Within this paper we explore the process and outcomes of a year-long exchange that investigates how active learning can emerge through collective place-based storying. Beginning with Country as our guide, we shared, responded, yarned, listened and revisited one another’s contributions. Using the “threads” of an extended email exchange and online yarning sessions, we wove together this collaborative work to present findings generated from the creative practice of storying and sharing knowledge. This work required ongoing openness to vulnerability; we resisted the urge to remain silent and risked being wrong. Our responses, and the writing styles reflecting them, incorporate both academic and creative approaches. As we negotiated connection to Country and place through collective storying, six key themes emerged: Country and personal sites of significance, honouring children and childhood, relationality, the significance of sensory engagement, the significance of vulnerability, and acknowledging Earth violence. This collaborative paper explores a practical approach, grounded in kindness, to negotiating connections to Country and place. We reflect on how we carefully nurtured the conditions that enabled the work to occur, sharing our experiences to help guide others navigating their own collective research practices.

Pioneering Pakistani female journalist Zeb-un-Nissa Hamidullah in her ‘Between ourselves: a weekly feature for women’ columns, which appeared in Karachi's English-language daily newspaper Dawn during the late 1940s and early 1950s, encouraged her readers to stretch rather than breach the boundaries in how (educated) Pakistani women—as ‘good wives and wise mothers’—should fulfil their familial (and wider social) responsibilities. Her advice—which often took the form of ‘homespun’ homilies—consistently flagged up the crucial role of women, whose duties included not simply overseeing their children's behaviour but teaching their offspring, through their own emotional responses, how to feel. In their capacity as mothers, women needed to exercise sabr (patience and perseverance) when providing all-important emotional training for future Pakistani citizens who—like the state—were still in the process of being made. Accordingly, this article discusses the spatially defined context in which ‘Between ourselves’ appeared—that is, Dawn itself and the fast-expanding city of Karachi which was rife with uncertainties—before turning to the emotional ‘good practice’ that Hamidullah promoted.

This article is intended to highlight the unique vulnerability associated with a severe medical illness. It outlines important considerations that are relevant to patients but perhaps especially relevant to medical providers. There are many factors that contribute to recovery from a life-threatening illness. Essential, but underestimated, factors include (1) a vision for what the meaning of your life can be; (2) simple and unexpected acts of kindness that underscore the commitment of your providers to your well-being; and (3) the character of providers and the culture of the institution, which vary tremendously and are palpable to the patient.

Physical contact with hot vs. iced coffee has been shown to affect evaluation of the personal warmth or kindness of a hypothetical person (Williams & Bargh, 2008). In three studies, we investigated whether the manipulation of social context can modulate the activation of the metaphorical mapping, kindness as warmth. After priming participants with warm vs. cold temperature, we asked them to evaluate a hypothetical ad-hoc ally or adversary on the kindness dimension, as well as on other qualities used as a control. We expected more extreme evaluations of kindness in the adversary than in the ally condition, and no effects on other ratings. We thus replicated the classical effect of physical warmth on kindness ratings and generalized it to a German-speaking population. In addition, when the two German studies were combined, we found evidence suggesting a contextual modulation of the temperature effect: only out-group members, namely adversaries, were judged as more kind when participants had experienced physical warmth; the effect was not evident in the ally (i.e., in-group) condition. These studies suggest that context can modulate metaphorical activation; they therefore represent an initial attempt to add nuance to our understanding of when embodied metaphors affect our decisions.