Volume 14, Number 1, 2025

EN:

This paper examines the lived experiences of seven young women with mild-to-moderate depression on dance-based participatory research from the perspective of narrative futuring (NF). The data consists of letters on desired future and reflective letters. The letters were analyzed with inductive thematic content analysis and later abductively interpreted with the concepts of inner and lived narratives drawn from the model of narrative circulation. The findings were condensed into four themes: 1) Love, self-respect, and self-actualization; 2) The tripod of peace of mind; 3) Peer support at significant turning points; and 4) The future. Overall, the method of danced NF facilitated a bodily connection, allowing the individual to discover personal meaning-making on depression, to envisage the possible desired future and to take steps towards it. Therefore, the corporeally and socially affirmed inner narratives contributed to the lived narratives. In conclusion, the findings suggest that embodied inner narratives derived from the desired future may contribute to lived narratives and improve mood in the short term. Although the findings must be considered preliminary, they may have practical implications for the prevention and alleviation of depression and possibly offer a multimodal and youth-friendly approach in health-care services.

EN:

Forgiveness is a multilayered process. However, there is little research on how individuals construct their narrative identity through self-positioning at turning points in the forgiveness process. The present study investigated these questions by interviewing 22 Finnish adults, applying McAdams’s life story interview method. Data-driven thematic narrative analysis demonstrated six turning points for the positioning self: (1) prologue: reflecting on the self from a distance, (2) the self gets help from others, (3) battling with the self, (4) the enlightened self, (5) the self initiates confrontation and (6) epilogue: the stronger future self. For the participants, these turning points were complex and profound experiences. Narrative turning points of forgiveness represented the many shades and phases of the forgiveness process that shaped participants’ positions and lives. The process was not linear and included stalled phases. Self-positioning moved from transgression to forgiveness, and in this process, the self’s agency varied from external to active. Participants described turning points in narratives of learning and empowerment with a strong protagonist who wants to move on in life. Turning points of forgiveness and self-positions may take different narrative forms in the future as individuals continue to narrate their forgiveness.

EN:

Narratological studies dealing with the story itself, the fabula, have become increasingly scarce in recent years. By revisiting classic narratological models, we identify the concept of narrative act, an "action upon an action", as a fundamental element of narrative transformation. We then draw up a systematic inventory of them, in the form of a broad typology organized into a set of interlocking models, each of which enriches the description of the fabula actions. In this modeling work, we emphasize the narrative nature of acts, in the sense that they are not simply speech acts or types of actions by an agent in social interaction. Notably, these narrative acts have their own narrative characteristics: dilation on the one hand, and the mise en abyme of the discourse on the other hand. More than 600 narrative acts have been found and grouped under twenty models. In order to provide a tangible access to this large set, a web-based interactive visualization has been implemented, offering a simple way to browse through the hundreds of narrative acts.

EN:

Shared reading is a relatively new type of reading intervention which aims to improve the wellbeing of participants by reading literary texts, mostly in non-educational settings. In order to find out whether shared reading can live up to its aims, we present and synthesize the existing scholarship on the effects of shared reading. To this end we have selected all the available studies up till 2024. The rapidly developing research into shared reading, which uses various theoretical perspectives and methodologies across disciplines, points towards impacts that we discuss as three interrelated aspects: emotional engagement, acquaintance with new perspectives, and the establishment of social connections and collaborative practices. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the various research methods used in scholarship on shared reading, and point to the potential of shared reading in the context of education.