Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Narrative enquiry'

The thesis is grounded in Heideggerian phenomenology. It examines the existentiale of meaning in Heidegger's ontology of Dasein of the 1920s and proposes that the concept of narrative can clarify our understanding of meaning in human life. Narrative theory in turn is critically examined and the importance of the difference between the spoken and written word is elucidated. It is demonstrated that the theoretical understanding of narrative has been distorted by the acceptance of literary narrative as paradigmatic. The primordial form of narrative is shown to be oral. A commentary on Heidegger's analysis of boredom is undertaken and it is shown that the essential structure of narrative is given by the ecstatic temporality of Dasein that is not bored. The event of non-boring oral storytelling is analysed in detail and shown to be a particular existentiell modification of Dasein as being-with. In this event Dasein is called to its own authenticity and transposed into the Da of the story. In the final chapter links are made to the theory and practice of psychotherapy and of performance. The existentiell transformation of Dasein in a well-told oral storytelling event is shown to be the therapeutic essence of psychotherapeutic dialogue. Insight on its own is not curative; psychotherapeutic change is dependent on the way in which a patient is able to tell their story. Only by taking up authentic possibilities is the client's authentic future freed. Similarly in public performances of theatre or storytelling the mysterious phenomena of audiences being transported, uplifted and unified are revealed to be instances of the same existentiell transformation. We conclude by indicating the significance of our findings for philosophy and narrative theory and highlighting the importance of the untranscribable meaning of oral discourse.

This research is concerned with the question of what constitutes a good therapeutic outcome and which therapeutic practices are most likely to bring this about. It comprises, first, a narrative literature review which examines recent claims of 'positive psychologists' to have devised interventions that are more effective at directly increasing human 'happiness' and well-being than those that aim to reduce distress. This review concludes that such claims are not backed up by clear evidence, that they lack conceptual clarity and that it is therefore not clear that the field of positive psychology has added anything new to clinical practice. The qualitative analysis of the narratives of former therapy clients who have assessed their therapy as helpful forms the basis for the main research paper, which explores clients' stories of what constitutes helpful therapy. The paper constructs and discusses a single shared plot line that is common to all participants and concludes that helpful therapy is that which helps clients to construct their own sense of understanding and 'story' about their difficulties as well as to develop some strategies for dealing with their effects. The critical review takes a reflective stance to considering how far the research study has represented the range of clients' views on the therapeutic practices that they find useful. It considers one particular study participant whose narrative suggests that the shared story derived from the research paper may represent only one of a range of possible different conceptions of 'helpful therapy', that which occurs when clients use therapy as a discrete and focused episode in their life rather than an ongoing source of support and development. The paper concludes that future research could benefit from exploring with service users different conceptions of the role of therapy that might lead to different 'stories'.

The leadership style of individuals can change and adapt in different circumstances, and this can also be influenced if the person is a natural leader. Leadership theory argues that one can be a natural leader, but also given a situation an individual can become a leader out of circumstance (Northouse, 2013; Leicester, 1989, p. 6). Not only that but a leader can be a manager and a manager can be a leader. The focus group for this study is middle managers; they have a unique position to influence an organisation but are often overlooked (Huy, 2001, p. 73). Middle management is a sociological phenomenon because their influence is normally on the lower level staff. While studying sociology it is important to factor in preconceptions and stereotypes that people have about not only races and genders, but professions and industries. These preconceptions impact how people view a leader or manager and what that person should be in terms of their gender and personality traits. Therefore their perception of what an industry is can also be assigned a gender. These preconceptions can come from an individual’s upbringing and national culture (Hofstede, 1991, p. 8); this thesis looks  into the UK due to the more masculine nature of the culture and my own relation with the country (Hofstede, clearlycultural, 2014). The gender assigning of industries and professions influences how people lead a group as well as how they feel that they should lead to gain respect from their team. Due to the deeper factors in this study, an interpretivist approach has been taken leaning toward hermeneutics which is concerned with an empathic understanding of human action rather than with the forces that act on it (Bryman, 2012, p. 28). This combined with a constructionist view mean that the research attempts to understand the thoughts behind beliefs and preconceptions. The main focus of this investigation is the narrative inquiry, using semi-structured interviews to allow the participants to tell stories about their experiences with managers and being a manager themselves. The interviews are cross-sectional to see how all the participants think a manager should be compared to what they actually are/see as a manager. A pattern analysis will be used to correlate the results with a Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) test to establish if the participants are more masculine or feminine and how that impacts their leadership style. In conclusion men don’t always have a masculine leadership style and women don’t always have a feminine style. National culture does impact how leadership and management are perceived but that is not the case in an individual’s experience of real life managers and leaders. Gender assigned industries influence what professions people choose but to a lesser extent if that person holds a management position or they are capable leaders within that industry.

