The purpose of this dissertation is to provide an academic platform for people who are homeless to narrate their lived experiences. Traditionally, scholars and politicians drive public conversations about homelessness and commonly reach conclusions that require more social programs and more funding. In the literature review of this dissertation, I argue that many social programs for the homeless, while well intended, fall short of their goals because scholars and politicians do not appreciate the idea that homeless people are part of a distinct culture with different lifestyles and objectives. Because of the cultural differences between the housed and the homeless, social programs that may work for the housed may not work for the homeless. Therefore, to create policy that will best function for the homeless, it is important to learn about the culture of homelessness by listening to the voices of homeless people. In an effort to learn about the culture of homelessness, in this dissertation I utilize the narrative paradigm as a theoretical framework and ask: How do homeless people narrate their experiences?; What types of experiences and relationships do homeless people have with government benefits and charitable organizations?; and How would homeless people craft economic and social policy if given the opportunity to do so? To answer these questions, I spent one summer working at a homeless shelter and interviewed 10 homeless people. While each person had an individual story, there were common themes that emerged among participants. These themes were arranged chronologically and analyzed in chapters entitled: Losing Everything, Navigating the System, Manipulating the System, and Seeking Recognition/Finding Community. Based on my analysis of these narratives, I propose suggestions for how public policy can better respond to the needs of the homeless by offering long-term shelter assistance, connecting benefits to work and education performance, and educating the housed about the resources available for the homeless in their community. In the end, implementing policies that address homelessness should be done in conversation with the homeless. The voices of homeless people matter and intercultural dialogue between the housed and the homeless fosters a sense of mutual respect, personal empowerment, and shared ownership of public policy.

This work examines the use of ambiguous or obfuscating narrative devices in 3 works by 20th century Russian authors: A Dead Man’s Memoir, by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov, and You and I, by Abram Tertz. Bulgakov relies on diabolical imagery as well as characters that are by and large caricatures of how any decent person would behave. Nabokov employs several modernist tropes including skillful use of estrangement, as well as a bland tone towards occurrences that ordinary people would find miraculous. Tertz plays on the notion of a double identity by psychically linking two polar extremes until they are nearly unable to tell themselves apart from one another, causing one to crack and kill himself, thus restoring his observer to a more enlightened state. Each work uses the idea of narrative ambiguity and unreliability to demonstrate the incommunicability of one’s artistic vision in its purest, platonic form.

HOLANDA, Samuel Freitas. A construção biográfica nos evangelhos como fiadora da imagem soteriológica de Jesus. 2015. 96f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Letras Vernáculas, Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística, Fortaleza (CE), 2015. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-02-01T16:37:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_sfholanda.pdf: 1503217 bytes, checksum: 89124eb89dca9fce147ea21b5b8ada89 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-02-03T12:25:29Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_sfholanda.pdf: 1503217 bytes, checksum: 89124eb89dca9fce147ea21b5b8ada89 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-03T12:25:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_sfholanda.pdf: 1503217 bytes, checksum: 89124eb89dca9fce147ea21b5b8ada89 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / The objective of this research is to analyze how the set of narrative constructions of the Gospels of Matthew and John consolidates a heterobiographic saying project that legitimizes soteriological ethos of Jesus. We take the notion of ethos as an image that the subject undertakes discursively, closely linked to speech without reserving it to judicial eloquence or orality, but considering that any written speech has a specific voicing, which would relate it to an enunciative source (MAINGUENEAU, 2010). In order to analyze this Jesus’ discursive ethos, we chose three objectives that allowed the implementation of the research, which are to identify the characteristics of the narrative saying project, to describe the linguistic mechanisms for constructing the ethos and to analyze how Jesus’ ethos built by the writers in each gospel is used as guarantor of these persuasive narratives. Our methodological approach presents the criteria adopted for the selection, organization and corpus analysis. It