Newsletter April 2010 - University of East London · ‘clairaudience in the Spiritualist Church: When hearing spirits is a culturally sanctioned experience’ at the First International

CNR Newsletter 17

CNRCentre for Narrative ResearchWeb Newsletter 17, April 2010

Welcome to the CNR spring 2010 newsletter. The resource exists to distribute news ofmembers’, associates’ and interested others’ relevant research and writings, and also forshort reviews of conferences, papers and books, and announcements of future plans.Please email us if you would like to contribute something about your work, or some other

writing, to the next issue.

E-COPY DATE FOR ISSUE 18: October 14, 2010

Send to: Molly Andrews, Corinne Squire and Maria Tamboukou (co-directors), Cigdem Esin

(research officer): [email protected] [email protected] [email protected],

[email protected]

Newsletter sections:

I. CNR Seminar series and conferences

II. Recent publications by and news from CNR members, advisors and associates

III Upcoming narrative events

IV CNR graduate programmes for 2010-11

I. CNR Seminar series and conferences

A. CENTRE FOR NARRATIVE RESEARCH RESEARCH SEMINAR PROGRAMME 2009-2010

Tuesdays, 12:00- 1:00 pm, University of East London, Docklands Campus

May 4, 2010: – Libby Bishop, Timescapes, University of East Anglia, Room EB1.42

Ethical and methodological issues in sharing qualitative data: Cases from Qualidata and Timescapes

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B. 2009-10 Graduate Seminars in Narrative, Discourse and Representation

The Centre for Narrative Research, UEL and The Gender Institute, London School of

Economics

All seminars take place on Tuesday evenings, 5.00-6.30pm, at the London School of Economics.

All welcome, especially graduate students. For further details contact Corinne Squire

([email protected]), or Hazel Johnstone ([email protected]). Details are also on the CNR website:

http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/home.htm, and the Gender Institute website:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/depts/gender/narrative.htm

April 20 Stefanie Buckner University of Central Lancashire Older people's experiences of recent

urban regeneration - a case study based on a biographical-narrative interview. D111

May 4 Linda Asquith University of Huddersfield The surviving remnant - life after genocide

D703

C. April 29, 2010: To think is tO ExperimeNt CNR Research Event. CFP by April 9

The Centre for Narrative Research is organising the ninth annual Research Day for graduate

students on Thursday, April 29nd, 2010 at Docklands Campus, University of East London.

Research students from different universities in the UK and Europe will participate into the

event with their presentations on their research in progress. The programmes and abstracts

from previous years and some of the papers are on the CNR website, accessible via the link:

http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/tothinkistoexperiment.htm . If you are interested in presenting in

this exciting and relaxing event, please send an abstract (100-200 words) to Cigdem Esin,

[email protected] by April 9th, 2009.

II. Recent work by CNR members, advisors and associates

Alex Bridger, Huddersfield UniversityBridger, A.J. (2010) 'Walking as a 'radicalised' critical psychological method? A review ofacademic, artistic and activist contributions to the study of social environments,' Social and

Personality Psychology Compass, 4 (2): 131-191.

The study of social environments is a neglected site of research not only in psychology, butacross academic disciplines ranging from human geography to cultural studies. This paperreviews contributions to studying social environments through academic writings,

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situationism and psychogeographical groups. It argues that disorientating walking practicescan be used as a means to reflect on experiences of places in order to begin to think howsocial environments could be radically changed. It is important to question the taken forgranted ways that people make sense of urban environments. It is argued thatpsychogeographic practice can be used to extend qualitative epistemologies and methods toargue for a 'turn to place' in psychology and to open up new methods and approaches incritical psychology. Finally, the implications for radicalizing critical psychological researchmethods are considered in relation to the current status of critical psychology,which suffers from an apathetic vision of radicalism and criticality.

Dave Harper, University of East London

Dave Harper was an invited speaker at the European Federation of PsychologyStudents’ Associations (EPFSA) European Summer School in Arcalia, Romania in Summer2009. The topic of the conference was social inequalities and he talked about the linksbetween inequalities and mental health. With Jo Temple, he co-presented a paper‘clairaudience in the Spiritualist Church: When hearing spirits is a culturally sanctionedexperience’ at the First International Congress on Hearing Voices in Maastricht in September2009. Dave was also a discussant at the ‘Narrative and Social Justice’ event in London inMarch 2009.

