Disaster strikes, then what? Using evaluation in narrative driven (oral history & digital storytelling) community-based projects

In 2011 Queensland suffered both floods and cyclones, leaving residents without homes and their communities in ruins (2011). This paper presents how researchers from QUT, who are also members of the Oral History Association of Australia (OHAA) Queensland’s chapter, are using oral history, photographs, videography and digital storytelling to help heal and empower rural communities around the state and how evaluation has become a key element of our research. QUT researchers ran storytelling workshops in the capital city of Brisbane i early 2011, after the city suffered sever flooding. Cyclone Yasi then struck the town of Cardwell (in February 2011) destroying their historical museum and recording equipment. We delivered an 'emergency workshop', offering participants hands on use of the equipment, ethical and interviewing theory, so that the community could start to build a new collection. We included oral history workshops as well as sessions on how best to use a video camera, digital camera and creative writing sessions, so the community would also know how to make 'products' or exhibition pieces out of the interviews they were recording. We returned six months later to conduct follow-up workshops and the material produced by and with the community had been amazing. More funding has now been secured to replicate audio/visual/writing workshops in other remote rural Queensland communities including Townsville, Mackay and Cunnamulla and Toowoomba in 2012, highlighting the need for a multi media approach, to leverage the most out of OH interviews as a mechanism to restore and promote community resilience and pride.

In the Wake of Cyclone Yasi : Facilitation and Evaluation in Community Narrative-Driven Projects

On 3 February 2011, Cyclone Yasi struck the coast of North Queensland, causing widespread damage. The cyclone destroyed the small coastal town of Cardwell, about 165 kilometres north of Townsville, Queensland. This chapter serves as a case study of a collaborative outreach project mobilised in response to this disaster in North Queensland. A public history research team, consisting of practitioners from the Queensland University of Technology’s Creative Industries Faculty, with the support of the Oral History Association of Australia, Queensland branch, partnered with the Cardwell and District Historical Society to support the society to collect community narratives in the wake of Cyclone Yasi.

Framing local stories for community consumption facilitation and evaluation in narrative driven arts-based projects

Cyclone Yasi struck the Cassowary Coast of Queensland in the early hours of Feb 3, 2011, destroying many homes sand property, including the destruction of the Cardwell and district historical society’s premises. With their own homes flattened, many were forced to live in mobile accommodation, with extended family, or leave altogether. The historical society members however were more devastated by their flattened foreshore museum and loss of their collection material. A call for assistance was made through the OHAA Qld branch, who along with QUT sponsored a trip to somehow plan how they could start to pick up the pieces to start again. This presentation highlights the need for communities to gather, preserve and present their own stories, in a way that is sustainable and meaningful to them, but that good advice and support along the way is important. Two 2 day workshops were held in March and then September, augmented by plenty of email correspondence and phone calls in between. Participants learnt that if they could conduct quality oral history interviews, they could later use these in many exhibitable ways including: documentary pieces; digital stories; photographic collections; creative short stories; audio segments –while also drawing closely together a suffering community. This story is not only about the people who were interviewed about the night Yasi struck, but the amazing women (all over 50) of the historical society who were willing to try and leap the digital divide that faces older Australians, especially those in rural Australia, so that their older local stories would not be lost and so that new stories could also be remembered.

Whom to group with - a Bourdieusian narrative analysis of international students in an Australian university

Introduction to the topic or context and/or mapping of the literature Increasing degree-seeking, self-funded, international students from affluent Asian countries, who use English as an additional language (EAL), have contributed to cultural and linguistic diversities in Australian universities. Such diversities further posed challenges in pedagogy and assessment. In particular, these students' English proficiency and cultural attributes were highlighted as factors in productive group discussions, and equitable group assessment. The focus in the research literature thus far is on how EAL international students can better English proficiency and adaptability to group participation. However, little is known from sociological perspectives about the power relations involved in EAL students' choice of group members in group discussions.

The OO files : providing online formative feedback on Contract Law learning in a narrative setting

Feedback, both formative and summative, enables students to reflect on their understandings and to restructure their thinking to develop their capabilities. It can also encourage positive motivation and help boost self-esteem. Online multiple choice questions can be an efficient and effective means of providing timely formative feedback. At the same time, locating learning in a narrative environment can facilitate engaging and effective learning experiences. Narratives can help learners to navigate through information and support cognitive and imaginative engagement. This article will discuss The 00 Files, an online suite of modules containing multiple choice questions situated in the narrative of a fictional law firm. It notes student responses to the program and discusses lessons that may be learnt from its development which may be of assistance to academics considering the development of similar programs for their courses.

