Imagination/sMediating Transcultural

Identities

Patricia EncisoThe Ohio State University

Columbus, Ohio, USenciso.4@osu.edu

ISCARSydney, NSW, Australia

Oct 1, 2014

“ There are fundamental gaps that must be resolved

for individuals to think or act in relation to the world.

Resolving these gaps through image-making constitutes

the self and the world in the same process. It is the

human form of cognition.”

Pelaprat & Cole 2011, p. 15

Questions

• How do youth represent their transcultural worlds to one another through joint-narration?

• How does narrative-in-interaction create a playing field for representing and contesting one another’s worlds?

• What identity risks do youth take as they make their worlds visible to one another?

• How might practices of storytelling and imagination-in-interaction bring a future forward that that orients toward sustainable transcultural identities among immigrant and non-immigrant youth?

• ‘youthscaping’ - emerging sites of interaction in which places and people, real and imagined, are engaged as youth narrate the global, national, and economic forces that shape and constrain their futures.

Maira & Soep (2005)

• ‘linguistic landscaping’ - “the active production of space through language” to foreground “how different linguistic resources are used, different worlds evoked, different possibilities engaged in as people use the linguistic wherewithal around them”.

Pennycook (2005; p. 69)

Imagination/s-in-action in globalized spaces

Sara

Aaquilah

Tucker

LeeChris

Habiba

Pat

“the fusion, sometimes tenuous and tension-laden, of receptivity to the new and loyalty to the known” (Hansen 2012).

Story Club Participants

Participants Story club events National Origin/

Migration • Aaquilah 4 Somali/Kenya

refugee• Sara 16 Ethiopia/Somalia/

Jordan• Habiba 16 Somali/

Kenya refugee• Lee 6

U.S./Appalachia• Chris 11 U.S./

Appalachia• Tucker 16

Cambodia/US• Tomás 9

Mexico/US• Paul 6

U.S./Appalachia

1 Aaqilah: My dad catch one of them.

2 Pat: How do you catch them?

3 Aaqilah: [You have to-

4 Sara: [You have to read it out] of a person’s body,

but dance around them and and then they get dizzy-

and they do stuff- and, I can’t say, it’s so loud and

confusing], you might-

5 Aaqilah: [Yeah. You gotta read, uh, the Qur’an. {To Pat} You know the Qur’an?

You gotta read that. And then you will catch them. ] And then you will take-

6 Chris: You will what?

7 Pat: Catch them.

8 Aaqilah: {To Chris} It’s a ghost, actually. They dance around.

9 Sara: It’s not really dancing. It’s kind of [dancing. ]

10 Aaqilah: [It’s a march

11 Sara: and [then they..]

12 Pat: [It’s a ritual.]

13 Sara: They do, they just go around [you].

14 Habiba: [Around your house.]

15 Aaqilah [They put magic on [you.]

Narrative episode

Narrative background

• a ‘gap’ (Pelaprat & Cole 2011)

• a playful suspension of ‘the field of vision’ (Vygotsky 1985)

• improvisation on and construction of signs, with material consequences for

transformations of identity and agency (Holland, et al1998).

Imagination is socially and interactively constructed by people, within a

nexus of social relations and institutional constraints,

through which specific contextualizations of power and histories of

participation are realized and contested.

Definining imagination-in-interaction

Pelaprat & Cole (2011) -

• Imagination is a process of resolving disco-ordinated, fragmented experience

in order to achieve stability in action and interpretation.

• “This gap represents a set of differences in experience that exist at a “next

moment in time.”

• Filling the gap is a cultural act because the ‘filling’ is based on cultural-

historical meanings, images, experiences, and projections of what was and

might be. (future oriented)

Pelaprat & Cole (2011) –

• ‘Imaging into’ depends on the conditions and constraints in which the process

unfolds

• Imaging into contributes to a sense of a self in the world.

Imaging into: gaps and uncertainty-in-interaction

Opening the field and future

Improvising on (disinhabiting) everyday life is the primary aim of play.

(Holland et al 1998).

In play, the ‘field of vision’ is displaced, creating an ‘imaginative framing’ so that meaning about the world predominates over the actual.

(Vygotsky, 1978)

Figured worlds can be ‘opened up’ or disinhabited as the material and activities in everyday life

become expressive material artifacts for improvising on usual ways of seeing and being

(Holland et al 1998).

Bamberg • Object of study is not narrations or ‘big stories,’ but narrated events or ‘small stories’ • ‘Embodied talk’ that reveals the accomplishment of self as a process

Ochs & Capps (2001) Co-narration• Aimed more at discovery of events, analysis of perspectives and evaluation of

implications, than entertainment (p. 36)• Co-narration’s open form creates the possibility for envisioning and describing events

through multiple dialogized voices.