As a result of his writing about the use of psychological interrogation techniques,Dave was interviewed by Q magazine in March 2009 for a piece on the use of music by someAmerican interrogators and he was briefly interviewed by BBC Radio 4’s Document

programme in relation to interrogation techniques allegedly used by Professor ofPsychological Medicine, Alexander Kennedy during the second world war. The programmewas broadcast in November 2009 but is still available to listen at:www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nv91x

Dave is a member of the editorial collective of Asylum: The Magazine for Democratic

Psychiatry. The magazine was re-launched in March 2010 with events in Manchester, Bristoland London. The London event was held in the School of Psychology at UEL with talks byGail Hornstein (author of Agnes’ Jacket: A psychologist’s search for the meanings of madness),Joanna Moncrieff (author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure), Jacqui Dillon (Chair of theHearing Voices Network) and by Dave on the 24 year history of the magazine. The first issueis a special issue on ‘paranoia’, including first person accounts and other articles (moreinformation at http://www.pccs-books.co.uk/section.php?xSec=288&xPage=1).

Together with Ian Tucker (School of Psychology) and Darren Ellis (HSS), Dave isbeginning a small project examining public understandings of surveillance following asuccessful internal bid against RAE monies allocated to the School of Psychology. HughOrtega Breton and Chrysanthi Nigianni will be working on the project as temporaryresearch assistants.

Some recent papers: Cromby, J. & Harper, D.(2009). Paranoia: a social account. Theory

& Psychology, 19(3): 335–361.

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Harper, D.J., O'Connor, J., Self, P. & Stevens, P. (2008). Learning to do Discourse Analysis:Accounts of supervisees and a supervisor. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 5(3),192-213.ISSN: 1478-0887 (e-ISSN: 1478-0895).Sholl, C., Korkie, J. & Harper, D. (2010). Challenging teenagers’ ideas about people withmental health problems. The Psychologist, 23(1), 2-3.Harper, D. (2009). Narrative therapy, family therapy and history. Context: A Magazine for

Family Therapy and Systemic Practice, 102 (April), 17-18. ISSN: 0969-1936.Sholl, C., Korkie, J. & Harper, D. (2009). Working with young people to challengediscrimination against mental health service users: A psychosocial pilot study. Clinical

Psychology Forum, 196, 45-49. ISSN: 1473-8279.

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Stephanie Taylor, The Open University

Narratives of Identity and Place, Routledge, November 2009.

Changes of residence are common in contemporary Western societies. Traditionalconnections to birthplaces, home towns and countries are broken as people relocate andmigrate, yet where they live remains significant for their identity claims and stories of whothey are. This book investigates the continuing importance of place for women’s identities,employing a theoretical and empirical approach based on previous work in narrative anddiscursive psychology.

Through an analysis of women’s talk, the book explores the persistence of tradition and alsothe new relationships in women’s identity work around place. It shows how a speaker’smultiple interpretations of where she lives remain central to the life narrative which she canconstruct for herself, retrospectively and prospectively, and to her fragile and idealizeddefinition of ‘home’ as the place in which she may position herself positively.

'Narratives of Identity and Place' presents a unique and valuable integration of the popularmethods of narrative and discourse analysis, compellingly demonstrating the value of theseapproaches for research on identity.

‘Rejecting the ‘reflexive modernity’ thesis that contemporary identities are simply uprootedfrom place in the social flux of late modernity, Stephanie Taylor argues that women draw onmore established narratives in their talk, such as the ‘born and bred’ narrative, to create acontinuity of self that is threaded through the fragmentation of place and identity inmodernity. Lively and succinct, this book will be a reference point in the study of place andidentity for students in psychology and academic researchers.’ Ian Burkitt, Reader in SocialScience, University of Bradford.

'This book is very carefully written and is definitely reader-friendly. Although it deals withcomplex and contested theories around identity it does so with rigour and clarity, and couldbecome part of an essential bibliography for courses in psychology, gender studies, narrativestudies or critical and human geography.' Maria Tamboukou, Centre for Narrative Research,University of East London

Stephanie Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Social Sciences at the Open University.In addition to her published work on identity, including creative identities and identities ofplace, she has written on qualitative research methods, including discourse analysis,ethnography and narrative analysis.

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III Upcoming narrative events: March 22-May 14 2010 (and continuing, UEL):

'Human Life', by Abu Maruf, from the Visual Autobiographies exhibit

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April 23, 2010, City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, 465 Fifth Avenue,

New York. NY 10016-4309, 11am

Discovering the interpretive mind: Narrative, autobiographical memory, and time. A talk

by Jens Brockmeier, Free University Berlin & University of Manitoba.