I present a qualitative study using the narratives, elicited through interviews, of seven second-generation South Asian Britons; five men and two women, aged at the time of the interviews between 35 to 50 years. My participants are higher professionals who have married out of their ethnic and linguistic communities, and who are parents of dual-heritage children ̶ a target group that is under-represented in linguistics research. I investigate the participants’ relationship with their South Asian Heritage Language ̶ the languages being Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil and Konkani ̶ and the dynamics of languages in their families (their birth families and their own families), showing that the factors which influence language maintenance and transmission are varied and unpredictable, and not always related to proficiency in or affinity to the Heritage Language and culture. I also investigate how the participants exploit the interview platform I give them, arguing that the participants perform the habitus (Bourdieu, 1991) of a member of the South Asian diaspora, with acute awareness of how their lives share similarities with and differ from the Discourses (Gee, 1999) surrounding South Asians in Britain. I analyse the narratives using an emic perspective of the functional use of discourse, using aspects of conversation analysis and using a Bakhtinian perspective of language. I show how the participants use the discourse to point to Discourses as well as different linguistic and cultural capitals (Bourdieu, 1990) available to them. My thesis regards the narratives firstly as a body of text for discourse analysis, offering three themes: how the participants use temporal and spatial references, how they use ‘voices’, and how they ‘recreate’ their pasts using chronotopes (Bakhtin, 1981). Secondly, by regarding the narratives individually, I show that within the interview-time the participants present a macro-narrative of themselves, explaining and/or justifying how they have become the person they are now. By treating the narratives in these two ways I contribute to the exploration of methodologies that can be used in narrative enquiry while providing new insights into practices surrounding language maintenance and loss in dual-heritage families.

The purpose of this study was to understand TB patients' experiential accounts of access to TB diagnosis and treatment and more specifically about their experiences of medical help from health care professionals. METHOD: This narrative enquiry was undertaken in three boroughs of London, including two boroughs with the highest TB notification rates in the UK. The study involved pilot interviews with ten patients to develop the research question. In-depth narrative interviews with 32 additional patients were then undertaken. All participants were over eighteen years of age. The analysis of narratives involved descriptive; holistic-form and categorical content (themes) approaches to identify story 'plot' and 'subplots' and themes covering the whole of the patients' journeys to treatment. RESULTS: Seven narrative plots and thirty subplots were grouped into six categories of medical help and specific themes embedded in them were grouped in three stages of patients' pathways 'before' 'during' and 'after' diagnosis. These themes are listed below sequentially to illustrate these patients' pathways. 1. Symptoms were misinterpreted and misdiagnosed. 2. Kept on ineffective antibiotics/painkillers for many visits. 3. Referred quickly for suspected TB or other serious illnesses. 4. Referred only when critically ill. 5. Referred when antibiotics and pain killers not helping. 6. Referred only after pushing for referral. 7. Sought help from A&E. 8. Diagnosed immediately after TB testing. 9. Referred to wrong specialist and waited too long. 10. Had to fight for TB test. 11. Had lots of tests but no results. 12. Doubts about diagnosis. 13. Felt ignored and had no information. 14. Felt listened and cared for. 15. Quickly began my treatment. 16. Felt better after treatment, no side-effects. 17. Felt better after treatment with side-effects. 18. Felt needed longer treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The accounts of two thirds of the study participants suggest that their doctors' misunderstanding of their illness and miscommunication with them contributed to delayed diagnosis and treatment ranging from one month to twelve months. TB service providers and commissioners need to raise clinical staff awareness about TB and review the factors hindering doctor-patient communication about TB care. The findings in this research indicate that health service related delay is likely to contribute to increased TB transmission rates in the two research settings in London.

