Political communities are defined, and often contested, through stories. Scholars have long recognized that two foundational sets of stories � narratives of contact and narratives of arrival � helped to define settler societies. Storied Communities disrupts the assumption that Indigenous and immigrant identities fall into two separate streams of analysis. The authors juxtapose narratives of contact and narratives of arrival as they explore key themes such as narrative form, the nature of storytelling in the political realm, and the institutional and theoretical implications of foundation narratives. By doing so, they open up new ways to imagine, sustain, and transform political communities.
''Human beings are not meant to live alone, or in isolated nuclear family arrangements. We do best in community. But in a few short generations, we've lost many of the social skills necessary for successful community living. The folks ... in Reinventing Community are the vanguard for the future - they're learning today ... what it takes to go beyond the solitary and aliented survival tactics of modern urban life to the full flowering of the human spirit of tomorrow.'' --- Eric Utne, founder of Utne magazine and editor of Cosmo Doogood's Urban Almanac.....Cohousing began in Scandinavia in the 1960s as a response to a feeling of isolation within typical suburban communities, where you don't know your neighbor, nor can you rely on their assistance - not even for a cup of sugar. Cohousing spread to the United States in the 1980s, and there are now several hundred such communities throughout the country in more than thirty states. Reinventing Community is the first cohousing anthology that tells real-world stories from the perspectives of the unique people who live in these communities, whether they be in urban, suburban, or rural settings. Unlike the few ''how-to'' guides in the marketplace today, this book details the lives of these close-knit groups of caring and active neighbors who enjoy their own privacy, yet also share a wonderful sense of camaraderie and connection. Exploring everything from planning a cohousing community to moving in to the joys and challenges of daily life, Reinventing Community shares with its readers a sense of what it takes to build a true community in our often detached and disengaged modern world.
From the Blurb: Though social scientists often talk about the "mainstream" of American society, they have very rarely studied it. Stories, Community, and Place does look at this group, examining the socio-linguistic behavior of the white middle-class population of a Midwest city. Barbara Johnstone focuses on the stories people tell about their lives and the stories they jointly create to define the place where they live. She looks at people's stories about incidents in their own lives, discussing what it is that these stories share, in structure and in theme, and what it is that gives each speaker a creative individual voice. She then examines how people use narrative to create, perpetuate, and manipulate social roles and relations. How, for example, are gender roles reflected in the stories women and men tell, and how do men's and women's stories create worlds of contest and community? How do people use reported speech to indicate what their relationships to police officers and other authority figures are like, while simultaneously suggesting what these relationships should be like? The final section of the book connects narrative with place. The author shows, for example, how stories are anchored in the local sociolinguistic world partly by being anchored in the local physical world. Another kind of connection between narrative and place is exemplified in a "community story" created by the media about a natural disaster in the city. This is a story which belongs to the city rather than to any of its citizens, and one in which the city and its citizens become one. Stories, Community, and Place will be of interest to linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, and folklorists, as well as to narratologists of any persuasion.
"John Walton never writes predictable books, and Monterey, California, is not a predictable place; the pairing is perfect. Although rooted in Monterey, this book explores how people in general construct historical narratives. Storied Land is as thought-provoking a discussion of public history and what it means to tell stories about the past as anything that I have read."—Richard White, author of Remembering Ahanagran: A History of Stories "With deep research, shrewd analysis, and vivid writing, John Walton reveals how we live in a web of competing stories that connect future and present to a contested past. In recovering the particular riches of Monterey's literally storied past, Walton finds universal experiences of labor, resistance, loss, and silencing. His own masterful storytelling lets us develop a fuller, more humane tie to the people of our past."—Alan Taylor, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic "In the borderlands between archived event and public memory, John Walton has found a pathway to understanding the process whereby a community remembers, forgets, denies, affirms, or otherwise structures or re-structures its understanding of itself. Excavating a region and a city important to Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and American California, A Storied Land makes a welcomed contribution to California studies and the larger history and sociology of place."—Kevin Starr, author of Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era "Once again, John Walton has turned the facts about California into a compelling narrative and a profound meditation on the nature of history and collective memory."—Howard Becker, author of Art Worlds
"Working with Stories" is a textbook for people who want to use participatory narrative inquiry (PNI) in their communities and organizations. PNI methods help people discover insights, catch emerging trends, make decisions, generate ideas, resolve conflicts, and connect people. Participatory narrative inquiry draws on theory and practice in narrative inquiry, participatory action research, oral history, mixed-methods research, participatory theatre, narrative therapy, sensemaking, complexity theory, and decision support. Its focus is on the exploration of values, beliefs, feelings, and perspectives through collaborative sensemaking with stories of lived experience. Contents Introduction Fundamentals of Story Work What Is a Story? What Are Stories For? How Do Stories Work? Stories in Communities and Organizations A Guide to Participatory Narrative Inquiry Introducing Participatory Narrative Inquiry Project Planning Story Collection Group Exercises for Story Collection Narrative Catalysis Narrative Sensemaking Group Exercises for Narrative Sensemaking Narrative Intervention Narrative Return Appendices Example Models and Templates for Group Exercises Further Reading: Your PNI Bookshelf Bibliography Acknowledgements and Biography Glossary Index Reader praise "I wanted to say thanks for making Working with Stories available. It's an amazing piece of work, so simple (not the ideas, but the presentation) and unintimidating." "["Working With Stories"] is very thorough and helpful to me in exploring ways that I might capture the narrative of a project I am involved in." "Your detailed description of [the sensemaking] process is so useful and helpful. It makes seasoned facilitators like me yearn to try out the ideas." "Over the past few months I have been reading, reflecting, and feasting on your experiences working with stories. I am really excited to have found "Working With Stories" because it seems like a rich set of options for our needs." "Your terminology and explanation of participatory narrative inquiry have helped me greatly in understanding what I want from my practice and what I might be capable of achieving in social change." "I have been returning to Working With Stories time and again over the past six months to help support a community project, and my printed copy is underlined, noted and dog-eared."
