The Practice Of Narrative Storytelling In A Global Context

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2016. Story can have a power and presence that stretches beyond the vast, unspeakable boundaries of time and space; and yet story can also have a delicate impermanence that lasts no longer than a moment before it flashes back into the void. Some stories can bring people together; other stories can tear entire civilisations apart. Stories express and enliven experience; stories project and describe the desires and anxieties of existence. Stories can be narrated through written word and physical gesture, through graphic illustration and musical orchestration, through the spatial dynamics of architecture and the abstract poetics of conjecture. For these and myriad other reasons, storytelling and narrative are central to humanity, and the study of these practices is central to an understanding of what it means to be human. In this volume, the many narrative dimensions, media, and critical approaches to storytelling are explored with the common intention of comprehending and appreciating the global role that story plays in the articulation of human experience.

This book focuses on storytelling and human life by exploring the possibilities of narrative approaches across numerous disciplines and in diverse contexts; stories are humanity’s oldest way of making meaning of our past, present and future.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. The Many Facets of Storytelling: Global Reflections on Narrative Complexity explores a range of issues around narratives and their uses in various contexts and aspects of life. The premise for this volume is that human beings are storytelling creatures and stories or narratives are part of our daily lives and have been for centuries. From this starting point, the authors in this volume offer their explorations, reflections and findings from research and practice across disciplines and continents. Certain functions of stories are uncovered - education, social change and identity formation, for example. Some specific uses of narratives are investigated, such as in research methodology and representations in the media. Finally, other narratives are offered for themselves, as performances and (auto)biographical reflections. The chapters in this volume illustrate the many meanings of storytelling, and thus account for the layers of complexity that are inevitable when we discuss narratives.

In Storytelling as Narrative Practice, the editors marshal a rich set of ethnographic case studies, drawn from a diverse range of global contexts, to show that storytelling is best understood contextually as a socially contingent practice.

Fascination with leadership and its relation to world events seems to be ever growing, and leadership narratives are a key element through which leader identities are constructed. Contemporary research into leadership tends to recycle the same old myths of the heroic white male leader. By looking at stories told by leaders in Australasia, Asia, North America, the Middle East, and Africa, this book explores different aspects of leadership narratives. The Language of Leadership Narratives brings linguistics and leadership research together, showcasing different analytical and methodological approaches and enabling a more critical approach. Each chapter focuses on a specific area of leadership research, from dark leadership to gendered leadership. This book introduces the advantages of analysing leadership narratives as social practice and discusses some of the main themes in contemporary leadership research. This volume is key reading for scholars and students of linguistics, communication studies, and business studies, and for those working in business and intercultural communication in the workplace.

Storytelling is an essential tool for reporting and illuminating the cultural contexts of health: the practices and behavior that groups of people share and that are defined by customs, language, and geography. This report reviews the literature on narrative research, offers some quality criteria for appraising it, and gives three detailed case examples: diet and nutrition, well-being, and mental health in refugees and asylum seekers. Storytelling and story interpretation belong to the humanistic disciplines and are not a pure science, although established techniques of social science can be applied to ensure rigor in sampling and data analysis. The case studies illustrate how narrative research can convey the individual experience of illness and well-being, thereby complementing and sometimes challenging epidemiological and public health evidence.

This book brings together researchers from across the globe to share their work on the micro-analyses of storytelling. By doing so, the book helps to deepen the understanding of, and track storytelling practices cross-culturally and longitudinally in the home, at school, and in higher education. Through the unique focus on education and learning, this book provides a lens with which to identify how children’s and adolescents’ language development and sense of self in storytelling are supported in various contexts: the home, classroom, playground or in the higher education context. It explores the work, identity and practices of friends, teachers and lecturers in teaching, learning, reflection and supervision. Importantly, in identifying these practices, the book presents opportunities to assist parents and teachers, to inform pedagogy in teacher education, and to support effective doctoral supervision. The focus on storytelling in homes, education, and for learning, and the practical applications of the findings, contribute to the ongoing research in both education and conversation analysis. Chapter 10 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.