This thesis outlines a practice-based case study on a campaign for regenerative agriculture. It applies experimental narrative enquiry that de-centres humans and includes non-humans in an examination of value creation within promotional sustainability narratives. Living Stories proposes a research-production model that investigates, develops and distributes campaign stories, and connects humans with places, ecological landscapes, multispecies and material objects. The model is three-phased and combines ethnographic fieldwork methods with experimental storytelling labs and cross-platform media distribution networks. The theoretical framework draws upon cross-disciplinary research principles from design, anthropology and multispecies theories, and applies Deleuze & Guattari’s (1987) notion of assemblage and assemblage analysis, developed by Fox & Alldred (2015b). Living Stories examines the micropolitical worlds emerging between humans and non-humans as a social and cultural network, entangled in a promotional sustainability campaign as a ‘storyworld’. The Living Stories campaign storyworld rejects the idea of value propositions that centre on the needs of the ‘user’ or human ‘desire’. Instead it draws upon diverse value creation from the sustainability matrix of economic, social, cultural and/or environmental value channels, as an assemblage of plural humans and non-humans. The study experiments with speculative fiction and real-life narratives as an entwined process and discusses ethics regarding the promotion of tangible and intangible value. Living Stories offers an investigation into experimental narrative research methods that mediate transparent ‘diverse value-propositions’.

Peer support involves matching people in need of support with volunteers who have been in a similar situation. Whilst motivations and positive and negative aspects of general volunteering have been noted in the literature, little is known about the impact of providing peer support in the context of personal experiences of caring for someone with dementia. The aim of this study was to use rich, detailed case studies to build narratives of the impact of being a carer supporter. Participants were experienced carers of a person with dementia (either current or former), matched in a programme with newer dementia carers for a ten month period. The aim of the programme was to improve a sense of self-efficacy and competence in the newer carer through encouragement and positive reinforcement of carer skills development and carer network building activities. Eight carer supporters from two London Boroughs took part m semi-structured interviews. These were subject to a narrative analysis, focusing on structural components of the narratives, themes, and the influence of the wider socio-cultural context.

This study is undertaken in a large post 92 university in which the intake each year for accountancy and finance is over 400. There is a prevailing assumption in the institution that the majority of the intake are classified as typical undergraduates coming straight from previous studies, with little or no sustained experience of the world of work. Little consideration is given to students identified as “mature” using the university definition of aged over 21 (HESA 2015). I became aware of a number of mature students in my roles as lecturer and latterly manager of this programme. Furthermore, the sacrifice of full-time paid employment for three years full-time study intrigued me. This study has three key aims. The first is to explore the processes involved in making a career change decision from full-time paid employment to full-time study for an accounting and finance undergraduate degree. The second is to analyse the ways that students identify and articulate changes to their identity, as they become mature full-time students. The third is to explore how structure and agency affect career choices of the mature undergraduate student. The research involved interviewing four accounting and finance undergraduate students. The choice of students was opportunistic as these were students known to me during the course of their studies. The analysis and discussion chapters delineate between pre and post university registration as two distinct phases. The pre university experience relates mainly to the first aim. The post university phase relates to the second aim and the third aim draws on both. The theoretical framework draws upon Bourdieu’s notions of capital, field and habitus and Holland et al’s (1998) concept of Figured Worlds with particular focus on notions such as the “standard plot” and “serious play”. A key finding from this research is that despite the ability to make the decision to change career themselves, the validation of this decision by others was important. The final chapter includes further findings concluding with impact on future practice and a critical reflection on and the limitations of the study.

