Reading the Ink Around Us: How Karen Refugee Youth Use Tattoos as an Alternative Literacy Practice

Writing Storybooks as Storytelling: A Case Study of Two Families with Refugee Backgrounds

“…Additionally, the children used their multimodal artifacts (e.g., drawings and writings) in their storybooks to represent the unique meanings associated with their schooling experiences and families’ culture. Here, storytelling and multimodality served as a theoretical lens, which allowed me to acknowledge the participants’ identities as bilingual speakers, authors, storytellers, and meaning makers (Gilhooly et al, 2019; Johnson & Kendrick, 2020; Strekalova-Hughes & Wang, 2019).…”

“…Scholars have examined how families with refugee backgrounds identify storytelling as a culturally sustaining practice (Strekalova-Hughes & Wang, 2019), as a tool to speak about social injustice, empower the voices of youth with refugee backgrounds (Fobear, 2015), and as a support for children’s agency (Choi, 2018; Kucirkova, 2019; Phillips, 2010). Storytelling has also been indentified as a social literacy practice to enable students to express their identities and solidarity (Gilhooly et al, 2019), as a multimodal method to help students develop language and literacy learning (Johnson & Kendrick, 2020), and as “a meaning-making practice” (De Fina et al, 2020, p. 366).…”

“…The participants involved in the present study self-identified as ethnic Burmese. An emerging body of literature has examined the identities and literacy practices of Karen and Karenni youth in the United States (Duran, 2016; Gilhooly et al, 2019) and has indicated various literacy practices and identities (e.g., using literacy to express ethnic identities and tell their stories linked to their culture) available in their families. However, the literacy practices and storytelling of Burmese children and parents across families are largely unaccounted for in scholarship (Cun, 2021).…”

Tattoos and Information: Mapping the Landscape of Tattoo Research

“…Tattoos as information sources tattoos as a starting point to discuss oral histories in a library outreach program (Pionke & Osborne, 2018) readers' advisory services recommendations based on patrons' tattoos (Dali et al, 2021; Morehart, 2018) tattoos as decolonized forms of literacy and reading (Clariza, 2019; Gilhooly et al, 2019; Irving, 2019) tattoo images as information sources that assist decision‐making (Goulding et al, 2004: Salvador‐Amores, 2011) and presentation of tattoo artists' work (Force, 2020) stigmatization of tattoos and information poverty (Brouwer, 1998; Lingel & Boyd, 2013) …”

“…• tattooed bodies as repositories in the absence of the Western concept of archives (Calano, 2012), representations of indigenous cultural tattoos in contemporary archives (Jelinski, 2017;Wright, 2009) • 'intimate archives' of memorial tattoos amongst genocide survivors (Halilovich, 2016), and tattoos as personal records (Bastian, 2013;Harris, 2003) Tattoos as information sources • tattoos as a starting point to discuss oral histories in a library outreach program (Pionke & Osborne, 2018) • readers' advisory services recommendations based on patrons' tattoos (Dali et al, 2021;Morehart, 2018) • tattoos as decolonized forms of literacy and reading (Clariza, 2019;Gilhooly et. al., 2019;Irving, 2019) • tattoo images as information sources that assist decision-making (Goulding et al, 2004: Salvador-Amores, 2011 and presentation of tattoo artists' work (Force, 2020) • stigmatization of tattoos and information poverty (Brouwer, 1998;Lingel & Boyd, 2013) Tattoo related decision-making process…”