Search Results (10)

Background/Objectives: Older adults may experience healthcare encounters in which their voices are discounted, redirected through family members, or interpreted through age-related assumptions about cognitive decline. Although such problems are often discussed through dignity, communication, ageism, person-centred care, or shared decision-making, this conceptual review argues that they also involve epistemic harms: harms that occur when older adults are not recognized as credible knowers of their own bodies, needs, values, histories, and care priorities. Methods: This article develops a conceptual and critical analysis of Fricker’s account of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, later critiques of epistemic injustice, and the nursing and gerontological literature on dignity, person-centred nursing, documentation, dementia care, and shared decision-making. Results: The analysis distinguishes ordinary communication failure, institutional restriction of interpretive space, testimonial injustice, and hermeneutical injustice. It identifies interacting interpersonal and institutional mechanisms through which older adults’ knowledge may be discounted or rendered invisible and develops five theoretically derived principles: credibility-oriented listening, narrative recognition, supported participation, relational decision-making, and epistemic documentation. For each principle, the framework identifies the epistemic failure addressed, its added value beyond general person-centred practice, and responsibilities at both individual and organizational levels. Conclusions: An epistemic-justice lens does not replace dignity, person-centred care, shared decision-making, or professional judgement. It adds a focused analysis of credibility, interpretive authority, knowledge visibility, and whose account shapes care. The proposed framework is a conceptual and normative contribution that requires empirical evaluation before its effects can be established. Full article

Cloud Atlas (2004) presents a process of religious genesis. This genesis is set against the backdrop of the retreat of stable institutions and recoverable origins, gradually taking shape at the far end of a broken transmission chain. Existing criticism has tended to examine this novel’s nested form separately from Sonmi~451’s posthumous sanctification. This article connects these lines of inquiry by reading the orison as a witness medium within a broken chain of narrative transmission. Along this chain, Ewing’s Pacific diary establishes a compromised model of institutional Christianity, in which faith gains public effectiveness from conversionist rhetoric. This damaged state of institutional religion constitutes a reverse baseline prior to the formation of Sonmi’s testimony as a witness medium. Sonmi’s interrogation in Nea So Copros records political speech as testimony, giving material form to a condemned voice and supporting it to survive beyond her execution at the end of her world. Zachry’s post-apocalyptic valley receives this damaged medium, whose legal grammar has vanished from local memory, but the loss of this grammar does not bring reception to an end. In this context, Meronym’s historical interpretation of Sonmi’s origin intensifies the pressure on devotional allegiance, with sacred use first persisting in prayer and ritual space, then entering the cradle-side oral narrative. The novel’s nested design allows the reader to move across separate storyworlds. Only in this cross-world position can the reader juxtapose the state-recorded testimony with its afterlife as an object of prayer. Thus, religion as a communal claim is formed under semantic loss and becomes clearly visible only from the reader’s cross-world position. Full article

Guided by the ideational theory of populism and Jowett and O’Donnell’s framework for propaganda analysis, this study examines Donald Trump’s usage of propagandistic language and emotional appeals. The study classifies his posts on Truth Social during the 2024 American presidential election into the seven categories of propaganda tactics outlined by the Institute of Propaganda Analysis. These techniques include name calling, glittering generalities, transfer methods, testimonials, plain folk appeals, card stacking and bandwagoning. A deductive content analysis was performed on a corpus of the text of 1319 Truth Social posts (“truths”) posted by Donald Trump during the election, excluding image- and video-based posts. This study found a vast majority contain at least one classic propaganda technique. A contribution of this study is that it determines not only which tactics he uses as a case study of a populist communicator but who he targets and with which tactics. The study found five main targets: political opponents, political allies, immigrants, institutions, and foreign leaders. Findings demonstrate Donald Trump does not use propaganda techniques monolithically but rather as dependent on his target and with distinct patterns, to produce and reinforce narratives about in- and out-group messaging. Full article