This project started with the Taiwanese�s Cultural & Creative Industries Policy, which demands that all new products include local cultural content. However, little is known about Taiwanese cultures. This research looked specifically at one of the cultures, the Paiwanese Tribe. This thesis reports on the research journey; identifying what the Paiwanese knew about their culture and why they were unable to produce traditional products. It argues that the displacement of the tribe has made it materially impossible to continue traditional practices. This research then identified ways of capturing spirit of traditional culture using modern technology. A successful model of working with crafts people workshops in discussed. A case is made for the use of narrative enquiry and oral history to record Paiwanese understanding. These understandings were translated into a design outcome using a design method called narrative design. The success of this research suggests that such an approach is one model that can be used in design using new technologies and materials from the re-establishment method of traditional products. The understanding generated for regaining traditional craft knowledge is extended with the design of a tea set that draws on this traditional knowledge, narrative and culture. The tea set represents this knowledge for a global market. It is argued that the design process used can guide design that transforms the culture message and delivers it for a wide audience. This design concept process is a model that can be used to develop cultural products.

This story about stories sets out to examine the value of stories as a means to convey 'truths'. It seeks to draw out the significance of reflective stories and poetry written by trainee teachers and PGCE tutors in reflective journals. The study examines perceptions of the value of keeping such journals, writing stories which may or may not be perceived as 'true,' and how writing in these ways can support and develop reflective practice in teaching. The study uses a narrative inquiry approach (after Clandinin and Connelly, 2000). The researcher is part of the inquiry working closely with participants, seeking to understand how and why we use stories to shape our lived experiences, personally and professionally and exploring what differences the inquiry will make, personally, practically and socially. The metaphor of travel underpins the study, standing both for the experience of the inquiry itself as a journey and in the wider sense of travelling to the worlds of others (Lugones, 1987) through storying. The text is written as a travelogue, enriched by the stories told along the way that allow the reader to participate in the experience of thinking with the stories. The nature of stories and their role in human experience and the questions of truth and fiction are also discussed. Thinking with, rather than about, the stories and poems and thinking together with peers and others revealed themes and highlighted issues, deepening insights into how others experience the world, allowing a deeper analysis of inclusion, exclusion and identity in relation to culture, race, gender and sexuality, and leading to the retelling and reliving of the stories and, in some cases, co-composing stories to live by. In epistemological terms the study contributes new stories and ways of seeing to the growing field of narrative inquiry and ontologically it adds to the existing conversation about why stories matter and what they contribute to our knowledge of the world.

This story about stories sets out to examine the value of stories as a means to convey ‘truths’. It seeks to draw out the significance of reflective stories and poetry written by trainee teachers and PGCE tutors in reflective journals. The study examines perceptions of the value of keeping such journals, writing stories which may or may not be perceived as ‘true,’ and how writing in these ways can support and develop reflective practice in teaching. The study uses a narrative inquiry approach (after Clandinin and Connelly, 2000). The researcher is part of the inquiry working closely with participants, seeking to understand how and why we use stories to shape our lived experiences, personally and professionally and exploring what differences the inquiry will make, personally, practically and socially. The metaphor of travel underpins the study, standing both for the experience of the inquiry itself as a journey and in the wider sense of travelling to the worlds of others (Lugones, 1987) through storying. The text is written as a travelogue, enriched by the stories told along the way that allow the reader to participate in the experience of thinking with the stories. The nature of stories and their role in human experience and the questions of truth and fiction are also discussed. Thinking with, rather than about, the stories and poems and thinking together with peers and others revealed themes and highlighted issues, deepening insights into how others experience the world, allowing a deeper analysis of inclusion, exclusion and identity in relation to culture, race, gender and sexuality, and leading to the retelling and reliving of the stories and, in some cases, co-composing stories to live by. In epistemological terms the study contributes new stories and ways of seeing to the growing field of narrative inquiry and ontologically it adds to the existing conversation about why stories matter and what they contribute to our knowledge of the world.

