Silent Voices, Absent Bodies, and Quiet Methods: Revisiting the Processes and Outcomes of Personal Knowledge Production Through Body-Mapping Methodologies Among Indigenous Youth

Abstract

At the interface of Western and Indigenous research methodologies, this paper revisits the place of the “personal” and “autobiographical” self in qualitative visual research. We outline a community and partnership-based evaluation of a theater program for Indigenous youth using arts-based body-mapping approaches in Saskatoon, Canada, and explore the methodological limitations of the narrator or artist’s voice and representations to translate personal visual-narratives and personal knowledges they hold. In so doing, we describe how body-mapping methods were adapted and improvised to respond to the silent voices and absent bodies within personal visual-narratives with an epistemological eclecticism handling the limitations of voice and meaningfully engaging the potentiality of quietness. Extending the conceptual and methodological boundaries of the “personal” and “autobiographical” for both narrator and interlocutor, artist and observer, we contribute to debates on the processes and outcomes of personal knowledge production by articulating a generative, ethical, and culturally-grounded project mobilizing body-mapping as a quiet method that pursues self-work—the passionate and emergent practices of working on one’s self and making self appear in non-representational and ceremonial ways.

The impact of sport and physical activity programs on the mental health and social and emotional wellbeing of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: A systematic review

“…Only one ( Hayhurst et al, 2016 ) study within this review included yarning circles and no studies body mapping despite these research methods having been recommended as appropriate strength-based practice within data collection ( Lys, 2018 , Smith et al, 2020 ). Body mapping is an emerging art-based research method, which involves participants tracing a life-sized image of their body and adorning it with different artistic symbols in order to reflect on and express their lived experiences around a topic of research interest ( Morton et al, 2021 ). By evading a reliance on textual materials, body-mapping and yarning circles can be viewed as inclusive research methods which elicit storytelling and accommodate those preferring creative forms of expression which have cultural significance within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities ( Lys, 2018 , Smith et al, 2020 , Morton et al, 2021 ).…”

Using Body-Map Storytelling for Accessing Insights in an Educational Intervention for Food Consciousness

“…Thus, the BMST allowed the assessment of reflections (Lys et al, 2019) that characterize eating experiences from an individual perspective (how participants see themselves affected by this context), contemplating extracorporeal conditions (Morton et al, 2021). Dennis (2020) highlighted the potential of BMST to point to the ways in which bodies are not segregated from the environment in which they operate, and this dynamic was identified in this study.…”

Listening by ‘Staying With’ the Absent Child

“…Children's voices have been discussed as constructed through social processes, and attention has thus been directed towards the messiness and ambiguities of children's voices (Eldén, 2013;Komulainen, 2007;Spyrou, 2011Spyrou, , 2016aSpyrou, , 2016b. One argument is that we need to listen to 'the fullness of voice' (Spyrou, 2016a, p. 7) by moving beyond the voiced to explore various other features of children's voices, such as silences (e.g., Annerbäck, 2022;Kohli, 2006;Lewis, 2010;Spyrou, 2016a), space and place (Mannion, 2007), other-thanverbal embodied ways of communicating (Gallagher et al, 2017;Komulainen, 2007;Nairn, Munro and Smith, 2005) or visual expressions such as drawings or body-mapping (Eldén, 2013;Morton, Bird-Naytowhow and Hatala, 2021).…”