The body as narrator: Body movement memory and the life stories of holocaust survivors

Qualitative research methods I: Emotionally engaged approaches to working with vulnerable participants

“…This emotional context can be even more acute when working with vulnerable and marginalised communities, where pain creates layers of intensity and ‘affective immersion’ (Henriksen and Schliehe, 2020: 842; Nelson, 2020; Federman et al, 2016). This context requires researchers to be highly present and empathic, ‘to pick up on slight changes in tonality, bodily unrest, (in) assertive voices, the materiality of the room, sounds, disruptions’ (Henriksen and Schliehe, 2020: 842).…”

“…Those in pain continue to attempt to create a language for it, often generating narratives brought into being through embodied and/or creative processes as much as voice (Hammoud-Beckett, 2021). These methods tend to take an holistic approach, often incorporating a degree of participation, decentring the researcher, taking into account the emotional, psychological, and physical experience represented ‘in the survivor’s whole sense of being’ (Collings et al, 2021: 25; see also Federman et al, 2016). There is a focus on listening, metaphors and dreams, utilising imagination in creative processes, allowing for painful experience to be represented and expressed through alternative vocabularies and material outputs that expand debates of what is ‘valid’ knowledge (Awan and Musmar, 2021; Baker et al, 2020; Hui 2020; McKittrick, 2021; Motsa and Morojele, 2017; Watson, 2021).…”

Engaging with Doctoral Work during the Pandemic

“…Furthermore, embodied inquiry in relationship to a trauma could facilitate healing (Brom et al, 2017). Another study showed that reconnecting to the unspoken story of the body could help make sense of trauma (Federman, Band-Winterstein, & Sterenfeld, 2016). When it came to dancing a dialogue with ancestors, and all the emotions that came up with that, gestalt therapy researchers and experts showed that embodied emotional expression facilitated completing unfinished business with the parents (Clemmens, 2019;Greenberg & Malcolm, 2002), so why not grandparents and beyond?…”

Arte popular, memoria y duelo en víctimas del conflicto armado colombiano

“…En esta misma línea, diversas investigaciones hechas en contextos que han sufrido conflictos armados se han preguntado cómo algunas prácticas artísticas específicas representan el dolor de la victimización y contribuyen a la construcción de la memoria, a la transformación de los sujetos y las comunidades, y a la elaboración del duelo de los afectados por la violencia. Entre ellas se encuentran estudios sobre las prácticas de tejido (González, 2013(González, -2014, la pintura (Rodríguez y Zuluaga, 2017); algunas prácticas corporales, como el teatro, el flamenco gitano y la danza (Dubatti, 2014;Federman et al, 2015;Toro, 2015;Torres, 2013;Zana-Sterenfeld et al, 2019); la escritura autobiográfica (Bedoya et al, 2019;Díaz, 2019;Nieto, 2010); los espacios -salones, museos-para la memoria y las exposiciones de fotografías, instalaciones, escrituras, entre otras, que en ellos se exponen (Rubiano, 2015(Rubiano, , 2017. Más allá de las particularidades de cada estudio y de los hallazgos que conciernen a la singularidad de cada forma de creación, todos concluyen que las prácticas artísticas son recursos simbólicos valiosos para los afectados por el conflicto armado, en tanto movilizan procesos de transformación subjetiva que tienen efectos positivos a nivel emocional, social y político.…”