Identity Text: an educational intervention to foster cultural interaction

Background: Sociocultural theories state that learning results from people participating in contexts where social interaction is facilitated. There is a need to create such facilitated pedagogical spaces where participants share their ways of knowing and doing. The aim of this exploratory study was to introduce pedagogical space for sociocultural interaction using ‘Identity Text’.
Methods: Identity texts are sociocultural artifacts produced by participants, which can be written, spoken, visual, musical, or multimodal. In 2013, participants of an international medical education fellowship program were asked to create their own Identity Texts to promote discussion about participants’ cultural backgrounds. Thematic analysis was used to make the analysis relevant to studying the pedagogical utility of the intervention.
Result: The Identity Text intervention created two spaces: a ‘reflective space’ helped
participants reflect on sensitive topics like institutional environments, roles in
interdisciplinary teams, and gender discrimination. A ‘narrative space’ allowed
participants to tell powerful stories that provided cultural insights and challenged cultural hegemony; they described the conscious and subconscious transformation in identity that evolved secondary to struggles with local power dynamics and social demands involving the impact of family, peers and country of origin.
Conclusion: Whilst the impact of providing pedagogical space using Identity Text on
cognitive engagement and enhanced learning requires further research, the findings of
this study suggest that it is a useful pedagogical strategy to support cross-cultural
education.

Positive Identity Construction: Insights from Classical and Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives

This chapter develops a more comprehensive theory of positive identity construction by explicating proposed mechanisms for constructing and sustaining positive individual identities. The chapter offers a broad, illustrative sampling of mechanisms for positive identity construction that are grounded in various theoretical traditions within identity scholarship. Four classical theories of identity—social identity theory, identity theory, narrative-as-identity, and identity work—offer perspectives on the impetus and mechanisms for positive identity construction. The Dutton et al. (2010) typology of positive identity is revisited to highlight those sources of positivity that each classical theory explains how to enhance. As a next step in research, positive organizational scholarship (POS) scholars and identity scholars are encouraged to examine the conditions under which increasing the positivity of an identity is associated with generative social outcomes (e.g., engaging in prosocial practices, being invested in others’ positive identity development, and deepening mutual understanding of the complex, multifaceted nature of identity).

Towards Empowerment: Narrative Study of Counselling Psychology Trainees and How They Make Sense of Their Personal and Professional Development in the Context of Their Past Experiences

The discipline of counselling psychology continues to grow and change in response to social, economic and political pressures. It has been argued that its quest for a coherent and distinct identity, which emphasises the possibility of the coexistence of multiple approaches, creates an inherently uncertain and dilemmatic training environment that may hinder the development of trainees’ professional identities. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the issue at hand, the aim was to explore how final year trainees and newly qualified counselling psychologists constructed and made sense of their emerging professional identities and what experiences, past and present, they drew upon in the context of their training to shape those identities. Applying narrative inquiry to analyse eight open-ended interviews, eight preliminary themes were originally identified in participants’ narratives, which with further refinements lead to stories of struggle and marginalisation, growth and discovery, and power and resilience. Participants’ stories of struggle and marginalisation emerged in reference to early family dynamics and stressful life experiences, which seemed to also foster a strong identification with the counselling psychology profession, while stories of growth and discovery focused on the importance of having supportive figures, who helped to instill a sense of security and create an atmosphere of openness. It was in this learning environment that participants felt it was possible to develop a more resilient, empowered professional self, which allowed them to shed an earlier sense of struggle and vulnerability. However, where more of an emphasis was placed on power and resilience, there seemed to be less room for participants to express other feelings that came into conflict with their preferred sense of professional self. While there seems to be a need for a ‘safer’ climate, in which trainees could voice and acknowledge anxieties, vulnerabilities and limitations, addressing concerns around power and vulnerability that may be contributing to the silencing of particular voices and identities may be equally important if trainees are to develop coherent and distinct counselling psychologist identities.

Constructing Personal and Couple Narratives in Late Stage Cancer: A Narrative Analysis

An increasing number of people with terminal cancer are being cared for at home, often by their partner. This study explores the identity, experiences and relationships of people caring for their partner at the end of life and how they construct their experience through personal and couple narratives. It draws upon dialogical approaches to narrative analysis to focus on caring partners and the care relationship. Six participants were recruited for the study. Two methods of data collection are used: narrative interviews and journals. Following individual case analysis, two methods of cross-narrative analysis are used: an analysis of narrative themes and an identification of narrative types. The key findings can be summarised as follows. First, in the period since their partner's terminal prognosis, participants sustained and reconstructed self and couple relationship narratives. These narratives aided the construction of meaning and coherence at a time of major biographical disruption: the anticipated loss of a partner. Second, the study highlights the complexity of spoken and unspoken narratives in terminal cancer and how these relate to individual and couple identities. Third, a typology of archetypal narratives based upon the data is identified. The blow-by-blow narratives illustrate how participants sought to construct coherence and meaning in the illness story, while champion and resilience narratives demonstrate how participants utilised positive self and relational narratives to manage a time of biographical disruption. The study highlights how this narrative approach can enhance understanding of the experiences and identities of people caring for a terminally ill partner.

