making spaces
TRANSCRIPT
Making Space for Engagement: Feminist, Embodied Research Methods in Psychology
Andrea LaMarre, Carla Rice, Patty Douglas, Nadine Changfoot
@andrealala89
Feminist Academia
Feminist calls for methodological change: working toward deliberate & conscious engagement with our own spaces of belonging
Feminist academia: an oxymoron? (Stacey, 2000)Feminist research practices under neoliberalismResistanceAffective character of research
How to enact and embody reflexivity & intersectionality?
The Neoliberal University
Digital Storytelling Spaces
Non-utopic Improvisational Provisional community Ripples into other aspects of our work Complex & at times perplexing
Digital Storytelling
Workshops with 10-12 participants 3-5 days Co-creation of films (as non-hierarchical as possible) Workshops led by those with lived experience Creative & artful interventions into representational spaces
Reflecting on 5 Years of Digital Storytelling
From two professors, a post-doctoral researcher, and a PhD candidate
Reflexivity
Making our own stories Reflexivity as embodied, process-based Shades of vulnerability Who is in the room?
“I have this story that I haven’t shared with anyone … I know it is holding me back, but I can’t describe exactly how” - Nadine
The stories we’ve told in workshops could not have been told in a different place, at a different time, with different people
Structure and Creativity
Creating accessible spaces: the inevitability of “failure”Accessibility is not a fixed target – dynamic, evolving
Inhabiting space differently, together Navigating bureaucracy and Otherness
Creativity Through Structure
Metaphor of improvisational jazz: in order for creativity to surface, there needs to be a shared understanding of the possibilities and structures we are navigating
Transitional Space and Reverberations
Not binarizing digital storytelling and “the rest of our work/lives” The slippery nature of creativity Bringing what we learn through digital storytelling into research, teaching, life
“I value who you are as a human, in all of your difference from me” - Andrea
Digital storytelling makes for reverent, resonant spaces; not in a Pollyanna-esque future perfect way, but in a way that opens to difference
Fixing vs. Being With
Non-therapized space Not about finding a solution or a perfect ending Inter-relational, collective Non-permanent but sustainable stories
Being Together in Difference “I have a strong desire to try to understand difference
at the same time as I have a knowledge that I know that it is impossible… but I do have a belief that it is entirely possible to get closer, and that I want to understand my fear of difference. It is not a fearless stance, but my curiosity is bigger than my fear, and my refusal to allow my fear to hurt – my fear sometimes hurts other people – but my refusal to let my fear hurt other people in an ongoing way as I walk through the world.” - Carla
Conclusion
No “solutions” for how to do creative, feminist work within the confines of the neoliberal university (sorry!)
Improvisational approaches that offer us new insight into participants’ – and our own – spaces of belonging
A Little Digital Story
Thank you!
Questions?
Andrea: [email protected]
Carla: [email protected]
Patty: [email protected]
Nadine: [email protected]