This article examines Heather Marshall’s Looking for Jane as a literary engagement with the history of reproductive control in postwar Canada. It contends that the novel redefines trauma as a structurally generated condition, influenced by institutional and social constraints. Through its fragmented, multi-generational narrative, comprising letters, testimonies, and disjointed timelines, the text reconstructs a history that survives only in partial, mediated, and often unstable traces, foregrounding the difficulties of rendering reproductive trauma historically visible. By contextualising individual experiences within a broader framework of institutional oversight and referencing documented practices such as forced adoption and restricted access to abortion, the novel links literary form to historical realities. Its concluding paratext extends this dialogue into the present, engaging the reader directly and emphasising the ongoing significance of reproductive trauma in contemporary discourses on responsibility and recognition. Full article

This article reexamines Liang Fa’s Riji Yanxing (Record of Words and Deeds, 1830) from the perspective of narrative structure rather than solely as a historical missionary document. Previous scholarship has shown that the diary was produced within the institutional framework of the London Missionary Society and functioned primarily as a record of early Protestant evangelization in China. Building on these studies, this article argues that the diary simultaneously records missionary work and narrates the formation of Christian faith. Through close readings of Liang Fa’s reflections, prayers, and recorded dialogues with potential converts, the study demonstrates how an institutional testimonial text develops a narrative configuration shaped by Christian theology. Within this framework, missionary responsibility, anxiety over divine judgment, and reflections on death and salvation form recurring cycles of crisis, repentance, and renewed commitment. Dialogues with potential converts further dramatize this theological logic by transforming doctrinal arguments into scenes of spiritual confrontation and hesitation. Although Riji Yanxing was not originally composed as a literary work, it reveals the emergence of a new mode of Christian narrative in Chinese writing. The diary thus illustrates how Christian concepts of sin, redemption, and judgment reshaped narrative consciousness in early nineteenth-century China. Full article

As Villanova University students navigate campus life, ghost stories tied to specific buildings, paths, and rituals circulate as grassroots spatial narratives. This article argues that these stories involving haunted halls, underground tunnels, and ritualized practices surrounding seals, arches, and fountains, function as forms of Radical Placemaking, through which students collectively reinterpret, appropriate, and sometimes resist the university’s officially sanctioned spatial order. Drawing on 162 student testimonies collected in 2019, translated into Spanish, and analyzed using topic modeling, co-occurrence mapping, and GIS visualization, the study demonstrates how vernacular stories encode lived experiences, informal knowledge, and alternative claims to campus space. Nine thematic clusters emerge, organized into three narrative domains: supernatural encounters anchored to institutional buildings (including Alumni Hall’s Civil War history, the St. Mary’s nun legend, and Tolentine Hall hauntings), ritual and tradition practices that reinscribe or subvert formal authority (the Corr Chapel arch, the Driscoll Hall seal ritual, and student ceremonies), and hidden-space narratives that imagine infrastructures beyond official visibility (such as underground tunnels linking campus buildings). Analysis of narrative transmission reveals uneven power relations: institutional channels circulate curated traditions aligned with university identity. Peer networks and personal experiences generate counter-mappings that privilege exploration, embodiment, and affect. Villanova’s ghost stories constitute spatial perceptions that enable students to assert belonging, contest institutional narratives, and produce place through collective storytelling within an evolving and hierarchically governed campus landscape. Full article

This article examines the sacred narrative traditions surrounding Nūr Atā, a small town in present-day Uzbekistan, to explore how Muslim communities in Central Asia expressed their religious history. Drawing on seven manuscripts preserved at the Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, six in Persian and one in Turkic, the study identifies two distinct traditions that portray the town’s sanctity through prophetic miracle stories, hadith transmission chains, and Sufi cosmology. It explores how narrative form, linguistic variation, and intertextual references shape distinct devotional and historiographical claims. The topics addressed include the relationship between sacred narrative and historiography, the role of ritual practice in sacralizing space, and the textual transmission of spiritual authority. The sacred history of Nūr Atā offers a compelling vision of the town’s religious significance, communicated through both the content and structure of its narratives. These accounts position the town not merely as a local pilgrimage site but as a locus of divine favor embedded within the sacred geography of Islam. By linking the Prophet’s Miʿrāj, angelic testimony, and Sufi initiatic traditions to the landscape of Nūr Atā, the texts construct a genealogy of sanctity that aligns the local with the universal. In doing so, they articulate a vision of communal identity rooted in divine election, prophetic blessing, and spiritual legitimacy. The case of Nūr Atā thus underscores the need to treat sacred narratives, pilgrimage guides, and genealogical traditions as forms of historiography in their own right. These sources do not merely supplement court chronicles or administrative histories; they constitute vital modes through which Central Asian Muslim communities preserved collective memory, asserted religious authority, and inscribed themselves within the broader landscape of the Islamic world. Full article

