The Missed Encounter: Creating M/other, an Autoethnographic A/r/tographic Unfolding of Diarized Post-Traumatic Growth

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 75
  In Roundtable Session: Well-Being, Survival, and Healing Using Art-Based Educational Research Methodologies

Abstract

This paper presents a piece of doctoral arts-based educational research (ABER) that portrays a journey of diarised posttraumatic growth in the context of the mother-daughter dyad. Using an autoethnographic methodology enacted through the living inquiry of a/r/tography, the story of the researcher’s relationship with her alcoholic mother is unraveled in an artist’s book titled M/other, from the impact of childhood trauma to its repercussions in the present day. This paper unpacks the process of creating M/other and the resulting research findings that support an ideally daily engagement with diarizing and the creative process as a way for individual’s to flourish after trauma.

Author

• Marion Evelyn Piper, Southern Cross University