When children begin to understand and tell stories they discover the realm of narrative. Indoing so, they enter what Katherine Nelson, in her latest book Young Minds in Social Worlds:

Experience, Meaning, and Memory calls the symbolic universe of a culture. In this universe,narrative is the hub of manifold social and psychological functions. This is reflected, andmade possible, by the early development of the child as a protagonist of narrative discourse.This development is interlaced with the development of other crucial abilities, such asimagining events beyond the here and now (that is, to temporalizing them along culturaltrajectories of past, present, and future), and interpreting the mind of oneself and of others –capacities also known under the titles of autobiographical memory, time, and theory ofmind. In my talk, I discuss the common origin of these abilities in close connection with theorigin of narrative thought and imagination, situating all of them within one framework: theinterpretive mind.

Upcoming RAW events

April 16 (talk), April (signup, autumn courses) and April 30 (paper submissions), 2010

R.A.W., The Network for Reflexive Academic Writing Methodologies at Mid Sweden

University

A Network - A Meeting Place - A Stage - A Book Corner

Do you want to become a member?

Sign up at http://www.miun.se/RAW/Members/

R.A.W. is an international interdisciplinary research network with a focus on reflexive

academic writing methodologies coordinated by Mid Sweden University, Sweden. The

network encourage dialogue and the building of long term international relationships and

constitutes a meeting place for researchers, teachers and academic professionals interested in

all forms of reflexive academic writing methodologies. It supports critical and experimental

academic work, which combines textual, visual, and verbal and other expressions, welcomes

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the diversity of reflexive writing methodologies such as biography, autobiography, narrative

approaches, memoir, memory work, official reports, diaries, blogs, and letters and so on.

News from the R.A.W. Network

Raewyn Connell in the R.A.W. Dialogue Chair 16 April 2010, F 229 Campus Östersund

Mid Sweden University

Cooperation between R.A.W., Forum for Gender Studies and The Research Program

Challenging Gender/Mid Sweden University and Umeå University has resulted in a visit by

Professor Raewyn Connell who will engage in a publicly staged conversation with Mona

Livholts about writing masculinities, gender and the politics of change.

Master/PhD Course Autumn 2010 at Mid Sweden University

Members of the R.A.W. network have created two master/PhD courses offered by Mid

Sweden University and Södertörn University College in autumn 2010.

• Narrative and discourse analysis 7.5 ECTS - Mid Sweden University, Department of

Social Work. Teachers: Dr Mona Livholts and Dr Maria Tamboukou (Centre for

Narrative Research, University of East London), Guest Lecturer Professor Katherine

Kohler Riessman. Sept-Oct: Curriculum will be out in April 2010.

Call for papers: Writing Change? Challenges for Gender and Feminist Studies

Mona Livholts and Annelie Bränström Öhman will be guest editing a forthcoming special

issue of NORA, Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research.

Academic writing, as a strategy for creating change and manifesting resistance – both inside

and outside the academic context, is one of the foremost challenges for contemporary

feminist and gender studies. In this light, the emergence of critical, creative, performative

and reflective writing can be seen as an integrated part of the ongoing debate on

methodological and theoretical issues. Indeed, it is possible to say that the field of feminist

and gender studies demonstrates how relations between power and privilege, marginalized

and subjugated knowledge, ethics and change, are tied to praxis of style and representation

where form and content is intimately intertwined. Contributions from for instance,

dialogical, polyphonic and genre-transgressive writing strategies can be applied as a means

for re-situating of epistemological claims as well as an experimental approach to the textual

form itself.

This issue of NORA will analyze how new forms of academic writing constitute

methodological and theoretical challenges for feminist and gender studies. By providing a

forum for researchers to engage in new forms of academic writing, we wish to contribute to

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publication on a theme that we think needs increased attention. We encourage authors to

send in contributions of innovative, critical, creative, performative and reflective forms for

academic writing. These may be theoretical and/or demonstrate a particular form of

academic writing and/or be based on particular data.

Possible topics and themes may include but are not limited to:

- Scholarly autobiography, narrative writing

- Writing intersectionality studies and the intersections of writing

- The ethics and politics of writing

- Writing emotions, memories

- Writings of silence and oppression

- Translations: languages of writing

- Spatiality of writing

- Writing for transformation and change of power relations

- ‘Gathering of data’ writing: for example diary, letter

All submissions should be made online by 30th April 2010

at the NORA ScholarOne Manuscripts site:

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/nora

For further information on how to submit a paper, visit www.tandf.co.uk/journals/swomand click on the Instructions for Authors tab. Questions regarding these instructions can besent to [email protected]

May 12, 2010: Anneke Sools, University for Humanistics, Utrecht, The Nederlands.