uses a qualitative approach of interpretation, since our interpretation obeys Maingueneau’s perspective. Then, the presentation of the results shows that, despite the Gospels demonstrate that there are many similar characteristics to biographical texts, their purpose goes beyond the narrative act, for the disciples building a soteriological ethos of Jesus in an attempt to persuade the largest number of people being devout Christianity. / O objetivo dessa pesquisa é analisar como o conjunto das construções narrativas dos Evangelhos de Mateus e João consolida um projeto de dizer heterobiográfico, que legitima o ethos soteriológico de Jesus. Tomamos a noção de ethos como uma imagem que o sujeito empreende discursivamente, ligado de modo estrito ao discurso, sem reservá-lo à eloquência judiciária ou à oralidade, mas considerando que qualquer discurso escrito possui uma vocalidade específica, que permitiria relacioná-lo a uma fonte enunciativa (MAINGUENEAU, 2010). Assim, elegemos para a análise desse ethos discursivo de Jesus três objetivos específicos que permitiram a operacionalização da pesquisa, os quais são: identificar as características do projeto de dizer narrativo, descrever os mecanismos linguísticos para a construção do ethos e analisar de que maneira o ethos de Jesus construído pelos escritores em cada evangelho é usado como fiador dessas narrativas persuasivas. Nosso percurso metodológico apresenta os critérios adotados para a seleção, organização e análise do corpus e utiliza uma abordagem qualitativa de natureza interpretativa, tendo em vista que a nossa interpretação obedecerá a perspectiva de Maingueneau. Em seguida, a apresentação dos resultados aponta que, apesar de demonstrarem que possuem muitas características semelhantes aos textos biográficos, o objetivo dos evangelhos ultrapassa o ato narrativo, pois os discípulos constroem um ethos soteriológico de Jesus, na tentativa de persuadir o maior número de pessoas a serem devotas do cristianismo.

Changes in the profile of adolescent boys' and young mens' mental health and behaviour has ocurred over the last twenty years, with increases in rates of suicide, parasuicide and conduct disorders. Factors contributing to these changes are unclear but have been theorised by academics within the fields of social psychology, clinical psychology and sociology to be linked to a contemporary 'crisis' in masculinity. This study explored the multiple ways in which five adolescent boys talked about their experiences which had led to their admission to an adolescent unit. The study set up a theoretical framework for researching the ways in which the boys constructed their accounts. It used a combination of narrative, thematic and discourse analytic methods, focusing on tensions within the boys' narratives and how they drew on wider cultural discourses. The main findings suggest that the boys talked about their distress and emotions in multiple and diverse ways which may not be immediately apparent. The positionings they took up within their accounts appeared constrained by influences from cultural discourses, power relations of their immediate and wider social contexts and their life-histories. The research highlights the need for clinicians to be sensitive to issues of gender subjectivities and culture in their work and in the future development of services for young men. Limitations of the study are discussed.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-02-01Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:13:31Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 zakir_ma_me_mar.pdf: 916376 bytes, checksum: e1bfb771305fd8bb079e40004da3e888 (MD5) / Esta pesquisa trata de reflexões acerca da formação de alunos de Letras de uma universidade pública paulista e de meu primeiro ano de exercício profissional como professora de língua portuguesa em uma escola estadual. A partir da observação de minha prática de ensino, constatei que minha ação como professora era direcionada por vivências que havia tido como aluna e não por uma concepção de ensino que estivesse fundamentada teoricamente. Comecei, então, a questionar o fato de uma professora recém-formada ingressar no magistério sem ter uma fundamentação teórica consciente acerca do trabalho que desenvolveria com os alunos. Desta forma, decidi investigar como as dificuldades que tive ao ingressar no magistério eram também sentidas entre os alunos do quarto ano do curso de Letras que participaram da pesquisa. Por meio da análise do material produzido por eles (portfolios elaborados na disciplina Prática de Ensino de Língua Portuguesa e Estágio Supervisionado) seria, então, possível ter uma percepção mais ampla de meu próprio processo de formação, uma vez que investigaria as questões que me afetavam como professora recém-formada. Assim, escrevendo textos de pesquisa a partir das narrativas dos participantes, conforme propõe a Pesquisa Narrativa (CLANDININ & CONNELLY, 2000), produzi sentidos sobre os excertos que tratavam das expectativas dos futuros professores acerca da profissão docente e da relação que eles estabeleciam ou não entre teoria e prática de ensino. Um resultado central deste estudo indica que há uma diferença significativa