Learning to Work Through Narratives: Identity and Meaning-Making During Digital Storytelling

Digital Stories Representing Agency Enhancement at Work

“…The employees emphasized that the stories were their own and they had related the kind of stories they wanted. But they also mentioned that their workplace as DST workshop organizer had made them take certain things into consideration, such as their first impression was not to share personal photos in the stories (Hakanurmi, 2017). Eventually, the effect of DST was just the opposite: they used visuals that gave more intimacy, and the atmosphere of the stories was more personal than they thought in advance.…”

“…In general, agency is a force for changing or maintaining existing work practices; it is a critical questioning of the given norms and positions as well as assumptions that are usually taken for granted. Narratives provide a creative forum for agency enhancement, where stories can develop in previously unknown directions based on subjective representations and observations made by others in situations of social coauthoring, such as the Digital storytelling (DST) workshop (Hakanurmi, 2017). Thus, narratives of work offer multiple perspectives to employees’ lives and agency and, in this sense, make it possible to understand professional agency enhancement more profoundly.…”

Digital Storytelling as Pedagogy in Linguistic Anthropology

“…In anthropology, visual ethnography often brings together storytelling through digital media (Alexandra, 2008;Pink, 2007;Nuñez-Janes et al, 2017) and narrative learning (Hakanurmi, 2017). Thornburg et al (2017) similarly focus on the collaborative and communicative process of meaning-making, when they describe ethnography as storytelling.…”

“…Thornburg et al (2017) similarly focus on the collaborative and communicative process of meaning-making, when they describe ethnography as storytelling. Digital storytelling then, can be considered a form of visual auto-ethnography that can bring to light perspectives on identity creation (Benick, 2012;Hakanurmi, 2017;Rolon-Dow, 2011), migration (Alexandra, 2008;Stewart & Gachago, 2016), and critical perspectives of belonging in education (Aguilera et al, 2020;Kaare, 2012;Stewart & Ivala, 2017). Within anthropology courses, digital storytelling can be used to teach participatory media education, media literacy, and critical perspectives of identity and community, through reflexive, reflective, oral practices (Dunford & Jenkins, 2017;Lambert, 2017;Tyner, 1998).…”

“…When implementing this project again, I would emphasize strongly at the beginning of the process that students need to have thought through what kinds of visual media they can prepare and feel comfortable sharing with the class as part of this project. As Lambert (2017) and Hakanurmi (2017) emphasize, the collaborative process of meaning-making in storytelling and digital storytelling pedagogies is important. The small seminar course provided a setting for collaborative experiences where students learned together and tested theories and ideas stemming from material and feedback on assignments, that deepened student understanding.…”