This book examines the representation of community in contemporary Anglophone Caribbean short stories, focusing on the most recent wave of Anglophone Caribbean short story writers following the genre's revival in the mid-1980s. The first extended study of Caribbean short stories, it presents the phenomenon of interconnected stories as a significant feature of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Anglophone Caribbean literary cultures. Lucy Evans contends that the short story collection and cycle, literary forms regarded by genre theorists as necessarily concerned with representations of community, are particularly appropriate and enabling as a vehicle through which to conceptualise Caribbean communities. The book covers short story collections and cycles by Olive Senior, Earl Lovelace, Kwame Dawes, Alecia Mckenzie, Lawrence Scott, Mark McWatt, Robert Antoni and Dionne Brand, and argues that the form of interconnected stories is a crucial part of these writers' imagining of communities, which may be fractured, plural and fraught with tensions, but which nevertheless hold together. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of community, bringing literary representations of community into dialogue with models of community developed in the field of Caribbean anthropology. The works analysed are set in Trinidad, Jamaica and Guyana, and in several cases the setting extends to the Caribbean diaspora in Europe and North America. Looking in turn at rural, urban, national and global communities, the book draws attention to changing conceptions of community around the turn of the millennium.
The Stories of Building the Black Beach Community of Ocean City, North Carolina shares a provocative story about a small Black beach community on North Topsail Island, North Carolina. Hope Jackson argues that stories like these not only offer a rich, untold perspective about Black lives, but also shares the depth of this Black community despite originating under the threat of violence in the segregated South. Brick by Brick acknowledges the defiance of a group of Black individuals who, collectively, provided a recreational oceanfront haven. These radical Black folks created a safe harbor for Blacks to visit, live, worship, and recreate in the midst of de facto segregation. The author reveals an embedded narrative which highlights the rebelliousness of Ocean City women’s strategic mothering. Jackson shares how the impact of this location extended beyond a vacation by creating Christian worship opportunities and an Episcopal summer youth camp for Black youth. The Ocean City stories remind readers that despite Jim Crow’s demise, the need for a safe, recreational space remains necessary for Black people in today’s society.
Six Community Psychologists Tell Their Stories: History, Contexts, and Narrative presents the unique opportunity to examine how culture and social norms have combined with chance, coincidence, and serendipity to form the professional identities of men and women who were among the first generation trained to work in the field of community psychology. The book’s contributors—disciples of those who founded the sub-field—provide insights into the factors (social status, family history, education, social environment, cultural events, important ideas) that furthered their professional development in an emerging field. Their stories—still works in progress—go far beyond facts, figures, dates and details to document what they’ve done with their lives—and why. Six esteemed community psychologists—three men who began their careers as the field was established in the mid-1960s and three women who took part in the increased opportunities available in the 1970s—recall how important events and social movements affected them as they fulfilled their personal and professional goals. They discuss the effects of family values and styles, class, ethnic status, gender, racism, anti-Semitism, the power of social settings, supportive education and work settings, and the impact of post-World War II government programs on their education, including the G.I. Bill, and the establishment of United States Public Health Service fellowships. Their stories touch on many common themes, including social marginality and sex discrimination, making personal discoveries in response to educational experiences, the significance of fate, and the experience of gaining a new or renewed sense of self through meaningful events, occasions, and people. These Six Community Psychologists Tell Their Stories: Dr. Jean Ann Linney (University of South Carolina), whose experiences involve a combination of idealism, supportive contexts, and good fortune Dr. Julian Rappaport (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), who views himself as an “insider/outsider,” whose personal and professional identity crosses traditional boundaries Dr. N. Dickon Reppucci (University of Virginia), who became a community psychologist by accident, an outgrowth of his involvement with social protest in the 1960s Dr. Marybeth Shinn (New York University), whose story reflects her interest in the social contexts of neighborhoods and community settings Dr. Edison J. Trickett (University of Illinois at Chicago), who writes of the life experiences that have influenced both his work and his longtime involvement in folk music Dr. Rhona S. Weinstein (University of California at Berkeley), whose work in the dynamics of self-fulfilling prophecies in educational settings developed early in her career Insightful commentary on their recollections is provided by two distinguished scholars—Henrika Kuklick, Science Historian at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dan McAdams, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. Six Community Psychologists Tell Their Stories: History, Contexts, and Narrative is a unique resource for community psychologists, autobiographical researchers, and anyone interested in the history of psychology.