entre a compreensão de uma teoria quando dela nos apropriamos e quando essa apropriação não existe. Desta forma, narro como se deu o processo de apropriação de uma perspectiva teórica que se tornou essencial para compreender e pensar em transformar minha própria prática docente. / The research reported in this dissertation is about reflection during the pre-service education of future language teachers of a public university in the state of São Paulo. The study also includes my own process of reflection on my first year as a teacher of Portuguese in a public junior high school. As I reflected on my own teaching practice as a beginning teacher, I noticed that my classroom action was being guided by the experience I had as a student, instead of a theoretically based concept of teaching. Then, I started questioning how a teacher who had just graduated could begin her work without having theoretically conscious bases about the work that was to be developed with her students. Therefore, I decided to investigate how the difficulties I had when I started teaching could also be noticed by the pre-service teachers who participated in this study. Through the analysis of these participants’ narratives (portfolios developed in the course Teaching Practicum of Portuguese), I believed that I could reach a broader perception of my own process of professional development if I focused on the matters that were affecting myself as a novice teacher. By writing research texts about the participants’ narratives, as proposed by Narrative Inquiry (CLANDININ & CONNELLY, 2000), I have produced meanings from excerpts of my participants’ stories about their expectations regarding their profession and the relationship between theory and their novice teaching practice. The first result of this study shows meaningful differences between understanding a theory when it is appropriated by us and when it is not. The second result illustrates my process of appropriation of a theory and how central it became in the process of transforming my novice teaching practice. My contact with Vygotski’s Historical-Cultural Perspective allowed me to understand the complexity of the educational process.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-08-26Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:43:27Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 souza_va_dr_assis.pdf: 1221364 bytes, checksum: e6a44798bb2a4d15a9e7d730bd140ffc (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta pesquisa analisa a construção da memória por meio das representações contidas nos textos da narrativa histórica e da literatura poética do Estado de Rondônia. Para tal empreitada foram selecionadas as obras mais expressivas dos autores situados entre o período de vigência do antigo Território Federal do Guaporé (1943-56), depois Território Federal de Rondônia (1956-81) até a consolidação do atual Estado de Rondônia. A análise está focada no discurso destes autores e revela suas filiações e os seus pareceres. Tal memória fica aqui compreendida enquanto uma construção produzida por uma elite letrada, constituindo assim aspectos de representação enquanto projetos, de diferentes matizes, e que disputam entre si a hegemonia do discurso. Nesse sentido, as imagens das populações tradicionais aparecem delineadas a partir de conceitos estereotipados e marcados por um viés ideológico: a noção de vazio demográfico, as populações indígenas igualadas à natureza e o bandeirante como herói civilizador. Assim, as reflexões apresentadas neste trabalho, tiveram como base a eleição de um conjunto de narrativas em prosa e poesia, como também as imagens representativas dos símbolos de poder. Finalmente esta trajetória procura atravessar o interior dos enunciados, dialogando internamente com suas contradições e apontando para suas continuidades e recorrências. / This research analyses the construction of the State of Rondônia memory by means of the representations portrayed in the some texts of historical narrative and poetry of local writers. To reach that aim, the most representative works were selected from authors who wrote between the periods: 1943-56 (Guaporé Federal Territory), 1956-81 (Rondônia Federal Territory) up to the consolidation of the Rondônia State, after 1981. The analysis focuses these authors’ speeches and reveals their political affiliation and places from where they spoke their feelings - such memory is understood as product of highly educated elite which builds up projects of representation aspects, of different kinds, which fight each other the speech control. In this sense, the local images of the traditional populations appear designed from stereotyped misconceptions and ideologically biased: the notion of demographic emptiness, the rainforest populations leveled to nature and the “bandeirante” as a civilizing hero. Thus, the reflections presented in this work, had had as base the election of a set of narratives in prose and poetry, as well as the representative images of the symbols of being able. Finally, this trajectory seeks to go through the inside of enunciation, dialoguing internally with its contradictions and pointing with respect to its continuities and recurrences.

