Telling digital stories as feminist research and practice: A 2-day workshop with migrant women in London

Abstract

In this article, we look at Digital Storytelling (DS) as a specifically feminist epistemology within qualitative social research methods. Digital Storytelling is a process allowing research participants to tell their stories in their own words through a guided creative workshop that includes the use of digital technology, participatory approaches, and co-production of personal stories. The article draws on a 2-day Digital Storytelling workshop with migrant women which was set up to understand the life stories and work trajectories of volunteers working in the women’s community and voluntary sector in London. By outlining this innovative approach, the article highlights its potential and makes a case for Digital Storytelling as a feminist approach to research while taking into account epistemological, practical, and ethical considerations.

“It’s a struggle but it’s also a strength”: Embodied declarations of resistance, resilience, and strength amongst survivors of gendered violence

“…Specifically, visual-narrative methodologies incorporate and amplify alternative ideas, images, and voices that have been historically silenced in social and political spheres (Frohmann, 2005), as well as provide the means for the "uprising of subjugated knowledges" (McArdle et al, 2013). Most noteworthy is its compatibility with intersectional theory, as it creates space for multiple knowledges and interpretations (Lu & Yuen, 2012;Vacchelli & Peyrefitte, 2018). This is of particular interest because I hope to highlight the unique experiences and narratives of survivors of gendered violence based on their intersecting identities along the lines of gender, race, class, sexuality, citizenship, etc.…”

“…Social work research and art can be understood as instruments of social change (Gray & Schubert, 2010, p. 2310) that have transformative potential (Damianakis, 2007;Vacchelli & Peyrefitte, 2018) due to their ability to "interlink our smallest personal gesture with the broadest concerns of social justice" (Moffatt,in press,p. 189).…”

“…Post-structural feminism criticizes objectivity and formality as the only sources of knowledge and truth. Rather, experiential and reflexive learning operate as powerful sources of knowledge, signifying that multiple knowledges and truths co-exist (Lu & Yuen, 2012;McArdle et al, 2013;Vacchelli & Peyrefitte, 2018).…”

Struggling to-be or not-to-be a bilingual teacher: Identity formation in a Change Laboratory intervention

“…For CL researchers, the CL process led us to adapt two major mediating tools of CL interventions (i.e. DD, adapted before the CL; the FFM, adapted during the CL) for two underlying motivations: One, the DD, in the format of daily logs which include both aha moments and disturbances, encourages the CL participants to tell their own bilingual teacher identity stories in narration; two, the individually generated four-field model (IGFFM) helped us operationalize bilingual teacher identity formation in this study as movements (Pallesen, 2017; Sfard and Prusak, 2005; Vacchelli and Peyrefitte, 2018).…”

Embodiment in qualitative research: collage making with migrant, refugee and asylum seeking women

“…Explorations into aspects of embodiment more recently have ranged from writings on body modification techniques and practices such as tattooing and branding (Pitts, 2003; Wohlrab et al, 2007), understandings of disability (Lupton and Seymour, 2000) and masculinity (Gill et al, 2000; 2005), anorexia (Bordo, 1993), cosmetic surgery (Heyes, 2007, Ghigi and Rodler, 2010) post-humanism and materiality (Bakker and Bridge, 2006; Braidotti, 2006; Whatmore, 2006). Embodied methodologies are also being articulated as part of qualitative epistemological approaches in the social sciences though the use of a range of creative techniques (Chadwick, 2016, Mannay, 2016, Perry and Medina, 2015) and include the multimodal use of visually endowed talk and text methods, photo elicitation techniques and collage (Finn and Henwood, 2009; Reavey, 2011), poetic transcribing (Chadwick, 2016), relational mapping (Bagnoli, 2009), memory books (Thomson and Holland, 2005), reality boxes (Winter, 2012), metaphorical models (Gauntlett, 2007), self-portrait, graphic elicitation methods and timeline (Bagnoli, 2009), image-making storytelling (Esin, 2017), digital storytelling (Poletti, 2011, Vacchelli and Peyrefitte, under review) and many other approaches whose variety and spectrum is arduous to fully account for.…”