The overall argument in this thesis is that the ethico-political aspiration to . professionalism eludes any particular instantiation but that narrative practices , of improvisation serve to realise such aspirations even while questioning the givens of received instantiations of professionalism and policy- led interventions. As such they are also serviceable as resources for research and professional education. The purpose of the research was to examine professionalism in the context of education for workforce development in the National Health Service (NHS) to develop the role of the Advanced Practitioner (AP) through a work-based Masters degree programme in partnership with the researcher's employing University. The research engaged critically with debates within the literature concerning professionalism and identified methodological debates and approaches to the examination of the achievement of professionalism in the current context of public sector reform. It established that received notions of professionalism linked to definitions of profession and professsionalization ,are inadequate to conceptualise the ethico-political task of achieving professionalism in this context. It aimed to provide empirical evidence and theoretical argument to show how professionalism can be conceived and realised under these conditions. The methodology adopted hermeneutic and ., narrative methods of enquiry for analysis of accounts of students and lecturers participating in the delivery of the AP masters programme. The r findings of the research built upon identification of improvisation as a core sensitising concept which was then further detailed as narrative practices of achievement. Analysis of these accounts identified two broad approaches to the achievement of professionalism characterised by different stances in respect of how the ethico-political enterprise is conceived in practice: for 'modernisation' , improvisation is an unfortunate fall-back position in the project of seeking occupation of a strategic position; alternatively, 'improvisation' provides the possibilities for achieving professionalism notwithstanding received notions of professions, professionalization and modernisation in the current context of workforce development and neoliberal reform of public services.

This thesis (exegesis and creative work, a memoir) draws on my experience of establishing a floatplane business with my husband Paul on Magnetic Island within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It describes events prior to and including an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing in 2007 on the legality of the floatplane operations within the Marine Park. The study provides new information about the composition of tourism communities in Australia, causes of conflicts and resolution processes.

In the past 30 years there has been a rapid and exponential growth in the numbers of people electing to complete all or part of their studies outside of their country of origin. This phenomenon has attracted considerable research attention, not least from those who are interested to describe the benefits seen to accrue from the opportunity this provides for an extended encounter with linguistic and cultural diversity. Notably, the widespread assumption that this can generate a new form of learning, commonly referred to as intercultural learning, which is understood to comprise increased tolerance, empathy and openness to the linguistic and cultural other. Despite the limited research data to substantiate these claims, among those interested to develop educational responses to globalization, the potential of intercultural contact to generate intercultural learning has considerable appeal and has been co-opted in the development of policy and practice to promote global citizenship at all levels of education. This has contributed to the emergence of a particular discourse about intercultural learning and is further fuelling the development of both short and long-stay study abroad programmes. This discourse is, however, increasingly called into question on account of the perceived overly-simplistic constructions of interculturality and learning on which it is premised. In particular, there is a growing recognition of the need to develop situated accounts of people’s everyday encounters with linguistic and cultural others which acknowledge the exigencies of the setting, as well as the impact of wider political economic and historical discourses on their positioning in intercultural encounters. The generation of ‘thick’ descriptions of people’s lived experiences of interculturality in global educational contact zones, it is argued, can lead to a more nuanced account of the intercultural learning these can afford. This was the aim of the study reported in this thesis. The study undertaken explores the relationship between an experience of interculturality and learning among 14 international students during their year-long sojourn at a university in the UK. Drawing upon a socially constructed relational understanding of learning informed by the transactional and dialogic conceptualization of learning developed by Dewey and Bakhtin among others, the study sought to generate a narrative account of participants’ experiences and learning generated from periodic individual and group interviews over the year as well as reflective accounts in participants portfolios and other opportunistic conversations recorded in the researcher log. Primary analysis of the data revealed that participants’ experiences generated a number of forms of learning. One of these, ‘learning about self in relation to linguistic and cultural other’ was identified as a form of intercultural learning, comprising learning to be more open to the other and learning about linguistic and cultural positioning. This was subsequently explored in more depth, revealing a complex interplay between these two elements and the strategic actions taken by participants to manage their encounters with linguistic and cultural others. These results revealed considerable differences in the learning trajectories and outcomes resulting from their intercultural encounter. The findings also point to the importance of sustained commitment to intercultural dialogue on the part of individuals and the perception of their ethical treatment by others as important to the direction their learning trajectories take. On the basis of these findings, it is argued that while an encounter with linguistic and cultural other may lead to increased tolerance, empathy and openness to other associated with the way intercultural learning is employed in much of the research literature, the strategic actions learners take to negotiate their linguistic and cultural positioning will critically inform the extent to which they develop these qualities. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the ways in which a situated and relational conceptualization of interculturality and learning is seen to contribute to a more informed and deeper understanding of the sorts of intercultural learning that are made possible by an intercultural encounter. I also identify a number of research agendas which can build upon the insights provided by the study.

