Cultural Links
Dreaming of the Other: The Yemenite Jewish Migratory Experience in Israel Through Their Dreams
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session William Buse
This paper examines the consequences of the large-scale emigration to Israel by the Yemenite Jewish population in the late 1940’s. The focus for this examination are the nocturnal dreams of this population collected from the three generations that directly and indirectly experienced the emigration. Additionally, the dream content and interpretation are linked analogously with the fate of the henna, a premarital ceremony revered by the Yemenite Jews, as it has changed in form and function over time and space. An ethnographic study of an ethnically homogeneous Yemenite Jewish town in Israel, including extensive interviews establishing the various cultural and political contexts of their dreams over three generations, illuminates the consequences of this populations’ adaptation to contemporary Israel society. The author suggests that Yemenite Jewish dream life is a valuable idiosyncratic and prismatic cultural form that reflects highly intimate visions of the self/Other experience and, as such, is intrinsic to the Yemenite Jewish mediation between their history in Yemen and their migratory experience in Israel. The discussion is embellished with the author’s photographs from his fieldwork.
The Transformational Marriage bewteen Ubuntu and Caring
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Charlene Downing
What is the South-African concept of caring? In Africa, the principle of Ubuntu introduces the concept of belonging and caring. This study analyzes the concept of Ubuntu and places it in a context related to caring. The eight steps of a concept analysis by Walker and Avant were used for the analysis. The review provides an operational definition of Ubuntu and defining attributes of the concept: interrelated principles and deep rootedness in community, respect and dignity, solidarity, spirituality, reciprocity, harmony, mutuality, affinity, and kinship. Antecedents to the concepts include a "we feeling" as the most important prerequisite for Ubuntu to happen. Positive consequences to the concept are full humanness, reconciliation and forgiveness, and survival. There are many similarities between the ethics of nursing care and Ubuntu. Both paradigms emphasize relationships in which respect, compassion, warmth, and understanding are evident. Both value communication, dialogue, and negotiation. The concept of Ubuntu is best summarized by Tutu, “We do need other people and their help to form us in a profound way. You know just how you blossom in the presence of someone who believes in you, and who helps you having faith in yourself, who urges you to great thoughts and yet accepts you as who you are, and not for what you have or can achieve, who does not abandon you because you have failed”. This exploration shares recommendations for further application in nursing education, practice, and research.
A Life in Transition: Refugees’ Narratives
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Spuridoula Giaki, Andriana Tavantzi, Eugenia Arvanitis
During the last few years more than 900,000 refugees, predominantly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq have used Greece as an entry point into the European Union, seeking international protection from war, violence, and persecution in their home countries (UNHCR, 2016). According to recent studies for the inclusion of refugees and migrants, life stories are essential to the construction of individual and collective identities and are used as a mean of learning from the refugee experience (Bjertrup et al., 2018). This study focusses on separation, liminality, and reaggregation as the three main stages which represent human transitionality (Van Gennep, 1960). Using narrative inquiry (Arvanitis et al., 2019) three life narratives of refugees living in Patras from Afghanistan and Kashmir were recorded to provide a voice to the voiceless. Research data highlighted refugee’s experiences of border crossing mobility and transition, addressing questions as to how refugees perceive and discuss various aspects of the process of separation from their country and of relocation to their new country (Greece); how do they present themselves as individuals in the new country and what kind of boundaries they establish in terms of in-group and out-group belonging. Findings of the research showed that refugees reflected upon experiences in the recent or remote past and recounted emotional, or traumatic events which determined their reconstruction of their identity in the new country. Refugees also relinquished links with their families and focused on the differences with the host country, seeing Greece as a transition country.