Georgakopoulou (2010)• Trajectories of interaction

• Small stories constituted by and constituting the tellers’ sites of engagement;• Immediately reworked slices of life, anticipated events (projections, references,

breaking news)

Small Stories Interactively accomplished gaps, events,

identities, and trajectories

Dimensions Range of possibilities Indexicality & Identity

Tellership One ––> Many

Narrative backgroundCo-narrated

Interpretive frame –Narrative episode

Small stories

Tellability Surprise & Disruption––> List Story telling bidWhat is this about?

Embeddednessdetachable from tellers and

situation; ‘moveable’; recontextualized

VoiceWhose story?What is it like?

Sequencing Values and perspectives What matters most?

Moral Stance Evaluations, questions Who am I?Who are you?

Small Stories, Power, and Identities-in-Interaction

Ochs & Capps (2001)

• Voice - the ‘practical conversion of socially ‘loaded’ resources into socially ‘loaded’ semiotic action, every aspect of which shows traces of the patterns of distribution of the resources.’ Blommaert (2005)

• Voice is subject to selection and exclusion• “..an itinerary across normative spaces… filled with codes, customs, rules,

expectations”• …orders of indexicality authorize and rationalize who and what is included

and excluded

Semiotic Action and Power - Transcultural Crossings

In summary...

During co-narrations of small stories , processes

of imagination and improvisation displace familiar

fields of vision in service of an emerging figured

world, through which youth ‘experiment with…

‘projectivity rather than.. objectivity

(Holland et al,

p.239).

1 Aaqilah: My dad catch one of them.

2 Pat: How do you catch them?

3 Aaqilah: [You have to-

4 Sara: [You have to read it out] of a person’s body,

but dance around them and and then they get dizzy-

and they do stuff- and, I can’t say, it’s so loud and

confusing], you might-

5 Aaqilah: [Yeah. You gotta read, uh, the Qur’an. {To Pat} You

know the Qur’an? You gotta read that. And then you will catch

them. ] And then you will take-

6 Chris: You will what?

7 Pat: Catch them.

8 Aaqilah: {To Chris} It’s a ghost, actually. They dance around.

9 Sara: It’s not really dancing. It’s kind of [dancing. ]

10 Aaqilah: [It’s a march

11 Sara: and [then they..]

12 Pat: [It’s a ritual.]

13 Sara: They do, they just go around [you].

14 Habiba: [Around your house.]

15 Aaqilah [They put magic on [you.]

Initial Narrative Episode First person claim to

know

Narrative BackgroundNot knowing

You

Interactive Inhabiting gaps and resolutions

ConfirmationsAlignments

Sara

Aaquilah

Tucker

LeeChris

Habiba

Pat

“the fusion, sometimes tenuous and tension-laden, of receptivity to the new and loyalty to the known” (Hansen 2012).

1 Sara [And then ( ) was sitting and reading the holy book and

then like reading and reading and reading and ] then they put

like blankets all over her face and they were just doin’ it and

doin’ it and doin’ it. Then I don’t know what happened.

2 Aaqilah, Habiba, Sara {Habiba initiates question or comment

with Aaqilah in Somali; Sara adds a final comment}

3 Sara: Do you, do you know Habiba?

4 Habiba: Uh..

5 Sara: Not you! {points to Habiba}

6 Habiba: (laughs)

7 Aaqilah: The one that got into that cell ( ).

8 Sara: Yeah. She, um one got into her and they had ( ) My

mom went there, but then she came back because it was so

weird.

9 Aaqilah {nods toward Sara}

10 Chris: Ewww you’re nasty. {reference to Tucker’s food?

Narrative BackgroundEstablished temporary

Narrative Episode

First person inhabiting

Confirming References to figured

world of jinns

Identity & PowerWho are we?

What is this world like?

1 Aaqilah: I saw one in real life.

2 Pat: You did. Did it worry you?

3 Habiba: I think everybody saw it.

4 Sara: I saw it.

5 Chris: I haven’t!

6 Habiba (laughter) Because you didn’t live here with

us!

