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This research took place over one academic year in a class of 7 children (6 to 7 years old) with statemented learning and language difficulties. The research aimed to explore the question “What can teachers learn from the stories children tell?” with the class teacher having the dual role of teacher and researcher. The research had two foci: the developmental evaluation of a particular pedagogical approach and an open-ended enquiry into what could be learned through the analysis of the stories told by children using a multi-perspective analysis grid. The pedagogical approach was formulated from certain guiding principles: the development of a “pedagogy of listening”, integrated and creative experiences with opportunities for multi-modal representations, the concept of “playful work”, opportunities for therapeutic play within the classroom, and the importance of giving prominence to stories and story-telling. These principles guided the development of a range of story-telling contexts within which the children told stories to the teacher who acted as scribe. The collection of 145 stories was then analyzed using the grid created for the research. This analysis incorporated an assessment of the language and story-telling skills of the children using a range of methods and an interpretation of the social and emotional meanings conveyed in the stories told. An assessment of the stories revealed that the children had made better than expected progress in their development of expressive language, but the meaning of their stories was to be found in different analyses than those used to assess language development. Teachers could learn much from the stories that the children told, but only if they interpreted the stories from a wide range of perspectives. The pedagogical approach was deemed sufficiently effective for the teacher/researcher to continue developing her practice under its guiding principles.

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I believe it is possible to tell stories through architecture. Indeed, it is my practice to create buildings that tell stories. It is important to build and elaborate connections between past and present, to tease out memories and discover meanings. These define and strengthen a sense of community - in this instance the very community of which I am a part. My oeuvre springs from cultural - even anecdotal - reference points, more than from the work of my architectural forebears and compatriots. Other architects design through a creative interaction with their unconscious: they develop doodles and lines, and resolve them into ordered spatial environments. Instead, when I claim to design buildings that tell stories, I mean that I create a spatial identity that resonates with memories and unconscious associations. This entails the very deliberate ordering of spaces - external and internal - where cultural considerations and their associated meanings are developed from the outset, informing the whole design process. My materials are the traditional fabric of contemporary architecture. I use them to modify buildings and shape spaces to visual symbols, objects by association. My early work evolved in such a way that projects could be read as a illustrated story. I have more recently begun to engage in a more psychological 'place making' to conceive a building's form. The functional aspect of layout is always overlaid with visual imagery designed to evoke memories among the ordinary, mostly architecturally-illiterate people who use the buildings. I am continually challenged to create architectural forms that more effectively engage with the culture and traditions of people and place. But neither my architectural practice nor my designs can be termed 'traditional'. Here I seek to describe story-telling as an architectural form. Stories are my contextual framework for thinking. And story-telling is my way to connect buildings with people.

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Phisophy in the Faculty of Arts, in the Department of African Languages at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2009. / Like many other nations, around the globe, Zulus are well known for their story telling techniques that is evident in their folktales, praises, riddles, songs and many other art forms of yesteryears. Emanating from such artistry of narrating, the Zulus have also joined forces with the other artists of the modem world in producing narratives of high quality and standard in the light of contemporary prose narratives. Ngcongwane, (1987:36) alludes to this art form as follows: Narrating is an old human activity. All of us do it - just as much as all ofus who are not crippled can walk. Such a statement by Ngcongwane confirms that even Africans are able to narrate stories, be it from a traditional or modem perspective. Sibiya, (2002:1) seems to be concurring with what is said by Ngcongwane when he states that: ... Zulus are renowned for their storytelling abilities that date back to time immemorial. 'Time immemorial' here seems to be confirming exactly what Ngcongwane refers to as 'an old human activity'. This art ofnarration is not only a thing ofthe past, but has been in existence since the ancient era to the present day. The significance of its existence is evidenced in the development and the involvement of the short stories and drama In this chapter we will illustrate the extent of development that has taken place with African writers, specifically the Zulu, being represented by Msimang in his three novels, 'Akuyiwe Emhlahlweni' (1973), 'Buzani KuMkabayi' (1982), and 'Walivuma Icala' (1996).