This study combines analytical and narrative modes of historical enquiry with educational policy sociology to construct a history of media in education in Scotland. It uses the development trajectory of a single case, media education in Scotland's statutory education sector, to deconstruct and reconstruct a history of the institutional relationship between the Scottish Film Council (SFC) and the Scottish Education Department (SED) that stretches back to the 1930s. Existing literature describes media education in Scotland as a phenomenon located in the 1970s and 1980s. This study disaggregates media education discourse and dissolves chronological boundaries to make connections with earlier attempts to introduce media into Scottish education in the context of Scotland's constitutional relations within the UK. It employs historical and socio-cultural methods to analyse the intersections between actors and events taking place over six decades. The analysis and interpretation of the data is located in three time periods. Chapter 3 covers the period from 1929 until 1974 when, on the cusp of the emergence of the new texts and technologies of film, the SFC was established to promote and protect Scottish film culture and audio-visual technologies. During this time, the interdependence of teachers, the film trade and the educational policy-making community led to the production, distribution and exhibition of new and popular forms of text to national and international acclaim. By juxtaposing public and private documents circulating on the margins of statutory education, this chapter generates a new understanding of the importance of film and its technologies in Scotland in the pursuit of a more culturally relevant and contemporary model of education. It also describes how constraints upon Scotland’s cultural production infrastructure limited its capacity to effect significant educational change. In the 1970s, cultural, political and educational ferment in pre-devolution Scotland, created a discursive shift that gave rise first to media education and then to Media Studies. Articulating documents with wider discourses of educational and cultural change and interviews with key players, Chapter 4 describes a counter-narrative gaining momentum. The constraints of the practices of traditional subjects and pedagogies combined with the constraints on Scottish cultural production gave shape and form to the media education movement. Significantly for this study, the movement included influential members of Scottish education’s leadership class. Between 1983 to 1986, the innovative Media Education Development Project (MEDP) aimed to place media education at the centre of teaching and learning in Scottish education. This was fully funded by the SED, managed by the Scottish Council for Educational Technology (SCET) and the SFC and implemented by the Association for Media Education in Scotland (AMES). The MEDP overlapped briefly with another initiative in SCET, the Scottish Microelectronics Development Project (SMDP). During this period, Media Studies enjoyed rapid success as a popular non-advanced qualification in the upper secondary and further education sectors. Media education, however, did not. Chapter 5 explores the links between the MEDP and the SMDP through the agency of three central actors: SCET, the SFC and AMES in the context of a second term of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. This study concludes that between 1934 and 1964, the SFC was a key educational bureaucracy in Scottish education. The SFC’s role as an agent of change represented the recognition of a link between relevant and contemporary Scottish cultural production and the transformation of statutory education. Between 1929 and 1982 three iterations for media and education in Scotland can be discerned. In 1983, the MEDP began a fourth but its progress faltered. The study suggests that if a new iteration for media and education in Scotland in the twenty-first century is to emerge, an institutional link between media culture, technology and educational transformation requires to be restored.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Drama Therapy) November 2017
The research consists of a practical arts-based research component and a research report that surveys the practice. This document serves as the written element of the research and investigates the key theoretical standpoints, methodologies applied and creative outcomes. The research aimed to explore the dynamics of adults and play within Drama Therapy by investigating the relationship between six adult women and their personal play histories. It questioned what play meant to the individual and invited her to share her most memorable playful moments through various forms of expression in a number of individual interview-discussions. Through a practical arts-based research approach, an ethnographic narrative inquiry unfolded about women, play, childhood memory and present adulthood. The research took these shared narratives and presented them back to the six participants through various playful methods. With the use of methodologies such as inter-subjectivity, playful listening, narrative enquiry and Playback Theatre, the research offered a series of representational reflections of the shared stories. The creative outcomes were presented in a storybook representation which used imagery and poetic rhyme to document each narrative, a stop-motion film that used moving image and voice, and an presentation-installation that invited each woman to engage with her playful inner-self reflected back to her. The report is written with these playful elements which attempt to mirror the creative representational outcomes, inviting the reader to access his or her playful self. Thematically, three key factors presented themselves throughout the five-stage research process. These include the emotional experience associated with play, the notion of an inner-child or childhood and play within context. All three elements are discussed in the research report, with the use of the contextual factor symbolised by road signs to represent the intersectionality of play and its relationship to the individual. The research presents a number of key contributing factors to the discussion of adults and play in Drama Therapy. It attempts to explore alternative ways of delving into therapeutic process while respecting individual perspectives and personal narratives. It highlights the fundamental value of play within a drama therapeutic paradigm and how the notion of play and play memories contribute to the adult self. It also affirms the role of arts-based practice as a powerful tool for validation and witnessing of clients.
XL2018

