Participants/Facilitators/Researchers Experience Multiple Embodiments in a Cross-Cultural, Intergenerational Event to Support Girls Challenging Gender-Based Violence

• In Event: 18.012 - Challenging Dominant Narratives of Sexual Violence Through Participatory Visual Methodologies

Abstract

Context:
July 8 – 11, 2018: an event entitled Circles within Circles: Transnational Perspectives on Youth-led Approaches to Addressing Gender-Based Violence brought together Indigenous and non-Indigenous girls from Canada, Kenya, South Africa, Russia and Sweden to learn from each other’s participatory art-based research and create a network for challenging gender-based violence (GBV). Researchers, NGOs and policy-makers also attended to listen and leverage messages of younger participants. Presentations on work to date were complemented by arts-based workshops, stakeholder sessions and an international exhibition of art produced from research with girls and young people. This paper’s co-authors are doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who contributed to organizing the event and acted as facilitators, note-takers and participants.

Objective:
This paper will examine the complexities of cross-cultural and intergenerational events - particularly on sensitive subjects such as GBV - and their value in empowering girls, young people and other stakeholders to subvert dominant narratives of GBV. It provides insight into the often-invisible experience of the ‘supporting cast’ who simultaneously organize, observe, document and participate in events like Circles Within Circles. In a ‘post-truth’ era, where some of the most traumatic forms of violence go unnoticed, it is essential to analyze all stakeholders’ perspectives to democratize speaking back to GBV, and build evidence about how to work collaboratively to amplify marginalized voices.

Perspectives:
Analysis utilizes Freire’s (1970) ‘conscientization’, in which critical awareness of society is developed through reflection and action, including identifying oppressive social myths and re-framing them as transformable. Informative concepts include intersectionality, defined as connections between constructions of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, religion (dis)ability, and age that shape social inequalities (Collins, 2015), and empowerment as characterized by personal growth, relationships, education, politics, transformation and emancipation (Martínez, Jiménez-Morales, Masó & Bernet, 2017).

Methodology:
Each co-author wrote journal entries throughout the event, reflecting on the activities and their feelings about their roles as researchers, facilitators and participants. They conducted participatory analysis of the entries, creating a collaborative auto-ethnography that explored commonalities and differences across the co-authors’ shared experience (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez, 2013). IRB approval was not required, as the co-authors’ own experiences form the primary data source.

Results:
The event validated the empowering effect of cross-cultural, intergenerational collaboration, but raised insecurities about re-traumatization through discussion of lived GBV experiences. The co-authors’ participation formed a substantive part of their academic training, as they learned how to create safe participatory environments for cross-cultural young people.

Art-based methods were particularly effective to empower girls to address GBV, as young participants were most engaged when developing concepts through art production, rather than dialogue. Girls’ and adults’ engagement differed, pointing to the importance of flexible, age-appropriate approaches to arts-based participatory methods within multi-generational initiatives. Using the language of art, bonds were created that crossed boundaries of geography, age and position. Collaborative art production enabled stakeholders to craft commitments based on the lived experiences of girls, and enabled girls to challenge prevalent expectations that their bodies – particularly those of Indigenous, racialized and otherwise marginalized girls - are available and disposable.

Authors

• Haleh Raissadat, McGill University

• Catherine Vanner, McGill University

• Seyed Mohammad Hani Sadati, McGill University

• Pamela Lamb, McGill University

• Milka Nyariro, McGill University