Digital Storytelling With Vulnerable Populations: Some Considerations

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Digital, Visual, and Multimodal

Abstract

This paper details the affordances of digital storytelling as an important qualitative method for researching vulnerable populations. The authors submit that digital storytelling reveals critical insights and a key level of data triangulation by presenting data from two studies: one conducted with adults who formerly lived on the streets of Peru and the second focusing on adolescent refugee youth learning English in a community based after school program. In the paper, the authors describe how participants were able to participate in a more equitable dialogue through the process of creating and telling their own stories. At the same time, limitations of digital storytelling are discussed in order to advance critical and careful use of this powerful research method.

Authors

• Jamie Patrice Joanou, Westminster College

• Anneliese Cannon, University of Wisconsin - Madison