South Side Stories: Digital Storytelling to Reframe Research and Public Discourse on the Sexuality and Health of African American Youth

• In Event: 29.028 - Participatory Media as Intervention and Method

Abstract

This paper discusses insights from a Chicago-based digital storytelling (DST) project designed to elucidate how contextual factors shape the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of heterosexual and sexual minority African American youth aged 14 to 24. Despite evidence that structural factors are a primary determinant of young people’s health and wellbeing, the SRH of African American youth is often framed through a lens of personal responsibility, danger, and risk. This paradigm problematizes the sexuality of African American youth and minimizes the role of social inequities in driving and maintaining health disparities. Moreover, this approach devalues the perspectives of youth and fails to engage them in efforts to develop effective, youth-friendly programs and policies.

In contrast, we used DST to elevate youth’s voices and generate critical thinking about contextual factors in Chicago, namely segregation, poverty, and community violence that influence young people’s SRH. DST emulates and affirms the teachings of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1970), who believed that developing critical consciousness—a close examination of one’s own experience and its location in an unjust social and political context—is necessary for broader social change. In 2013, we conducted six workshops with 50 youth who created their own digital story. Youth were recruited with assistance from nine Youth Advisors, who were selected by three partner organizations. Six graduate student scholars analyzed the stories to inform their own research and met with the Youth Advisors on a bimonthly basis to discuss research and dissemination.

As our project progressed, we encountered several unanticipated challenges. First, our intergenerational model of collaboration was difficult to enact, as adults struggled to cede power and the relationship between Youth Advisors and Scholars took several months to cohere. Although we used specific prompts to elicit stories on inequality and SRH, these issues were not salient for all youth. As a result, we had to expand our research to include new questions and topical areas. A subset of stories addressed experiences such as sexual assault and violence. Attempting to share these stories while maintaining youth’s anonymity inspired a vigorous debate on the ethics of DST and dissemination. In this paper, we discuss a case study from a minor whose story addressed childhood sexual abuse to illustrate the ethical issues and our decision-making.

Our final challenges focused on understanding DST as a method and an intervention, and how DST might affect change at the individual, group, and community levels. To explore these questions, we held seven community showings and conducted focus groups with 24 youth who completed a DST workshop. Our focus group data suggested that the act of creating and sharing one’s story fostered personal and collective meaning making akin to Freire’s conception of critical consciousness. In addition, youth discussed the importance of being deeply listened to. In public showings, we found that audiences often responded in unforeseen ways; we discuss lessons learned from these showings and how we are working with youth and the community to frame the stories in our future dissemination efforts.

Authors

• Alida Bouris, University of Chicago

• Seed Lynn, University of Chicago