Methodologies Matter: First Nations Women’s Experiences with Body Mapping as a Therapeutic Research Method

• In Event: Advances in Qualitative Methods III

Abstract

During an era of “truth-telling and reconciliation,” the numbers demonstrate that Canada's criminal justice system is targeting Indigenous women more than ever before. Indigenous women represent the fastest-growing demographic in Canada's carceral network at a time when the overall number of individuals entering prison is declining. While qualitative research in carceral spaces is increasing, significant gaps remain around community arts-based research methods that substantively give back to the community. This presentation examines the use of an arts-based approach called body mapping. Body mapping combines visual art and therapeutic practice to provide a safe, empowering space for individuals to communicate and process their somatic embodied narratives about colonialism, incarceration, health, and well-being. It will focus on how the method provided space for eight First Nations women to unpack the colonial factors that led to their engagement with the criminal justice system and their experiences of incarceration in a cultural prison. Simultaneously, the maps became a mechanism to explore how Correctional Service Canada's Indigenous cultural prisons may impact a First Nations woman's healing, health, and well-being. The presentation will highlight the need for increased arts-based research methods that have the potential to tangibly contribute to an individual's healing, health, and well-being.

Author

• Alicia Clifford, McMaster University