Narrative review of changing medical and feminist perspectives on menopause : from femininity and ageing to risk and choice

Meanings and descriptions of menopause have shifted focus over the past century and a half; more particularly the past sixty years has seen a shift from descriptions of hormone decline and its relation to ageing, femininity and symptoms of menopause since the 1960's to the possibility for preventive medicine afforded by menopause. Medicine is not a static field in its construction of menopause. It has changed, not least by its engagement (positively or negatively) with critique from both within (epidemiological) and without (feminist and social sciences). In this review we identify three recent changes: (1) Increasing concern with women's decision-making. (2) The emergence from within medicine of the rejection of the use of language which defines menopause as a condition of deficiency. (3) New insights from postmodern and poststructural analyses of menopause that examine the epistemological foundations of medical and feminist concepts of menopause and contest fixed descriptions of the experience of menopause. Key aspects of a ‘medical menopause’ nevertheless remain constant: menopause is a loss of hormones that results in predictable effects and risks and may be ameliorated by hormone replacement therapy. A question therefore emerges about how and to what effect medical practitioners have engaged with critiques of the medical menopause?

[Book Review] Urban Maps : Instruments of Narrative and Interpretation in the City by Richard Brook and Nick Dunn, Ashgate, Farham, United Kingdom, 2011, 250pp. ISBN 978-0-754676-5-77.

Urban maps discusses new ways and tools to read and navigate the contemporary city. Each chapter investigates a possible approach to unravel the complexity of contemporary urban forms. Each tool is first defined, introducing its philosophical background, and is then discussed with case studies, showing its relevance for the navigation of the built environment. Urbanism classics such as the work of Lynch, Jacobs, Venuti and Scott-Brown, Lefebrve and Walter Benjamin are fundamental in setting the framework of the volume. In the introduction cities and mapping are first discussed, the former are illustrated as ‘a composite of invisible networks devoid of landmarks and overrun by nodes’ (p. 3), and ‘a series of unbounded spaces where mass production and mass consumption reproduce a standardised quasi-global culture’ (p. 6).

Narrative, education policy and the newsprint media : A critical discourse analysis of the construction of young people's participation in education or employment

This thesis used Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate how a government policy and the newsprint media constructed discussion about young people’s participation in education or employment. The study found that a continuous narrative across both sites about government as a noble agent taking action to redress the social disruption caused by young people’s disengagement. Unlike the education policy, the newsprint media blamed young people who were disengaged and failed to recognise the barriers they often face. The study points to possibilities for utilising the power of narrative to build a more fair and rigorous discussion of issues in the public sphere.

Point of no return : exploring katabatic narrative and deterritorialisation in the Australian outback novel

This thesis consists of the novel Brolga and an exegesis examining in what ways the ideas of katabasis and deterritorialisation inform an understanding of descent narratives in contemporary Australian outback fiction. When writing the creative piece, it was observed that Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey was an imprecise model for my manuscript and indeed for many of the contemporary novels I had read written in similar outback settings. On analysis a better fit lies in the idea of a heroic journey from which there is no clear return from the underworld. This narrative form is defined in this thesis as a katabatic narrative. To unpack this narrative trope, the inverse of territoriality, deterritorialisation, is used as a lens to examine the complex thematic and symbolic resonances of the outback in both Brolga and analogous works of contemporary outback fiction.

Tracing the influence of non-narrative film and expanded cinema sound on experimental music

This study surveys and interrogates key conceptual frameworks and artistic practises that flow through the distinct but interconnected traditions of non-narrative film and experimental music, and examines how these are articulated in my own creative sound practise.

Empathy : narrative empathy and children's literature

The term empathy has only existed in English for a little over a hundred years, but the idea of feeling with another person is an old one. Because of its perceived connection to moral behaviour, empathy and its development are of great interest to educators, policy makers, psychologists, and philosophers. Reading children’s literature is often considered important for developing (among other things) children’s ethical and empathic understandings of society and its people. However, claims as to the impact of reading on readers’ ability to become more empathic, tolerant, and better people are divided. While many readers may attribute positive influences that authors and texts have had on shaping their attitudes and actions, there is no guarantee that a desirable affective and cognitive response will follow the reading experience. The complexity of readers and texts refuses to be reduced to simple universal statements about the capacity of narrative empathy to create a particular kind of empathic reader or person: fiction that engages a reader with the emotional plight of a character does not necessarily translate into actions in the real world towards people who are similarly suffering, marginalized, or victimized. This chapter asks: Does children’s literature foster empathy? There are two implicit features of this question: one concerns narrative empathy; the other concerns empathic reader response. The discussion will focus on how a selection of ‘multicultural’ picture books attempts to create narrative empathy by focussing on cultural and spatial differences.

