“Not with me you don't”: A story of narrative practice and dissociative disorder

Does empathy merely take place in leaders’ mind? How does it help us better understand and practice leadership? In the past, entitative relational leadership studies have mainly drawn on a mind-based understanding of empathy and focused on the association between individual empathy trait and leader emergence and effectiveness. Such an approach overlooks leadership practice of empathy as a constructive process. By integrating emerging research from diverse disciplines from philosophy to communication, the paper first offers a constructionist view of empathy, based on which empathic leadership practice is conceptualized. The paper explicates how leadership practice of empathy construction is rooted in relational ethics and takes place in both synchronic dyadic interaction through conversation as well as diachronic narrative practice with a collective other. By conceptualizing empathic leadership practice through a social constructionist approach to empathy, the paper makes significant contributions to our understanding of relational leadership.

Download Full-text

A Politics of Witnessing: Definitional Ceremony as Social Justice Work in Academia

International Review of Qualitative Research ◽

10.1177/1940844720968203 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 194084472096820

Author(s):

Sarah Strauven

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Final Section ◽

Qualitative Inquiry ◽

Australian Case ◽

Narrative Practice ◽

Work First

The work outlined in this article has in part evolved as a response to Mr. Behrouz Boochani’s call to academics to engage with his work. First, I propose academics consider a form of public engagement drawn from narrative practice as social justice work in academia. In the next section, I illustrate my argument with an Australian case by discussing (a) a peaceful resistance undertaken by the refugees on Manus Island through the lens of definitional ceremony, (b) a public witnessing response by Dr. Surma to the written account of Mr. Boochani of the resistance, and (c) his reply to this act of witnessing. I complement this with my own response to both scholars on account of witnessing their exchanges. In the final section of this article, I articulate in more detail how this proposition of conceiving social justice work in academia is based on a politics of witnessing and acknowledgment. I argue that its epistemological and ontological dimensions hold promise for post-qualitative inquiry and that narrative practices more generally, can assist us in performing relationally situated research.

Download Full-text