeneutic Institute Conference, that there are unique contexts that require an untethering of ourselves from our tradition to better put ourselves into question, or what he considers to be an interpretative practice of translation that allows us to be “abroad in the world,” then I argue the tradition of institutional contexts is one such context requiring this necessary task of translation. I argue the testimony of the marginalized who practice within institutional contexts is tangled within institutional culture, practices, and structural power imbalances, requiring a practice of translation on the part of the hermeneutic researcher, in complement with that of conversation. This paper will explore the ways in which my doctoral research of healthcare aides’ experiences with death and dying in institutional contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic requires me to be both open and suspicious of my topic so that I may put the tradition of institutions into question to better consider the ethical obligations of my research. I will also make the claim that George’s idea of translation in hermeneutic research may lend itself to that of suspicion, but in ways that avoid some of the crevices of criticality that would serve to distance the reader from text or support explanation instead of understanding.&nbsp

Book Review: “Against Critical Thinking in Health, Social Care and Social Work: Reframing Philosophy for Professional Practice” by Professor Tom Grimwood

This article is a review of Dr. Tom Grimwood’s recent book, Against Critical Thinking in Health, Social Care and Social Work: Reframing Philosophy for Professional Practice, published by Routledge (2024). In this book, Grimwood takes the reader through a series of encounters between philosophy and practice, attempting to disrupt the well-established assumptions of critical thinking so that we may better understand criticality for its utility among care practice professionals, and as a mode of understanding. Grimwood’s work is a necessary antidote to the well-established prescriptive and methodological application of how critical thinking has historically been "used" in the caring practice professions, or how it has been persuasive in the kind of understandings it produces. At a time when the contemporary social welfare landscape is becoming increasingly politicized and economized in ways that create societal divisiveness, as was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, current conceptualizations of criticality have left care professionals without a way to bridge misinformation and misunderstanding in their practice. Thus, Grimwood considered his project to be inherently hermeneutical, wanting to remedy the all too familiar divide between theory and practice of critical thinking for practice professionals and in new and reimagined ways for applied hermeneutics

Death, Dying, and Credibility in Long-Term Care: How Healthcare Aides Were the Voiceless Other During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract  Confronted by an unprecedented number of deaths in Long-Term Care (LTC) during the COVID-19 pandemic, society had no choice but to engage in a public discourse about the state of death and dying in LTC, and the staff who were caring for residents: healthcare aides. Despite being places where older adults die, death and dying has largely been hidden within LTC homes, serving to complicate and conceal healthcare aides’ experiences at a time when LTC residents were visibly dying. Although being the subject of public discourse, healthcare aides remained voiceless during the pandemic, their experiences of caring for dying residents overlooked by the testimony of experts. Instead of healthcare aides being invited into a conversation to share their unique knowledge of death and dying in LTC, namely through that of touch and practical wisdom, they experienced a lack of epistemic credibility, having been served a testimonial injustice. Keywords healthcare aides, long-term care, death and dying, testimonial injustice, hermeneutic philosoph

Stories of Andrews: Sarah Stelfox

It was a cool day in the fall of 2014, and the leaves had just begun to change. As I turned the corner to enter the Campus Center, there stood Sarah Stelfox. Long brown locks framed her face and the movement of her hair revealed the gentle breeze which caressed the day. I remember this day as the day I met Sarah, but the encounter which has left the deepest impression on me was a cold winter evening in 2016, when Sarah bounded into Campus Ministries for Tuesday Night Talk. The first thing I noticed were her snow covered boots, but as my eyes scanned upward I caught her vibrant smile and then, to my surprise, her shiny bald head. It was this day that I had the privilege of seeing a beautiful spirit of compassion, empathy and adventure in Sarah. Sarah’s mother had been diagnosed with melanoma, rapidly had to undergo brain surgery and was now in chemotherapy. Sarah recounted to me that some time ago a friend had made a deep impression on her when she shaved her head for a cause and Sarah had thought from that time forward that one day she wanted do the same. So when Sarah’s mom was fighting cancer, feeling down and faced with losing her hair, Sarah told her mom that she would shave her head and be bald with her. What happened next? Download her story to find out. Thank you, Sarah, for letting your story be part of the Andrews story; for showing us an example of compassion, empathy and adventure. You and your story are part of the spirit of Andrews. June Price University Chaplai

Sarah Stelfox

It was a cool day in the fall of 2014, and the leaves had just begun to change. As I turned the corner to enter the Campus Center, there stood Sarah Stelfox. Long brown locks framed her face and the movement of her hair revealed the gentle breeze which caressed the day. I remember this day as the day I met Sarah, but the encounter which has left the deepest impression on me was a cold winter evening in 2016, when Sarah bounded into Campus Ministries for Tuesday Night Talk. The first thing I noticed were her snow covered boots, but as my eyes scanned upward I caught her vibrant smile and then, to my surprise, her shiny bald head. It was this day that I had the privilege of seeing a beautiful spirit of compassion, empathy and adventure in Sarah. Sarah’s mother had been diagnosed with melanoma, rapidly had to undergo brain surgery and was now in chemotherapy. Sarah recounted to me that some time ago a friend had made a deep impression on her when she shaved her head for a cause and Sarah had thought from that time forward that one day she wanted do the same. So when Sarah’s mom was fighting cancer, feeling down and faced with losing her hair, Sarah told her mom that she would shave her head and be bald with her. What happened next? Download her story to find out. Thank you, Sarah, for letting your story be part of the Andrews story; for showing us an example of compassion, empathy and adventure. You and your story are part of the spirit of Andrews. June Price University Chaplainhttps://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/stories-2016-fall/1002/thumbnail.jp

Experiences with Diversity: Microaggressions, Religiosity, and Psychological Wellbeing in a Diverse College Sample

This study examined students\u27 beliefs about the existence of racial discrimination on Andrews\u27 campus and their experience with behaviors classified as microaggressions. We used a survey composed of the following measures: Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Hill and Argyle, 2002), Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religious Orientation (Francis, Fawcett, Robbins, & Stairs, 2016), Social Dominance (Pratto, Felicia, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994), and Racial and Ethnic Microaggression (Nadal, 2011). Pearson\u27s R correlations and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Thiem, 2016) were used to analyze subjects\u27 responses (N-147). We found low overall levels of microaggressions across campus and focused our detailed analyses on three specific microaggressions: microinvalidations, 80% of subjects reported at least 1-3 exoticization microaggressions, and Latino/Latina subjects reported a lack of visible representation in media and leadership. These findings provide valuable insight in microaggression research in that not all kinds of microaggressions are experienced in the same way by the same kinds of people

P-23 Experiences with Diversity: Microaggressions, Religiosity, and Psychological Wellbeing in a Diverse College Sample

This project seeks to measure students’ beliefs about the existence of racial discrimination on the Andrews campus and how often they experience behaviors classified as microaggressions. This study includes multiple racial groups in order to expand the examination of the relationship between microaggressions and religiosity, diversity, social dominance, and psychological wellbeing. The Correlation Analysis and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Thiem, 2016) found that no individual type of microaggression accounts for inferiority. Generally, there was a smaller range of scores for whites than blacks. Overall, there are low levels of microaggressions on this campus

Are We Listening? Making sense of classroom behaviour with pupils and parents Jackie Ravet Trentham Books (2007). Pp. 164

Peer reviewedPublisher PD