Narrative, Semoya space, and Christian education: From lived stories to living stories

This dissertation suggests a more focused and cutting-edge narrative pedagogy in Christian education that aims to form and transform Christian identity in particular socio-historical contexts through careful and appreciative concern for the key role played by social location. Through a multidisciplinary dialogue between narrative theory, psychology, biblical studies and reconceptualized curriculum theory, this dissertation provides an alternative approach to the loss of self in Christian educational practices and curricula by reclaiming reflexive narrative agency for a transformative narrative pedagogy in Christian education.;Based on this analysis of self, narrative practice, and narrative space, the dissertation proposes an enhanced pedagogical space for Christian education in which a reflexive narrative agency can evolve in relation to self, others and God. In this way, a narrative pedagogy informed by Semoya space brings to Christian education a new form of transformative narrative space in which one's lived stories and lived spirituality are named, examined and negotiated and where new living stories and a new living spirituality evolve by connecting with other's lived stories and finding God in their social locations.;This dissertation initiates a sustained conversation with Musa W. Dube, a biblical scholar of the non-dominant world, in order to provide Christian educators with a way of developing the relational self and its narrative agency to bring about personal and communal transformation through education. The analysis of Dube's relational self and Semoya (of the Spirit) reading---an example of her narrative practice of resistance, re-connection, and re-imagination---highlights the importance of social location in evolving narrative agency within an immediate pedagogical context. It pays special attention to how an educated and privileged teacher enters into Semoya space of "reading with" ordinary women---unprivileged learners whose social locations are different from her own.