On Wednesday May 12 at 10.30 am Anneke Sools will defend her dissertation Thedevelopment of narrative competence. A research methodology for the study of healthyliving (De ontwikkeling van narratieve competentie. Een onderzoeksmethodologie voor de

bestudering van gezond leven) Supervisors: Janneke van Mens-Verhulst, Adri Smaling,Annemiek Richters. You are cordially invited to attend the defence (note: this will be inDutch). The ceremony will take place in Academiegebouw Utrecht. There will be areception after the promotion. A short summary can be found below. An extended Englishoutline of the thesis can be obtained from the author: [email protected]

A commercial edition of the dissertation is in preparation. Sools will also present a paperentitled In Search of a Narrative for Healthy Living based on her thesis at the upcomingNarrative Matters 2010 conference in Huddersfield, Canada

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Summary

The aim of this thesis is to further develop narrative psychology as a research methodology.The participatory action research project Aspiring to Healthy Living (Rotterdam, TheNetherlands) provided the practical setting, from which I obtained the research topic(healthy living), the research domain (health promotion), and the diverse participant group(Moroccan and Dutch elderly men and women from low socio-economic backgrounds).Healthy living is multidimensional, positive, dynamic, everyday, and encompassesautomatic and reflective processes of self-development. Specific attention is given to theroles of agency, identity, existential meaning, diversity, and the way healthy living isembedded in social and cultural contexts. In addition I characterise healthy living as a moraland ideological phenomenon with two norms that have shaped healthy living as ameaningful social practice: pleasure and discipline. Based on the work of Canguilhem,Herzlich, and Antonovsky, I further explore the biological, psychosocial, and existentialdimensions of healthy living.

The recently developed small story approach seems to provide an adequate overall approachto study healthy living, because it allows for the collection and analysis of open, dynamic,(morally) ambiguous, everyday, local, future-oriented storytelling as co-constructed bymultiple tellers. At the same time the small story approach is capable of including so-calledbig story characteristics such as attention to existential meaning and coherence. Morespecifically, I argue that a dialogical narrative psychological approach to the development ofidentity and agency seems to be particularly apt for the dynamic and relational character ofhealthy living. To counteract problems regarding the specific character of peer-to-peerinterviews, and the moral and ideological character of healthy living, I suggest someadjustments in data collection and processing. To aid a dialogical analysis I put together ananalytical framework which contains positioning analysis and additional analyticalprocedures and concepts that enable the narrative researcher to focus on marginalised, lostor underdeveloped storylines.

I demonstrate, evaluate, and modify this analytical framework in three case studies. In thefirst case study (Said’s storytelling), I analyse an interview interaction characterised by aconfrontation between interviewer and interviewee. In the second case study (sharedstorytelling by Karima and Aisja), analysis focuses on the positioning vis-à-vis canonical anddominant storylines by two storytellers in a peer-to-peer interview. The third case study(Abdullah’s storytelling) focuses on how interviewer and interviewee co-construct Abdullahas knowledgeable regarding healthy living, and how they negotiate his space to controlrepresentation. I argue for the necessity of developing genre sensitivity to do justice todiversity in lay knowledge about healthy living. This becomes especially urgent in researchinvolving people from marginalised groups such as the Moroccan immigrant population inthe Netherlands.

Finally, I reflect on the implications of a shift to a more active involvement of the researcheras interviewer, analyst and author in the construction of healthy living practices. I alsosuggest ways to enhance the practical value of the developed research methodology. Iconclude with an open invitation to critically refine the developed dialogical narrative

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psychological methodology in future cooperation between (health) practitioners andresearchers.

2-3 July, 2010

Oral History Society Annual Conference 2010, in association with the Victoria & AlbertMuseum

[Record] [Create]: Oral History in Art,Craft and Design

Oral history has become a significant methodology for understanding creative practitionersand the context and meaning of the work they produce. This seminal conference will bringtogether an international community of those working with oral history in the fields of art,craft and design, architecture and photography. Keynote speakers include the sound artistand curator David Toop, Michael McMillan, artist and author of The Front Room, and therewill be a panel about Anthony Gormley’s ‘One and Other’ fourth plinth project.