IDENTITY, IMMORTALITY, INTERACTION: FEMALE FUNERARY MONUMENTS AS SITES OF IDENTITY BUILDING IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

As final markers of identity and memory, the tombs of Roman women carried ritual, ideological, and emotional significance. By surveying the funerary monuments of four distinct Roman women, it is possible to reconstruct, at least in part, the exhibited identities of Eumachia, Naevoleia Tyche, Faustina the Elder, Claudia, Amymone, and Postumia Matronilla. Drawing in the viewer to participate in the creation of identity through narrative and contextual relationships, each of the sepulchers solidifies the memories of the deceased women, thereby granting them an immortality of sorts. Engaging with issues of gender, status, the politics of self, propaganda, and regional variation, this paper seeks to explore the nuances of life, death, and identity in the Roman world, with an emphasis on understanding the monuments in their original contexts.

Caught in the dance : dream poems, experiential narrative, and the continuity hypothesis

This thesis explores the efficacy of the dream poem as a narrative device and is the outcome of practice-led research. The creative component, a novella, includes significant dreams of the main characters in the form of lyric poetry. The author’s own dream reports are used as source material for the poetry, and are contextualised within a prose fiction framework. Caught in the Dance is an experiment in combining prose with dream poetry and in investigating the experiential power of dreams on the formation of character identity. The exegesis discusses dreaming as an experience and the place of that experience in the context of identity narratives. Central to this discussion is the continuity hypothesis regarding the symbiosis of waking and sleeping life. Fludernik’s theory of experiential narrative is applied to dreaming and to the composition of poetry. This theory moves the emphasis of narrativity from events and the action of telling to ‘grounding narrativity in the representation of experientiality’ (Fludernik 1996:20). Ricoeur’s theories on identity and narrative are also applied to the reading of dreams, and experiences in general. He calls the system through which we ‘read’ life the ‘semantics of action’ (Ricoeur 1991b:28). Fludernik’s and Ricoeur’s approaches build on each other and they are brought together in the context of theories of the self, consciousness, and the processing of experience. Lyric poetry, as a creative product of that same consciousness, is discussed as experienced narrative moment. Furthermore, those moments are identified as defining elements in the identity narratives of characters. By combining the experience of dreaming with the experience imparted through lyric poetry, this thesis argues that the continuity hypothesis serves effectively as a demonstration of the wider narratological importance of experiential narrative.

The social construction of “Feeling of Burden”: Narrative on dependency and care in old age

In a society in which ambivalent positions of old age coexist, suffering from limitations in the basic functions of the human being disrupts the identity of old people and the social perception that is held of them. The impact of the deterioration and the physical incapacity affects not only old adults but also those who take care of them; it entails repercussions of instrumental, emotional and social types. Within the social and subjective dimension of aging arise stereotypes and negative images from being considered dependent subjects; one of most important of these is the “feeling of being a burden”. During the in-depth interviews, the diverse implications of this negative image in advanced old age are identified in old adults and their carers in the city of Durango, Mexico. The analysis of narratives shows results pertaining to the interrelation between the subjective aspects of the identity, the beliefs, and the power of social discourses.

Identity, ideology, and cinema: Making sense of Japan's foreign and security policies in the 1950s and 2000s

Japan is an important ally of the United States–the world’s third biggest economy, and one of the regional great powers in Asia. Making sense of Japan’s foreign and security policies is crucial for the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, where the possible sources of conflict such as territorial disputes or the disputes over Japan’s war legacy issues are observed.^ This dissertation explored Japan’s foreign and security policies based on Japan’s identities and unconscious ideologies. It employed an analysis of selected Japanese films from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, as well as from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. The analysis demonstrated that Japan’s foreign and security policies could be understood in terms of a broader social narrative that was visible in Japanese popular cultural products, including films and literatures. Narratives of Japanese families from the patriarch’s point of view, for example, had constantly shaped Japan’s foreign and security policies. As a result, the world was ordered hierarchically in the eyes of the Japan Self. In the 1950s, Japan tenaciously constructed close but asymmetrical security relations with the U.S. in which Japan willingly subjugated itself to the U.S. In the 2000s, Japan again constructed close relations with the U.S. by doing its best to support American responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by mobilizing Japan’s SDFs in the way Japan had never done in the past.^ The concepts of identity and unconscious ideology are helpful in understanding how Japan’s own understanding of self, of others, and of the world have shaped its own behaviors. These concepts also enable Japan to reevaluate its own behaviors reflexively, which departs from existing alternative approaches. This study provided a critical analytical explanation of the dynamics at work in Japan’s sense of identity, particularly with regard to its foreign and security policies.^