Reconciliation is generally studied from the perspective of how the process affects the individual. This study on the contrary, seeks to explain how the individual expectation of the process affects its outcome by investigating the relationship between motives to participate and the outcome of acceptance for your former adversary. A research gap has been identified in studying individual motives for participating in reconciliation processes between social factors as a facilitator for reconciliation and the actual joining of a process. Studying this gap has resulted in support for the hypothesis that individuals with the motive to tell the truth in a process experience high levels of acceptance towards their former adversaries, compared to individuals who participate in a process with the motive of holding the other party accountable for past sufferings. Using the method of in-depth interviews in Cambodia and thematic analysis reveals the main finding that acceptance is facilitated by the mechanisms of acknowledgment and understanding of the other party in combination with active interaction between the parties. This study presents three main recommendations for future ideas and reconciling establishments.

This project is an exploration of the endless negotiation of the va, the relationships that consistently define and redefine themselves in the space between two cultures. The va consists of relationships between people and things, unspoken expectations and obligations: the inherent and changeable patterns, of obligations and expectations between people and their environment. The va space can be viewed as the stage upon which all patterns and motifs carry meaning. How the patterns and motifs change meanings are subject to other elements in the va. Meaning in my work will evoke the interweaving connections of past and present through oral history, genealogy, and fagogo¹ (story telling) memory and artist sentiment. As participant, the artist reflects through the remembrance of sifting through images, person, family, events, time, and space. An emphasis will be placed on the exploration of pattern and motif as a signifier of events and sign of respect, with a focus on notions of the va. The project explores notions of visual patterns and motifs to be utilized as a vehicle to signify in that all patterns and motifs carry meaning in that they signify an event, person, time, and space. Written from a Samorians² perspective of one who lives in the space between. ¹ See Sean Mallon (2002) for an explanation on fagogo in Samoan Art and Artists O Measina a Samoa p. 163). ² The term ‘Samorians’ refers to a play on words of Samoans and an American treat called ‘samores’ containing a marshmallow that is cooked in the microwave or roasted in the fire and then placed in between two chocolate biscuits. It can also refer to an afakasi (half-caste).

Challenging the wide-spread hopelessness in relationship to our capacity to produce real alternatives to the abstract and egoistic neoliberal utopia – with its destructive and unfair consequences around the globe in general and specifically in Mallorca – this thesis, understood as performative research, focuses on the conception and development of Situated Collective Utopias.  These would be utopias that can grow generously and unfold not as abstract and consensed projections of futures but as extrusions of very contextual and often dissensual hopes. They are apparatuses to explore our collective abilities to practically, critically and ethically engage in and sustain the making and thinking of difference. A difference that is materialized and shared as a common heritage and that belongs to who cares and takes care of it.  This thesis report contains a theoretical reflection about the concepts of utopia and heritage as well as an ecology of interventions that make and transform their own sites and aim at developing skilled spatial practices that “think through making”. The practical engagements in those particular situations afford an ongoing radical critique of their contexts and several “outside” moments of reflection.  At last, in the active pursue of finding already present Situated Collective Utopias, this thesis also tells various stories of learning from within the radical sharing community of excluded people of Can Gazà, stories which tell about a process of being given through architecting.

This project is an exploration of the endless negotiation of the va, the relationships that consistently define and redefine themselves in the space between two cultures. The va consists of relationships between people and things, unspoken expectations and obligations: the inherent and changeable patterns, of obligations and expectations between people and their environment. The va space can be viewed as the stage upon which all patterns and motifs carry meaning. How the patterns and motifs change meanings are subject to other elements in the va. Meaning in my work will evoke the interweaving connections of past and present through oral history, genealogy, and fagogo¹ (story telling) memory and artist sentiment. As participant, the artist reflects through the remembrance of sifting through images, person, family, events, time, and space. An emphasis will be placed on the exploration of pattern and motif as a signifier of events and sign of respect, with a focus on notions of the va. The project explores notions of visual patterns and motifs to be utilized as a vehicle to signify in that all patterns and motifs carry meaning in that they signify an event, person, time, and space. Written from a Samorians² perspective of one who lives in the space between. ¹ See Sean Mallon (2002) for an explanation on fagogo in Samoan Art and Artists O Measina a Samoa p. 163). ² The term ‘Samorians’ refers to a play on words of Samoans and an American treat called ‘samores’ containing a marshmallow that is cooked in the microwave or roasted in the fire and then placed in between two chocolate biscuits. It can also refer to an afakasi (half-caste).