Tickets (including lunch): £112 full rate, £94 concessions (including OHS Members), £30studentsBookings: www.vam.ac.uk/tickets or 020 7942 2211 _ For a provisional programme, details ofaccommodation and other information: www.ohs.org.uk/conferences/2010.php

SUPPORTED BY CAMBERWELL COLLEGE OF ARTS,NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY,AND UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND, BRISTOL

May 12-15, 2011:

Project Narrative at the Ohio State University will host a Symposium on Queer andFeminist Narrative Theories in Columbus, Ohio, May 12-May-15, 2011. A call for paperswill be issued soon. For more information, please contact Robyn Warhol-Down,Department of English, OSU at [email protected]

May 26-28, 2011:

TEACHING NARRATIVE AND TEACHING THROUGH NARRATIVE: An InternationalConference organized by the Nordic Network of Narrative Studies, University ofTampere, May 26–28, 2011

The conference is organized to explore the broad interface of narrative theory, literarypedagogy, and the uses of narrative as a tool for teaching and distributing knowledge in

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diverse disciplinary fields. A special feature of the conference will be a series of workshopsdevoted to close analysis of particular narrative texts – fictional as well as non-fictional –which are studied together by the participants from varying theoretical angles. We invitepapers on all text types carrying narrative relevance and amenable to pedagogical uses: fromopera to obituary; television to testimony; Bildungsroman alongside with biblical narrativeto blog. Our plenary speakers will include specialists on literary pedagogy (Professor LeonaToker, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and on the pedagogical uses of narrative in thefields of social sciences, medicine, and humanities (Professor Rita Charon, ColumbiaUniversity, Professor Jens Brockmeier, University of Manitoba and the Free University ofBerlin).

For further information about the schedule, travel options, and lodging, please go to ourwebsite http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/taide/teaching_narrative.html .

Deadline for abstracts: December 31, 2010. (Please follow the website for furtherinformation)

Pre-Conference Doctoral Course, University of Tampere, May 25, 2011

The organizers are also pleased to announce a pre-conference doctoral course oninterdisciplinary analysis of narrative texts. The course will be directed by Professors JensBrockmeier, Rita Charon, and Leona Toker. As above, Ph.D. students working on any texttype with narrative relevance are eligible to participate. Deadline for descriptions isDecember 31, 2010. Participants chosen to the course will be informed by January 31, 2011.

IV. CNR Postgraduate Programmes, 2010-11 http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr /

The Narrative Research postgraduate programmes at CNR are uniquely interdisciplinary.They draw on social sciences, humanities and arts disciplines to provide advanced andcomprehensive education and training in narrative theories and methods. The programmesgive students experience in applying narrative concepts and analysis to diverse fields. Theyguide students through the planning and performance of their own narrative research.Masters and Diploma programmes also develop more general skills of review, criticism andresearch, in the context of narrative work.

The programmes are taught by prominent scholars based at the Centre for NarrativeResearch, an international leader in the field of narrative research in the social sciences, artsand humanities. Students from the programmes have gone on to MPhils, PhDs andlectureships, careers in social work, teaching and psychology, and to work with internationalNGOs, advertising agencies, management teams, and arts organisations. Students haveused their work in the programmes to write reports, papers for publication in internationalpeer reviewed journals, and a number of books.

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Narrative Research postgraduate programmes at CNR:

•••• Masters in Narrative Research (4 modules and Dissertation, 1 year fulltime, 2 years part-time)

•••• Postgraduate Diploma in Narrative Research (4 modules, 2 semesters fulltime, 4 semesterspart-time)

Image detail courtesy of Cigdem Esin

•••• Postgraduate Certificate in Narrative Research (2 modules, 1 semester fulltime, 2 semesterspart-time)

•••• Postgraduate Associate Certificate in Narrative Research (1 module, 1 semester part-time)

Available modules for 2010-11 include:

Narrative Research onsite at UEL: An overview module providing an introduction to narrativeresearch approaches. Fall 2010.

Narrative Research by Distance Learning: An alternative route. Students can attend sessions onboth routes. Fall 2010.

Narrative Practice: A module focused on narrative research applications, featuring guestpresenters, including many of CNR's eminent visitors. Spring 2011. Onsite.

Narrative Force: A unique module, examining Foucauldian and Deleuzian approaches tonarrative. By Distance Learning only. Spring 2011.

For more details, please contact: Carol Moore, Graduate Administrator, School of Humanities andSocial Sciences, University of East London, 4-6 University Way, London E16 2RD. Tel: 0208 2237631. Email: Moore@UEL-Exchange. uel.ac.uk

Or Prof Molly Andrews (For all onsite programmes) or Prof Corinne Squire (for all distance learningprogrammes). Email: [email protected] or [email protected]