Dionne Bensonsmith and Tammy Nyden will present “Story Telling: A Trauma-Informed Research Methodology” as part of the Making & Doing Program at the 4S (Society for Social Studies of Science) 2023 Conference: Sea, Sky and Land: Engaging in Solidarity in Endangered Ecologies in Honolulu, Hawaii November 8-11, 2023.

Abstract: 

This workshop introduces the Mothers on the Frontline Wisdom Collective Methodology (WCM) for engaging stigmatized communities in qualitative research.  We developed this methodology in our work with Mothers on the Frontline, a non-profit organization founded and run by mothers of children with mental health conditions to promote caregiver healing and children’s mental health justice through storytelling.

The WCM is an approach to working with stories as rich sources of both knowledge and healing.  WCM disrupts positivist research practices that strip storytellers of their agency and wisdom by commodifying their lived-experience and treating their knowing as mere information.  Conventional interview questions are framed so that the interviewee can only provide responses formed to the hermeneutic container provided by the interviewer – preventing discovery, amplifying bias, and further traumatizing research participants.  By offering a third space, a co-created relational maker-space, WCM: 1) brings together the researchers meta-level analysis with the participants lived-experience; 2) produces new qualitative data and research questions; and 3) facilitates healing and increased hermeneutic agency for the research participants.  Workshop attendees will learn interview practices that build mutual trust and respect, refrain from harm, and gather wisdom inaccessible by conventional methods.  This workshop begins with a reflexive exercise to identify attendee’s positionalities in relation to their research and research participants. Using this exercise as a reference, we will discuss the theories informing the WCM. By the end of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to develop their own reflexive storytelling prompt that can be used in future research projects.