Malnutrition in the elderly : a narrative review

The focus of nutrition is often on healthy diets and exercise to minimise the risk of developing lifestyle diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, during the shift into older years often the nutrition priorities change towards meeting increased nutrient needs with less energy requirements and minimising lean muscle loss. There are several causes of general malnutrition in the elderly that lead to depletion of muscle including starvation (protein-energy malnutrition), sarcopenia and cachexia. The prevalence of protein-energy malnutrition increases with age and the number of comorbidities. A range of simple and validated screening tools can be used to identify malnutrition in older adults e.g. MST, MNA-SF and ‘MUST’. Older adults should be screened for nutritional issues at diagnosis, on admission to hospitals or care homes and during follow up at outpatient or General Practitioner clinics, at regular intervals depending on clinical status. Early identification and treatment of nutrition problems can lead to improved outcomes and better quality of life.

Destination marketing organizations and destination marketing : a narrative analysis of the literature

This article presents the first narrative analysis of the areas of research that have developed within the destination marketing field since its commencement in 1973. Given the broad extent of the field, and the absence of any previous reviews in four decades, a key challenge is in providing a focus for such a disparate body of knowledge. The review is structured around one principal question: ‘To what extent is the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) responsible for the competitiveness of the destination’? In pursuit of this underlying question, we address a number of themes including nomenclature and the DMO, the evolution of the destination marketing literature, competitiveness as the DMO reason d’être, and DMO effectiveness including issues of branding and positioning, and future research themes in the field.

Hepatitis C, mental health and equity of access to antiviral therapy : a systematic narrative review

Introduction Access to hepatitis C (hereafter HCV) antiviral therapy has commonly excluded populations with mental health and substance use disorders because they were considered as having contraindications to treatment, particularly due to the neuropsychiatric effects of interferon that can occur in some patients. In this review we examined access to HCV interferon antiviral therapy by populations with mental health and substance use problems to identify the evidence and reasons for exclusion. Methods We searched the following major electronic databases for relevant articles: PsycINFO, Medline, CINAHL, Scopus, Google Scholar. The inclusion criteria comprised studies of adults aged 18 years and older, peer-reviewed articles, date range of (2002--2012) to include articles since the introduction of pegylated interferon with ribarvirin, and English language. The exclusion criteria included articles about HCV populations with medical co-morbidities, such as hepatitis B (hereafter HBV) and human immunodeficiency virus (hereafter HIV), because the clinical treatment, pathways and psychosocial morbidity differ from populations with only HCV. We identified 182 articles, and of these 13 met the eligibility criteria. Using an approach of systematic narrative review we identified major themes in the literature. Results Three main themes were identified including: (1) pre-treatment and preparation for antiviral therapy, (2) adherence and treatment completion, and (3) clinical outcomes. Each of these themes was critically discussed in terms of access by patients with mental health and substance use co-morbidities demonstrating that current research evidence clearly demonstrates that people with HCV, mental health and substance use co-morbidities have similar clinical outcomes to those without these co-morbidities. Conclusions While research evidence is largely supportive of increased access to interferon by people with HCV, mental health and substance use co-morbidities, there is substantial further work required to translate evidence into clinical practice. Further to this, we conclude that a reconsideration of the appropriateness of the tertiary health service model of care for interferon management is required and exploration of the potential for increased HCV care in primary health care settings.

Commentary on Nutrition and older Indigenous Australians : service delivery implications in remote communities. A narrative review

Indigenous Australians are the most socially and economically disadvantaged population group in Australia and have the poorest health status. The statistics describe and highlight the degree of sicknesses and disadvantage along with lower life expectancy, elevated mortality rate and increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease and kidney disease. While these statistics reflect poor health status and a high level of illness within Indigenous communities, it is known that individual, family and community behaviours play a key role in Indigenous health and wellbeing outcomes. These behavioural issues include use of tobacco, alcohol and other substances along with lack of physical activity and poor nutrition. The paper Nutrition and older Indigenous Australians: Service delivery implications in remote communities. A narrative view explores some of the issues specific to nutrition. Bronwyn Fredericks was invited to provide this commentary by the Editor of the Australasian Journal on Aging.