In this thesis I discuss aspects of Chaucer's interest in the relation of Language to the reality which it attempts to express and the relation of poetic fiction to Christian truth, and the type of readerly response invited by this interest. The method employed includes analysis of the structural development of the narrative frame and, to a lesser degree, of the entirety of the poem, as well as discussion of the historical context of the issues under consideration. These issues are raised in the narrative frame of the Canterbury Tales and are explored there and in the individual tales. Their treatment in the narrative frame is seminal and has provided the major focus of discussion in what follows. The narrative frame structure operates dually. In the diachrony of a first reading of the poem, the frame world provides a correlative to the actual world in which man experiences serial time. The realignments of interpretation necessary because of its changing claims regarding its own nature — and hence its changing demands upon its readers — are constant reminders of the relativity of human judgment and experience in space and time. "rn the synchrony inevitable in a second or subsequent Lng, which comprehends the entirety of the poem at each point in its linear progression, the reader's position outside the poem's time span of past, present and future, is analogous to the poet’s in his original conception of the poem and to God's in relation to the actual world, which the poem's world imitates. After a first reading the reader sees that initially Chaucer's truth claim has enabled him to trust the authenticity of the account and to regard it not as poetic invention but as a report of historical truth.

This practice-led research investigates ways in which representations of Australian flora on ceramic vessels can communicate ideas about current environmental culture. The project developed from a curiosity about whether changing attitudes to Australia's environment, from colonisation to the present time of unprecedented species decline, might be found reflected on historical and contemporary ceramic objects. Botanical exploration and the scientific study of Australia's vast flora have produced a rich resource of natural history documentation. The aim was to establish a framework specific to the project that utilises these resources and current theoretical and practical approaches to understanding flora and the environment in both the sciences and humanities. Through this interdisciplinary enquiry, visual arts and botanical research methodologies intersected in the studio informing material, technical and conceptual developments. This exploration takes the form of an installation of wheel thrown vessels with carved and inlaid surface imagery of Australian flora, where, through form, imagery, material and placement, a metaphorical space is made in which to reflect on current environmental culture.