This article explores how gender stereotypes and institutional practices influence the development and public image of women’s football in Romania, framing the case within debates on social sustainability (SDG 5), media representation, and sports governance. Using a mixed-methods approach, we triangulate (1) a qualitative content analysis of DigiSport online coverage (n = 57 articles; 2022–2025), (2) public testimonies collected at a national conference on gender and sport held in Timișoara in 2025 and (3) two in-depth, semi-structured interviews with one professional player whose multi-club career offers cross-organizational insights and one professional player who is still a student at the start of her career. The findings reveal systematic symbolic exclusion: in our sample, stories about women’s football make up approximately 2% of total football coverage and are mostly limited to results-only briefs, with little contextual information about athletes, resources, or structures. Historically, post-socialist policy changes have led to formal recognition but limited material support, resulting in symbolic compliance, such as UEFA/FRF mandates without corresponding investments. Current initiatives, like FRF’s Modele de Femeie campaign and UEFA-supported GOALSCORE, increase visibility but coexist with persistent gendered framings in media narratives and public discourse. The interviews support the media findings, highlighting recurring barriers—such as precarious funding, limited pathways, gendered disrespect in stadiums, and the psychological impact of marginalization—alongside stories of resilience and agency. We argue that achieving sustainable inclusion in women’s football requires more than regulatory measures; it calls for media parity, stable resources, and gender-competent leadership. Aligning policy with cultural change through equitable coverage standards, transparent funding, and accountability measures can transform football from a symbol of inequality into a space of social empowerment. Full article

The medical treatment of people with innate Variations of Sex Characteristics (VSC) and intersex individuals remains a contested ethical field, where personal narratives have emerged as strategic and epistemological tools. This article examines how such narratives challenge entrenched medical authority, resist pathologizing models of care, and shape evolving legal and ethical frameworks. Using a reflective, interpretive approach grounded in thematic analysis of publicly available cases, we trace narrative interventions across two domains: as medical evidence in clinical contexts and as testimony in policy and legal advocacy. Examples include public protest, contested collaborations with medical professionals, and participation in legislative debates. These accounts not only document the harms of non-consensual medical interventions but also reconfigure definitions of legitimate knowledge, positioning lived experience as counter-expertise. In doing so, they disrupt traditional hierarchies of authority and contribute to the co-production of alternative visions for intersex healthcare and rights. While narrative mobilization can catalyze significant institutional change, it also entails emotional and ethical burdens for those repeatedly called upon to share their experiences. We argue that storytelling is not merely an accessory to reform but a foundational mechanism for advancing medical ethics, influencing policy, and expanding human rights protections. Full article

The COVID-19 has caused high morbidity and mortality in vulnerable people, such as those affected by chronic diseases, and case-management nurses (CMNs) are reference professionals for their health care and management. The objective of this study is to better understand the discourse, experiences, and feelings about the professional performance of CMNs during the pandemic. A qualitative study was conducted by conducting semi-structured interviews with CMNs (n = 31) from the province of Seville (Spain) and performing a narrative discourse analysis. The Atlas Ti 6.2 software program was used. Two categories were defined: 1. CMNs’ competencies (76 verbatim testimonies); and 2. Consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic (61 verbatim testimonies). This study was granted due permission by the Research Ethics Committee belonging to the University of Seville, under protocol code: 1139-N-22. The pandemic caused an increase in CMNs’ workload, and they had to assume their usual care tasks for vulnerable populations in addition to simultaneously prioritizing assistance in nursing homes. We can highlight CMNs’ adaptation to the pandemic situation and to these new requirements in the context of their significant social commitment to the advanced practice of the profession, a commitment that is closely related to leadership. We should also indicate that interpersonal relationships were improved, and that there was technological progress. Some CMNs mentioned an increase in their workload and reported experiencing burnout syndrome. We conclude that CMNs’ management of health care during the pandemic has been extraordinary, especially in regard to the most vulnerable populations of patients, including individuals with chronic diseases and institutionalized older adults, a fact that has been valued by the institutions and by society in general. Full article