This is a thesis on madness and moments and what happens in between. I invite the reader into the world of a post-psychotic woman living within and without a Kuwaiti culture. As a fragmented and traumatised researcher I use my chaotic and dismembered writing as a narrative quilt creating a layered account of conversations and stories, in other words, “moments of meeting”. Moments that make us, define us and continue to create knowledge. In those moments, I dialogue with myself, with other people representing different cultures as well as the different “messy” theorists I draw on in my work. The messy theorists include writers such as Alec Grant, Sophie Tamas, Helene Cixous and Susanne Gannon. Through the creative freedom afforded me by their theories I begin to explore my chaotic psychic landscape. Those explorations are, what I call in this thesis, process inputs as they are also reflections of my personal process in writing this autoethnography. They exist alongside the moments of meeting to create snapshots of my experiences from different perspectives at different times. In this work, as a bipolar Kuwaiti woman, I have a dual purpose, where I give voice to my lived experience of a severe mental illness highlighting my struggle with narrative coherence as well as to provide a Kuwaiti I-account detailing my experience of being “othered” as a result of my “mad episodes”. I hope to, in the process, provide people with severe mental illnesses, Kuwaiti women and members of marginilised communities who have been forced out of the cultural scripts or master narratives of their country with constitutive narrative resources and alternative story lines that they can draw on in their journey towards “a more functional state” in the case of severe mental illness and the creation of a dialogue with people who are unable to, for cultural reasons communicate about their experiences.

This thesis describes a narrative analysis which explored what psychotherapists say about the importance, if any, of theory in their work with clients. This research question was chosen due to both being important to the researcher’s development as a psychotherapist, and also because of how it related to fundamental and important questions of what psychotherapy is, and how it is best understood. A review of relevant literature revealed how psychotherapy could be understood as being theory-driven, yet also encompassing arguably less-theorised features, with the philosophy of Wittgenstein recognised for having relevance to this debate. Literature pertaining to the question of when theory may become more important to psychotherapists was also reviewed, with theory-driven modes of activity by psychotherapists found to sometimes be due to their own anxiety. After consideration of various methodological issues, in terms of researching what psychotherapists say, and the difficulty of researching theory through using a method containing theoretical principles itself, narrative analysis was eventually chosen as an appropriate research method. Six UKCP psychotherapists were interviewed, and their narratives analysed individually, before being summarised as more general findings. Discussion of these findings suggested that whilst theory was generally important to psychotherapists, their relationships to theory were also found to be complex and changeable, with a particular contribution to knowledge of the research being the understanding that psychotherapists may construct and renegotiate their relationships to theory through conversations with others. Possible implications arising from this research were then explored, both in terms of what it might mean for psychotherapeutic practice, and also for future research. The research was then critiqued before being concluded.