{Leans across table. Stated directly to Chris}

7 Aaqilah: It does! My eyes got re::ed! My dad thought I was dying.

8 Chris: I think ( )

9 Aaqilah: It was so scary. He was right there. My brother was like

show it to me! Show it to me-

10 Habiba: [The only thing, the only thing I ever–

11 Aaqilah: [I was like, it’s right there!]

12 Pat: [Are they] human sized? Are they like the

same size as humans? Or are they--

13 Aaqilah: They tall!

14 Habiba: Some are giant.

15 Aaqilah: Some are short and some are tall.

Narrative Episode First person inhabiting

Claim to know

Narrative BackgroundDislocated

Co-narrated frame

1 Aaqilah: I saw one in real life.

1 Chris: You guys are just full of stories!

2 Aaqilah : I know. For real.

3 Aaqilah: Oh lots. We got a lots.

4 Sara: Because people ( )

5 Habiba: We could tell stories [like for twenty-four hours.]

6 Aaqilah: [About people] ( ) about wars.

7 Pat: Really?

8 Aaqilah: Yeah. We got stories about wars.

9 Pat: Tell us a story abou-

10 Tucker: Question.

11 Pat: Okay, Tucker?

12 Tucker: Has there ever been a spirit taking over your

bodies?

13 Aaqilah, Habiba, and Sara [Shake heads no]

14 Habiba: No, but it happened to my cousin.

15 Sara: No.

16 Aaqilah: It was tryin’ to happen to me.

17 Pat: It was trying to happen.

18 Sara: [Yeah but like you see one and it’s just like trying to

control your mind ( ) ]

19 Aaqilah: [Yeah, but I had my brother with me. And I was like, I was crazy. I

was like ahhh get away, get away!] And then they take me home and my

eyes was re:ed. I got sick, and then they take me home and they read the

Qur’an and they heal me.

Meta-narrativeStoriesTruth

Experience

Identity & AuthorityWho are you?Who are we?Is this true?

Narrative BackgroundDislocated

Co-narrated

Narrative Episode First person inhabiting

1 Sara: [It happened to my cousin], he was small and my grandma

was him, my grandpa was him- was with him and it just came

through, both of them.

2 Pat: Really.

3 Chris: Uh. Can I ask a question? Do y’all really believe

that?

4 Sara: {Eyes toward Chris, looks down, across at Aaqilah and

Habiba as Aaqilah responds. Watches Chris’s face.}

5 Aaqilah: We believe it very well!

6 Habiba: Yeaaah, of course we do. If you go to um Africa, and

sleep there two nights you will see them. I swear they’re

real. You’re gonna freak out.

7 Sara: (Laughs). I never been there.

8 Aaqilah: {To Pat} It’s true, but if you go to Africa, they

would drive you crazy. They like. Because Africa don’t have (raises

arm above her head and points to lights on the ceiling) these

lights, and they, they’re scared of light.

9 Habiba: {To Chris and Tucker} At night, when you

sleep, Africa is dark.

10 Aaqilah: {To Chris and Tucker} And they like, they like the dark.

11 Sara: The only light there is the sun.

12 Habiba: Yeah, yup.

13 Aaqilah: {To Pat} If they come into the light. They will melt.

Identity & AuthorityWho are you?Who are we?Is this true?

Displace field of vision If you were in Africa

Invitation to disinhabit

Narrative BackgroundThe dark and light

Episode & BackgroundCo-narrated possible

future

1 Tucker: Do candles work?

2 Sara: No. Candles don’t work.

3 Tucker: The sun’s just like..a star.

4 Habiba: People gonna blow it off. They don’t care.

5 Sara: They can blow off candles.

6 Tucker: What about the sun?

7 Habiba: But…Noooo, that’s just morning.

They just come at night. Like at midnight. that’s when

they come, like at 4 or 5.

8 Chris: {Waving arm above head}

9 Sara: Welllll, that’s the only light that the sun will set, will set down and everybody’s

sleeping.

10 Chris: (Waves arm.) See, I believe in the stuff what you just said, but I.. I

don’t believe in curses. Because like my family is religious and I’m, and

I’m Indian, so like, we have pow-wows.

...

1 Chris: Like, and like, and before we can like get on our reservation

or something, the shaman, the shaman has to come out and like-

2 Pat: bless the-

3 Chris: Yeah, bless them. The people that don’t live on the reservation.

Narrative BackgroundContinue transcultural co-narration

Narrative EpisodeImprovisation

Inhabiting iinns as spiritual action and disinhabiting a single framing

of ‘haunting’

Interactive accomplishment of transcultural identities

‘seeing oneself in the other’

Stories, gaps, and imagination: constituting sustainable transcultural futures

• ‘youthscaping’ –reconstituting, oneself, others, and

the world through imagination-in-interaction;

• creating emerging sites of interaction, for

contesting and resolving gaps, using available cultural

materials and structural hierarchies of difference that

shape and constrain their futures.

• During co-narrations of small stories , processes of imagination and

improvisation displace familiar fields of vision in service of an emerging

figured world, through which youth ‘experiment with… ‘projectivity

rather than.. objectivity’