It is imperative that individuals with physical impairments maintain an active lifestyle to enhance various aspects of well-being and overall quality of life. This population, however, are also one of the most sedentary in society. One identified reason for this is the ableism which exists in many fitness establishments that promotes acceptance of one particular body; the strong, physically athletic, muscular body is given value. Individuals who do not align to his particular physical reality may be subject to discrimination which can have a detrimental effect on their psycho-emotional well-being and deter them from exercising. Surprisingly, there is an increasing number of disabled individuals who are becoming gym instructors and further integrating themselves into a space which is deemed to oppress them. The purpose of this PhD is to explore these individuals' journey from gym clients to gym instructors. Framed by interpretivism and with particular focus on narrative inquiry, various qualitative analysis techniques were applied to explore 1) participants experiences exercising in the gym, 2) participants' motivations to be gym instructors, 3) how participants made sense of their gym instructor training and, 4)what impact participants perceived they had in the gym as instructors. This thesis has made original contributions to the literature by crafting a deep understanding of disabled people s experiences in the gym and why people enact social missions. For example, this thesis contextualizes disability in the gym and identifies that despite the numerous health benefits disabled people experience by exercising in this space, the psycho-emotional disablism they are subject to acts as a barrier for individuals to exercise here. Importantly, although disablism acted as a barrier to continued exercise for participants, it was also a facilitator in their decision to become a gym instructor. Essentially, participants described their own negative gym experiences as fuelling their desires to enact positive change in this space and do social missions in the gym. To be a gym instructor, participants went through a training programme specifically designed to train disabled people to embody this role. At this training, participants initially experienced a sense of validation and belonging through peer group exercise and were able to craft a collective story which allowed them to resist the oppressive disablism they experienced in the gym. However, as training continued and evolved so too did the narratives participants crafted to make sense of their experiences. Instead of one united story, participants crafted two conflicting narratives which redefined their relationship with each other and InstructAbility, and ultimately determined why some participants continued their training and others did not. For those who did continue to become fully qualified gym instructors, they felt they had a positive influence in promoting inclusion, exercise and diversity in the gym. In light of these findings, there are several practical recommendations for exercise practitioners, rehabilitation specialists, gym managers and those prescribing exercise to disabled people. Implications are aimed at improving exercise promotion and experiences of exercise in the gym for disabled people. For example, disabled gym instructors could be a way to bridge the perceived experiential gap between disability and the gym as they exhibit an alternate way of being which is accepted in this space. Through their experiential knowledge of disability and practical knowledge of exercise, these individuals can also relate to disabled clients in a way that non-disabled instructors cannot. Disabled gym instructors, however, can educate non-disabled gym instructors in how to train someone with an impairment. Equally, a more critical attitude to promoting exercise to disabled people is called for. Specifically, to steer away from disabling expectations and narratives of disabled people s motivations to exercise and move towards more realistic, enabling strategies and narratives to facilitate disabled peoples exercise behaviour.

Abstract The purpose of this research is to study identity construction in an ICT organization, which is generally seen as a flexible environment to be employed. The demise of a bureaucracy is generally seen as a positive thing. In new organizational forms employee participation is considered a central factor. The lack of boundaries in work brings not only freedom but also challenges. Organizations, tasks and people change constantly and employees find that they have to reconstruct their identities. This study is inductive, meaning that any theoretical frame was not chosen before doing the empirical analysis. The paradigm underlying narrative research is similar to constructivism in that human knowledge is not regarded as a coherent view of reality but as a plurality of small narratives, local and personal in nature, which are always under construction. The constructivist paradigm is based on the idea that social reality is socially constructed. This study contributes to identity narrative discussion and is thus current. Four different identity narratives are produced within this study: nostalgic, future-oriented, instrumental and chameleon narrative. Hence, the analysis resulted in four separate identity narratives. The relationship between the individual and the organization vary in each of the identity narratives. The empirical results also show that older employees produce more coherent identity stories and appear to be more committed to the organization. For younger employees the company is not as important, instead are more committed to their own career, family or something else. This is a significant result both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically it is interesting because it shows that in constructing identity, the organization does not have a central role. Empirically it means that the skilled employees might easily leave the organization if they feel they are not respected or if the organization does not support their personal careers. The present study provides evidence of narrativity supporting the construction of identity in a post-bureaucratic organization. Maintaining open dialogue requires open communication, which is not present in traditional, bureaucratic, top-down management. A post-bureaucratic organization allows for open dialogue in principle, but the time and space needed for narration in this environment is fragmented.